The Metiss Group's Blog

Hopefully you have a job description or accountability matrix for each of your key jobs.  This “report card” is essential for holding your direct reports accountable for their performance.

Most leaders do a pretty good job identifying job priorities and success factors, but expected time estimates are often overlooked.  Leaders and direct reports assume a “do whatever it takes” approach to allocating time to the job’s tasks.  While it is true, a direct report’s time needs to be managed to accomplish the job’s expectations, having a time guideline in place and reviewing the time spent can make both you and your direct report more effective.

For example, suppose a sales direct report is expected to spend 50% of their time prospecting, 25% closing, and 25% in admin.  But together you and the direct report realized they are spending 25% prospecting, 25% closing, and 50% in admin; what’s wrong?  You may be overwhelming your sales direct with unnecessary paperwork.  You may have a sales person who doesn’t like prospecting.  In either event you can’t fix the situation if you are not aware of how the job is being done.

Empower your direct reports to “guestimate” the percentage of time they spend on their accountabilities, review it with them, and you’ll be surprised at the success you’ll create.

This entry was posted on October 3, 2010 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Leadership, Performance Acceleration. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.