First Time Managing

Several months ago, my manager hired an administrator. Part of their job duties was to work with a system that I am the expert. For this reason, my manager let me oversee her. This was a new experience for me. While I had been managing my department for the past year, I was the only team member so I had spent the time learning how to manage myself and learning our newly installed system. I had to quickly learn how to instruct someone new on how to navigate a program I knew intuitively. I learned a few key lessons on how to be a good manager.

Pre-Emptive Strike

This one you have to do before you even begin managing. Before my manager’s administrator started, I was the only team member working with our system. I learned the system through trial and error and was not prepared to teach it to another team member. I had to spend several hours showing the new team member every step of my process. This wasted a lot of time that I could have been spending accomplishing more valuable tasks. After this mistake, I started creating my Industrial Engineering binder. This document has each task I need to make my department a success. This has cut down on a ton of issues.

Be Open to All Questions

One of the biggest differences I have had between a good manager and a bad manager is the ability to field questions. I once had a boss with 20+ years of experiences and he acted as though you should automatically walk in to the job knowing everything he did. This made me terrified to ask him a question. More recently I have had really good managers who were willing to field any question know that in the future it will save them time because I will retain the information. I have done my best to have a smile on face every time

Let Go

I have seen our administrator mess up more than a few times on projects I would have done correctly but I haven’t let that cloud my judgment on delegating to her. Overall, she is saving the team at least 30 hours a week and 10 to 15 for me personally. Also, most of her mistakes are either errors I have made in the past or because I did a poor job coaching her on where the information came from.

I am still learning how to manage well and hope to get more practice in the coming years but I think these are three items that are easily implemented and save a world of time.