LEADERS DO NOT IGNORE THE BASICS
This past week I engaged in a meeting with two leaders during which we discussed the value of creating operations manuals for each member of a work team. I had raised the issue because I remembered that one of the most valuable steps I ever took as Assistant Dean for CLE at Georgetown Law Center was requesting that each member of our team develop such a manual for their positions.
I had been burned so many times for not having such manuals available. When would they have come in handy?
-When team members took extended vacations
-When people were out with unexpectedly long illnesses
-When teammates needed emergency surgery followed by several weeks of rehab.
-When excellent employees transferred to another department within the law school or the university
-When team members resigned unexpectedly with a week or less of lead time
Many years ago, at a team retreat, a management consultant recommended to me and our entire team that everyone draft an operations manual for their jobs. Previously, we had detailed job descriptions, but no documentation about how each job was done. This consultant said that just because we were part of a law school and a university and because we were considered a non-profit organization, we were not exempt from the same best practices as any for-profit enterprise.
She said that operations manuals are different from detailed position descriptions because they basically tell the reader how to do the job. These manuals are particularly helpful for people coming in from temp agencies or for new employees who are succeeding a long-time team member who has left and will not be training the new person.
What can operations manuals include?
-Detailed descriptions of all key processes that are part of the job
-Screen shots to show examples of the various steps in those processes
-The names and contact information for critical people within the organization with whom they will be working
-The names and contact information for key vendors with whom they will be corresponding
-The identities and contact information for critical customers with whom they will be interacting
-The critical time deadlines which they must be cognizant of throughout the month or year
-Key outside resources they can rely on to gain more knowledge about their jobs, including articles, books and classes
-The identities of teammates who will serve as their “official” back-ups if they are out for several days
When our consultant initially made this recommendation, my teammates responded in unison: “No way!”
The consultant asked: “Why? Because you do not know your jobs well enough?”
“No!”, came the response. “Because we do not have the time to devote to the creation of these operations manuals. We are busy planning and implementing 25 national education programs each year.”
The consultant responded with a rueful smile: “Guess what? You all will never have the time to develop these operations manuals for each position on your team. Rather, you will have to make the time. Otherwise, it will never happen.”
As the leader of our department, it was up to me to make the time for this important endeavor. So we hired temps to answer our phones for two days. We put “out-of-office retreat” messages on all our email accounts. I informed the Dean what we would be doing for two days. We told our significant others to call the main number if they needed to reach us urgently (This was way before cell phones arrived on the scene).
During those two days, we each wrote draft operations manuals, including appropriate computer screen shots. Then we passed them around among our teammates so people could simultaneously catch typos and other errors and learn about each other’s jobs – thereby gaining a greater appreciation of the work their colleagues were responsible for.
Thereafter, these operations manuals proved invaluable whenever we hired new team members. As part of the onboarding process, the new colleagues would spend considerable quiet time reading and reviewing the manual for their jobs, taking notes, preparing questions, and then even making suggestions for improvements.
These days, so many leaders are focused on big-picture efforts such as:
-The development of three-year plans
-The creation of SWOT analyses
-The analysis of key competitors
-The long-term re-organization of the company org chart
-The creation of new positions or revised positions to maximize revenue
These kinds of big-picture activities are certainly important, However, please do not engage in these initiatives at the expense of the basics that all good organizations need:
-Make sure you possess full and updated position descriptions for each job on your team
-Oversee the creation – and updating – of operation manuals for each team position
-Identify an official backup for each position in case someone is out for a finite period and you cannot hire a temp
-Train those backups well so they possess the confidence to step in if the need arises
-Encourage your teammates to update their position descriptions as processes, software and people change
In football, the experts say it always comes back to blocking and tackling. In leadership, it always comes back to the basics. Please pay attention to those basics. They will serve you well!!!
If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!
-Larry