GETTING "THINGS" DONE
By Julie Adamen

Well, well. You made it through your first month or so of being a manager. You know more, you feel more comfortable in your job. You’ve been to a couple of Board meetings, didn’t make too big a fool of yourself, and you are beginning to make some friends at work, and even like most of the people you work with! Wow!

As you look around your office – if you are a portfolio manager – you see other managers. And already you can pick out who’s not so good, who’s good and who’s great at their job. Of course, you want to be good and/or great – so what is it that makes some managers better than others? Are they born with it? Not necessarily. Managers who excel know how to get things done. Getting the job done requires discipline, problem solving skills, confidence and the attitude of moving work off your desk. Once you learn these skills, you will be ahead of the curve for the rest of your life, both in personal and professional matters whether you stay in management or seek some new adventure.

Discipline

Do you have discipline? Prior to coming in to community management 17+ years ago, I had some personal discipline, but not much. I have always been an “on time” person – even early! – to attend functions, dates, doctor’s appointments.  In any job I had I was continually one of the top performers.  In other words, when I knew I had something to do, I did it. But I didn’t develop real personal discipline until I got in to community management.

As a community manager, there is a lot of work that you know you have to complete. But there is even more work that is easily put off with no one the wiser – at least for a while (we call that “flying under the radar”). To be a good, or great manager, you must develop the personal discipline to tackle all tasks pleasant or not and follow through all by your big self.

Developing personal discipline means making a decision to do your best at all times – no matter what. Using all your skills and available tools to best suit the tasks takes discipline. Continued use of your time manager (refer to last month’s publication) continually is one example of discipline. Completing your Minutes in a timely fashion, making your Action – or To Do, list, and actually starting on that list are all examples of personal discipline. The more you develop personal discipline, the easier and more natural it becomes.

TIP: Begin developing more personal discipline in your role as manager by tackling the tasks you dread first. Make that phone call to your worst homeowner. Start on that RFP for the landscape contractor. Usually, the anticipation is far worse than the actual event and the satisfaction of having completed a task in a timely fashion, especially a task you did not want to do, is a great satisfaction, giving you the boost you need to move forward.

The “Move It” Attitude: On your desk once, then gone.

Ever wonder how some managers accomplish so many tasks in such a short amount of time, while others only seem to get one or two things finished, and are continually running behind? How some are cool and collected while others are continually frazzled? It’s because most great managers practice the adage: “On your desk once, then gone.” Very simply, that means deal with issues as they come up as much as you can. Do not put tasks off if you are able to deal with them immediately. The more stuff off your desk the more relaxed and confident you are. The more confident you are the better you decisions are. I know I’ve said all this before – but it’s darned important!

TIP: For one day, try “On your desk once, then gone.” As each phone call, email, letter, or problem comes in, see if you can deal with it right now. If 20 things come in one day, you will probably be able to quickly deal with at least 15 of them. The sense of accomplishment you will get from your own job well done is often enough to make you want to keep practicing this good habit. 

Problem solving.

In my experience, when people are faced with a seemingly overwhelming issue, they will do one or all of the following: a) walk around in circles, b) flap their arms c) focus on some minute aspect of the problem, or d) ignore it and hope it goes away. Community managers do not have this luxury. They must be able to analyze a given situation, quickly boil it down to its simplest components, and act on them; i.e., they must move past the symptoms to the disease and cure it – or bring options for the Board to decide which way they want to cure it.  Or – and maybe most importantly, managers must ascertain what problems that CAN be cured, and what problems they will only be able to put band-aids on – and move on. (Have no regrets here, as some boards will not step up to the plate on problems that have a host of awful symptoms. This may be truly out of your hands. Recognizing this fact is a talent unto itself).

As an example, let’s say as a manager you are regularly receiving calls about a particular flowerbed. Flowers last for a while, then all of sudden they are dead. Now – treating the symptom would be to continually place new flowers in the bed. But if you boil it down to the root (no pun intended) of the problem, there are three possible reasons for the dead flowers. It could be the flower vendor’s problem (diseased); the owner is poisoning them (does not like the color), the landscaper’s problem (irrigation), or a problem with the soil (contamination). Well, the rest of the flowers last like they should – so, it’s probably not the vendor. The owner loves the color and flower type, so it’s not them. The surrounding area to the problem looks good as rest of the community, with appropriate irrigation, so it’s probably not the landscaper’s fault. So – what’s left? Maybe there is a problem with the soil in that location. Now that you have boiled it down to the likely “disease” – you can have the appropriate expert landscaper test the soil for possible contaminants or adverse soil types. Hopefully you won’t find out your project was built on a nuclear waste site – but better to know up front, right?

To solve this problem you used your powers of deductive reasoning along with a dash of intuition. You do not know if your theory is correct until the soil is checked, however you have a reasoned path to the solution. The more problems you solve the better you get, and the more you are able to solve in a short amount of time.  Soon you will see that successful managers are very good problem solvers and critical thinkers.

Be not afraid of making decisions and solving problems

If you are a perfectionist not willing to move forward for fear of not doing everything exactly right – you will get very little accomplished as a manager and won’t stay in the business very long. You must be able to move forward with confidence and know that any “wrong” decisions you make can, in the vast majority of cases, be rectified easily. Remember – no one minds mistakes if they are taken care of quickly and cheerfully.

As a manager, in any one-day, you may make 100 decisions – from what to wear to work, to when to have the paving project started, to having Mrs. Smith’s flag removed from the property (!!). Assuming you are conscientious and well informed about your job – at least some of those decisions you made are going to be wrong. And chances are you could not have foreseen why those decisions were going to be wrong. And that is ok – look at it this way: out of 100 decisions, 92 were the right ones. That’s a great batting average.

TIP: When faced with a decision you’d rather not make, ask yourself the following questions: 1) What’s the worst thing that can happen if this is the wrong decision? 2) What’s the next worst thing? 3) What is REAL the likelihood of either of those happening? 4) What are the consequences of taking NO action? These questions provide you a quick way to evaluate the issue. Generally, the consequences of taking no action will be more painful than the other options.

As a manager it’s your job to get things done. Through a combination of personal discipline, problem solving skills, an attitude of “Move It!” off your desk to the appropriate vendor, an ability to quickly evaluate situations and provide solutions to solve those issues, you can be great at your job. Successful managers practice and embrace the continual development of these skills, for the betterment of the profession, their career and the communities they manage.