In this shorter post:
I try emphasizing doing the right thing over doing things right in the management role.
I’ve just finished my seventh year on active duty. I’ve completed a permanent change of station, I’ve completed four different assignments, and I’ve worked with dozens of different people on dozens of different teams.
As the holder of an engineering degree, I am liable to establish and prioritize processes in the work that I do. As an officer, I am liable to strongly recommend if not outright require the successful completion of various tasks.
Especially in my latest year assigned as an executive officer, I’ve found successful completion of tasks vastly more important than most-efficient completion.
Perhaps you are thinking “Well, yeah. That’s super obvious.”
Perhaps you are blessed to work in a place where there is no friction among the various teams that comprise the organization.
For those among us not so fortunate, I am confident you have experienced a situation in which a given task was undertaken, executed, and reported to the responsible office only to be told that it was inadequate, done incorrectly, or otherwise unsatisfactory despite the provided guidance.
…you did have guidance, right?
This post is mostly aimed at the individuals in that tasking role, but anyone else can take these ideas and utilize them well.
If you are issuing a task, chances are good that you are a manager.
As a manager, it is indeed important that you focus on efficiency, but it’s more important that you keep in mind the purpose for that efficiency.
You should explain what needs to be done, not how it needs to be done.
While your precise purpose as a manager may vary, it is critical that you clearly understand that your job is not to execute work. You manage the resources that get the work done.
Even if you arrived at your management role because of your task-completing skills, you must divorce yourself from the mindset that you personally get anything done. Instead, you facilitate your team (or teams, plural) getting everything done.
Regardless of your personal experience, I believe it can be argued that an ideal task executor can simply receive a task and near-independently do what’s asked of them.
As a manager, your role ensures that your task executors have the tools and resources they need to simply receive your task and get it done with minimal further involvement from you.
What does that mean for you if you are a manager?
It means ensuring that your team members have the minimum training required to execute routine tasks, the best and latest training available to execute more difficult tasks, and the time to pursue whatever skills they believe are valuable.
It means ensuring that your team members understand the greater goals of your organization so they require less direct input from you to understand the context of their work.
It means diverting potential undue burdens from them as you are able.
And, perhaps most importantly, it means letting them do the work in the way that best fits them.
As a subordinate employee:
Demand minimum training, seek better training, and learn as much as you can to improve your ability to execute.
Insist on reasonable expectations when it comes to your time.
Provide feedback to your manager on your observations of things you want to change to enhance your ability to do your job, whether it’s a matter of processes, resources, or whatever – recognize that you have a voice.
72 Airman's Writings 