As I wrote, the purpose of my trip was a “Shadow Day” of my mentor .
Here’s the bulk of the follow up email/thank you note I sent to her.
Just a quick note to say thanks for allowing me to “shadow” your business for the day. It was eye-opening for a number of reasons.
1. A great case study to observe many of the communication techniques we’ve discussed over the years
2. An interesting peek to a completely different business
3. Opportunity to meet some new folks w/different perspectives
It was definitely worthwhile. My key takeaways were:
1. Speed of speech to improve communication
I was very impressed with the deliberate manner of speaking. It conveyed thoughtful reflection and it added to the team’s ability to comprehend the message. This was particularly helpful for me as I tend to speak rapidly.
2. Keep the team focused-find the fulcrum/pressure point
I was impressed by the commitment to pulling back the covers to identify underlying causes and areas of focus. This provided clarity to the team, I believe, and helped shape the conversation to be most productive possible.
Sometimes, my conversations with others get pulled in non-core directions. Ensuring that the focus of the conversation is on point at all times and HOW to do that was a very valuable lesson.
3. Highlight and reiterate priorities out (focus on big rocks)
If I had to sum up one key learning, it’s that
- People remember with repetition.
- People remember with repetition.
- People remember with repetition.
Far from being a tape on auto-replay, you both reiterated the key points to your teams so that the likelihood of retention was increases (a key one, for example was the $500k server commitment). Obviously, I’ve heard the “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them” mantra. I liked how the critical messages and expectations were outlined.
I tend to move quickly and not reiterate key points, so part of my effectiveness is lost. This was valuable to see in action.
4. Partner, not adversary
It was clear from the outset that, as managers, both of you were there to assist the team in reach its objective and not simply to identify weaknesses or shortcomings in order to assert authority. This made the atmosphere quite cordial (for the most part J) and helped to inspire confidence and focus on problem-solving.
5. Treat different people differently
Obviously ;-) your account managers bring different assets to the table. Instead of trying to make them snap to a pre-conceived mold, you really sought how to leverage their strengths and not spend too much time on their weaknesses (though you made sure that they were aware of them and had a way to address them.)
A key lesson: there’s not a one size fits all approach for working with/managing people.
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