Susan R. Johnson, M.D., M.S.
University Ombudsperson
Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology
University of Iowa
C108 Seashore Hall
Iowa City, IA 52242
319-335-3608 (voice)
319-335-3071 (fax)
Susan is a professor obstetrics and gynecology, and epidemiology, at the University of Iowa. She has worked for over 15 years in faculty affairs, as both an associate dean and an associate provost. She has been presenting and coaching on the topic of personal workplace productivity for over a decade to audiences in the academic, nonprofit, and professional organization sectors. More about this work can be found at www.thrivingamidstchaos.com .
Time management for leaders
You have just assumed or accepted a position of leadership as a division or center director, department chair, associate/assistant dean, or dean. You have worked for years toward this goal -- or, you have been caught completely by surprise at the offer. Your thoughts right now are mostly, as they should be, about the things you will be able to do: develop young faculty, improve curriculum and training programs, build the research and clinical capacity of your division/department/college, and improve your own leadership skills, perhaps with a goal of bigger leadership posts in the future. You are anticipating new responsibilities related to finance / budget, strategic planning, and – please don't forget - managing personnel issues.
What might be missing from your preparation are plans to deal with the new demands on your time. In two decades of experience in faculty affairs, I have worked with and observed dozens of new directors and chairs, and I've noticed that these new demands often come as an (unpleasant) surprise.
What will change
· Your time is no longer your own.
By this I don't mean that you can havenotime for yourself and your own work, but rather that now your major focus will be on the needs of your unit, of your boss, and the institution. You can't pick and choose the issues you will get involved with, or say "no" asoften as you couldwhen you were a plain professor. On a day to day basis, your calendar will need to be relatively open to others. While you won't (and shouldn't) have a complete open door policy, you will need to be accessible to your faculty, staff, and students, peeradministrators, and your boss.
· You will have to attend to many more “little” things.
This may be the biggest shock of the administrative life: the numerous little things require your attention. Other people's grants need signing off, HR expects you to review every change in the status of your faculty and staff, you must weight in about the office holiday party, and,you must attend to personnel problems. Personnel problems, of course, are not all little; these can be some of the most time consuming issues you will face. But trying to deal with personnel matters when they first arise, in the "little" stage, will pay off by preventingmany situations from escalating.
· The volume of email, paperwork, and meetings will increase.
You probably know this will happen, and you need to becomeefficientlyeffective at managing all three. Some leaders believe that email, paperwork, and meetings are simply a nuisance, and they try to avoid them whenever possible. My belief is that this "big three" are simply part of the deal of modern work, and that you will be best served by cheerfully recognizing this fact.
· You will need to spend more time talking to people.
Stephen Covey, in his classicThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,wrote that it was not wise to make interactions with people "efficient." When talking to people, you are not just focusing on the issue at hand, but also on the relationship - and that takes time. When you are the leader, effective relationships are critical to your success. At the time Covey wrote about this, the main issue was not forcing conversations into a pre-specified time frame ("Sally, I have scheduled 10 minutes to talk -- and no more."). In our era, the new challenge is the desire to substitute email and other electronic methods of communication as more efficient alternatives to face to face interactions. In your faculty life, it may be that most the people with whom you need to communicate are people you know pretty well, and so the risks of electronic communications are minimal. But as a leader, your "unadorned" written words, sans tone and body language, can get you in trouble fast, especially when there is bad news, or potential conflict. In order for you to be understood, and for you to best understand the issues of others, you need to sit down and talk.
· You will need to spend more time thinking about the big picture.
Everyone, no matter what their role, needs to spend some time looking ahead in order to set a direction. As a leader, this is a major part of your job and you can no longer avoid it.
