During the Covid lockdown, something happened. I got lots of grey hair and gained weight. As I claw my way back to a healthier weight (and embrace the grey), I’ve found humor a helpful tool.
Recently, I’ve been working with many of my partners to support the onboarding and development of their teams, both managers and individual contributors. These are folks who are managing projects, processes, and/or people, some in supervisory roles.
The Challenge
Two challenges continue to emerge in this work:
- For individual contributors transitioning into a manager/leader role: How can they best provide guidance and support to team members while staying in their “zone of genius” and doing what they love?
- For new team members who are onboarding: How can their manager support their growth and development, without having to do it step by step together?
To unpack these challenges, let’s focus on the shift from individual contributor to manager. Thinking about this shift sheds light on strategies for supporting new team members.
In building out my team at EdScale, I’ve struggled a bit with both of these. Shifting management and capacity building strategies in the context of support with partners to internal management and capacity building of my team to “the EdScale way” wasn’t the same.
An “OLD” Solution
In talking with my coach Nesreen, I needed a nudge in my environment to fully embrace and excel in delegation and feedback to team members – getting and keeping each of us in our “zone of genius”. Beyond continuing to remind myself to play the long game in staffing, just like in the overall EdScale business (alignment and coherence!), I needed a shortcut to support my delegation.
In comes “OLD” to the rescue. I have a laminated note on my computer screen that nudges me to embrace getting “OLD”:
- Only: Is this something only I can do?
- Leverage: Are there higher leverage things I should rather be doing?
- Drain: Will this drain me of energy (or bring me energy)?
- Chunk: What portion can I delegate?
For example, when launching my book, I wanted to design the cover and book layout, build out my launch strategy, build a website page, create an assessment, start a monthly newsletter, etc. And I was doing much of this for the first time (NOT my zone of genius). And doing it amongst all the work with my partners that is priority #1.
“OLD” helped me identify what to take on, and what to get help with and delegate:
- Cover and book layout: Hired a designer and got the input of my brother-in-law, provided feedback, and got to a great product. The feedback and design were fun, but I didn’t have to get into the weeds and do it myself.
- Book launch strategy: Hired a marketing strategist to provide insights and options for me to prioritize, which focused limited effort and sequencing (helped get the book to the #1 new release on Amazon Education Administration (big category I am sure); still waiting on Amazon reviews but folks say they are coming soon!)
- Build a webpage: Hired someone to build out the page; in the end, the quality wasn’t great and I had to fill the gaps myself. I like the creative aspect, but bridging the technical unknowns is a time suck for me.
- Create an assessment: Found a great online provider for assessments, built out questions aligned to the lessons in the book (fun and in my zone of genius), and posted them on the website.
- Started a monthly newsletter: Hired a new team member, Lui, to support several things, including my CRM, social media, and newsletter management. I’m still leading, but shifting each part to Lui one at a time with support and feedback. This is allowing me to focus on writing the monthly post and filtering out news/books for posting on social media/newsletter.
These experiences and lessons all helped inform and improve the onboarding of two new team members.
Whether you are getting older or just looking to build more muscles for management and leadership, try out the “OLD” strategy.
Extension
- Map out your zone of genius (ask others: what would you say are my superpowers?)
- Complete an energy audit (this is my favorite one with framing/prompts)
- Apply the OLD strategy today!
