jonathan@researchcomputingteams.org
This resource first appeared in issue #85 on 30 Jul 2021 and has tags Becoming A Manager: Delegation
Out of Office Alert: Managers Need Vacations Too! - Samantha Rae Ayoub, Fellow
It’s important to take time off to recharge, even though as managers we’re often not great at this. It’s a little too easy to convince ourselves that our firm hand on the till is too important to completely let go… and that’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. You’re robbing yourself of needed R&R, and your team members of the chance to step up in your absence, by not completely checking out. And the more often you completely step away, the easier it gets for you and the team
Ayoub goes through ten steps to go through - the key ones to my mind are:
One really clever suggestion I don’t know that I’ve read before is, in to make that “while I’m away” document a shared writable document and have it not only be a checklist of things to do but somewhere where people keep notes of what was done, what happened at the meeting with Prof X, etc - so you come back to a briefing document to catch you up.
The other really crucial thing is to put one person in charge while you’re away - or at the very least to have a very clear decision making process. Decisions will have to be made in your absence, and the team needs to know how to make them. You can rotate between people, but it should be someone who has a pretty good big-picture view of the work of the team.
