2024-04-20 00:46:28
The solution is to take care of your own efficiency in the breaks that remain for actual work
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This week, over five working days, your boss called four meetings, most lasting two hours, and assigned them dozens of tasks. Each time after that, quick team operations without him were required to further discuss, make concrete plans and allocate who was doing what. Fast, fast, by the hour and something.
Then you would gather to update each other on how things were going, because next week the boss would call new meetings to discuss old and new topics.
In the meantime, you should have read a mass of e-mails from him and colleagues summarizing what was said, clarifying details, asking questions, making suggestions, making orders.
From meetings, discussions and instructions, there was almost no time left for actual work. Supposedly, all this is precisely because of her, but it turns out that you have to drop some tasks and take up others that seem more important to the boss at the moment. But they and the old ones are waiting for you.
It is not for nothing that you feel that you are working more and more, and the efficiency is decreasing.
It’s your boss’s fault. You may not be comforted by this, but you are not an employee in a unique position.
A world phenomenon
Your boss is one of the breed of time-eaters that has become so widespread that it is a real bane for companies. This is a fact from a study by the McKinsey Institute among 1,500 managers worldwide.
Only 9% of the managers surveyed described themselves as “very satisfied” with the allocation of their time. Less than half are “somewhat satisfied”. About a third are dissatisfied.
In the survey, only 52% said that the way they spend their working time is in line with their companies’ strategic priorities.
Startling results that show how many bosses are riding the inefficiency boat, say the study’s authors.
Alas, superiors rarely only waste their time. As a rule, they also waste the time of their subordinates. Often, the only way to avoid disaster is for employees to go overboard and work overtime to fulfill their duties. Because unlike lazy bosses, time eaters are active but unaware of their poor management style.
Sometimes, for example in studies like this one by McKinsey, managers can think about whether they are using working hours in the most correct way and admit their mistakes. But in everyday life they are rarely felt. On the contrary, they are convinced that everything is because of their great desire to lead companies and teams to success.
McKinsey experts have determined four types of bosses according to the main ways they waste time to his subordinates.
Internet addicts
This type spends much of their work time communicating via e-mail and on the phone, explains Aaron de Smet, director of McKinsey’s consulting office in Houston.
Don’t think that new technology is to blame, though. De Smet argues that the internet addict is actually older than the internet itself. In lower-tech times, this time waster wasted hours writing letters, instructions, orders to staff.
Its main characteristic is not an addiction to e-mail, but an over-reliance on low-quality asynchronous communication, an unwillingness to get up from the desk and meet people face-to-face.
Durdorkovci
They are typical extroverts, says De Smet. Some of them feel a burning love for “networking” – maintaining wide contacts.
It may sound like a great quality for a business leader, but narcissists often spend their working hours inefficiently because their subordinates have great difficulty connecting with them – they are usually in a meeting.
This type of boss puts too much focus on sociality instead of strategy. They let the company float without fulfilling their leadership duties, the expert points out.
Cheerleaders
This is the manager who pays more attention to face-to-face communication with his direct subordinates, De Smet points out.
It’s great to motivate your team, but the problem is that cheerleaders spend too much time socializing. They explain, encourage, motivate constantly and with all their might, but they don’t understand that sometimes they can leave the employees to do their own work.
Part of the problem is the trust that these types of bosses don’t have in their team.
Firefighters
They give the appearance of devoting time to brainstorming big, strategic plans with the team, but end up spending it fighting to the death with the latest unexpected problem that needs immediate attention. The result for everyone is a jumbled calendar full of to-dos.
The deeper problem of these types of time eaters often turns out to be an inability to delegate responsibilities. Firefighters want to handle everything themselves, even if one of their subordinates is perfectly capable of solving the problem.
This is a possible classification of the ways in which managers can waste time, but often these ways are combined.
Hybrids
You may have even settled with a boss who manages to combine all of the listed ways to suck up time and more.
For example, at his favorite networking event, he learns something that he finds very interesting. He decides that this is a new line of work and calls an emergency meeting. It’s a long story, isn’t it, hours go by in stories. Then he manages to combine the worst aspects of the internet junkie, writing emails with instructions and additional requests, and the cheerleader, drunkenly guiding each employee by the hand in thinking and bringing the new idea to life. In the end, they all become firefighters, because while they were engaged in a supposedly strategic plan at the behest of the boss, they missed the current tasks.
The main problem with time-consuming bosses is that they can’t get their priorities right. And this is an ability that turns the person appointed as a boss into a leader. Companies and teams that are led by leaders succeed. The others are doing decently at best, most often with over-the-top efforts from employees.
If you work with such a supervisor, your ability to influence it are almost none. Or you have to get used to getting better in this situation by organizing your own working time in such a way that you use it as efficiently as possible and you have “breaks” that your boss will suck. Or you should look for a place in another company. The first is difficult, and the second is risky, because you understand – time-consuming bosses are a worldwide phenomenon.
Saving tricks
● If your boss is an internet junkie, make it a habit to quickly scan messages and categorize them, noting how urgently they need your attention. That way, you won’t drop the task you’re currently working on to waste time on another if it doesn’t require an immediate response. But you know – a message from the boss should not remain unread for a long time, no matter how important you are doing.
● If your boss is one of the dorks, who is always in meetings with some people and you hardly manage to meet with him even if there is an urgent problem to discuss, try to get better on your own. By believing in your professionalism, you will save yourself time. In many cases, the probability of making a mistake by acting is less than the probability of making a mistake by standing still and waiting for it. Unless your boss is one of those people who both always don’t have time and keep their subordinates asking them about everything.
● If your boss is a cheerleader, gauge your behavior when he wants you to communicate. In personal contact and at a meeting, you should not talk too much, because a lot of time will go by. But you shouldn’t be silent either, so that the boss doesn’t decide that you are apathetic to work, that you have no ideas, or even that you are neglecting him.
Remember that the cheerleader type is often talkative and narcissistic – he likes to appear in front of his subordinates to listen to his voice and see admiration in their eyes for his wisdom. So try to hit on how much to participate so that the meeting doesn’t drag on forever and you have to stay after hours to get your work done.
If most of your colleagues also find such a measure, you will shorten the talking room.
● If, because of the boss, you often have to act as firefighters together, try to think in advance what you personally should do in order to use as little time as possible.
In “The Right Man” you can read more:
8 Team Roles Beyond the Job Description – Which Have You Recognized and Do They Lead to Success?
Self-love is not a dirty word, it helps to succeed at work
Unexpected disasters from a visionary boss and a micromanager
How Luck Syndrome Affects Career Success
A guide to getting along with a fellow cyclophrenic
And solitude is useful for career success
When you hate your boss but love your job
13 body tricks to help you at a job interview
How to raise your mental immunity for career success
Three tricks for successful personal energy efficiency at work