Strategies
You need to learn to do your own routine work as efficiently as possible, preserve time totalkto people in and out of your unit, and make strategic decisions about your own efforts. Here are five ideas that will help you begin to meet these goals:
1.Learn how todelegateeffectively. This starts with yourassistant, if you have one. An experienced assistant will have ideas about how the two of you can work together more effectively, and s/he will probably be eager to share these ideas if asked. You also need to be clear about how you prefer things be done, to minimize misunderstanding and irritation on both your parts. You should plan for at least one daily brief meeting (first thing in the morning is ideal) to go over the day's agenda, share the things you need him/her to do for the day, and follow up on delegated work.
Think about delegation more broadly as well. Many faculty members avoid delegation: they can do it faster themselves, they don't trust others to do as good a job, or they areembarrassedto ask. As a leader, you don't have time to doeverythingthat is must be done; (frankly) you don't have theinterestsor skills to do everything that your unit needs; and, it turns out that delegating is how you develop talent, including future leaders. You should learn to delegate well, avoiding the extremes of over managing (micromanagement) and delegation without any oversight (laissez faire). I've writtenmore about delegationathttp://susanrjohnson.com/files/Delegation.pdf.
2.Get more efficient at routine work. There are many strategies andsystemsfor doing routine work, but for me the core habit is this: when you take the time to look at an item of routine work (a phone message, an email, a document in your in basked), make a decision about what happens next with this item. Don't "open and close" emails without acting; don't look at a piece of paper, groan, and stuff it back in the middle of the stack; and so on. This does not mean that you can always "touch each piece of paper once," but rather that youshouldalways move that item one step further along the path to completion. For a description ofhow to apply this principle to email, seehttp ://susanrjohnson.com/files/Getting-email-under-control.pdf.
3.Establish a system for keeping track of everything for which you are responsible. Because you will have many more things for which you areresponsible, including those things that you have delegated, you simply have to have a way to prevent things fromfalling through the cracks.. Generally, this will mean creating lists, and then looking at them regularly. I have written aboutone method for keeping lists, and using them effectively,here:http://susanrjohnson.com/files/Priorities.pdf. You may prefer a list system that is managed by your assistant, or, if you are able to delegate most of the detailed work, by regularly scheduledfollow up communications from people to whom you have delegated.
4. Set guidelines for your "door" policy. When will it be open or shut, how will people know if they can interrupt, when you expect people to make appointments versus walking in and so on? The biggest mistake I have seen is when leaders choose an extreme position: either the door is open all the time, or an appointment is always required. Sometimes you do need to work without interruption (close the door!), and not all appropriate business can beanticipatedin time to make an appointment (do allow walk-ins, with limits). Be transparent with yourassistant, and with everyone else in your unit, about these guidelines. Then, remember that they are guidelines, not hard and fast rules: beflexible.
5. Create un-interrupted time for your own work (scholarship, for example) and for bigpicturethinking about your unit.
After reading this far, you may be thinking that your time will henceforth be eaten alive byadministrativework, and you are wondering how you will "find" the time to do this. It won't be easy for sure, but the first step is to realize that there is no extra time to be found - instead, you musttaketime. Realize that these activities are not optional, and schedule the equivalent of at least an hour a day (and more in times of change). It will be tempting to always take this time from nights and weekends, but that is a strategy for burn out. One of the most successful department heads I know worked at home everyFriday morning. He remained in contact with his secretary during this time, so that he could respond to urgent calls, or come in if necessary.
Of the numerous books that address time management for leaders, I recommend two as places to start. First, Stephanie Winston'sOrganized for Success(Crown Business, New York, 2004). Winston is the "grandmother" of time management systems; for this book, sheinterviewedand observed dozens of successful seniorexecutives andCEOs about their work habits. Her observations are about how real, effective people actually do their work, and the book is packed with useful approaches. If you want to learn a single cohesive system of managing your work, tryDavid Allen'sGetting Things Done: the art of stress-free productivity.(Viking, New York, 2001).
Remember, above all, that you would not have been picked for your new position if you did not already have some good organizational and timemanagementskills. So no matter how overwhelmed you feel at first, you can do this. Pay attention to the things that are new, or seem different in your new role. Make incremental changes, coupled with carefulobservationand evaluation (thescientificmethod!), and you will find success.