The Manager’s Diary

What should the focus of a manager be?
How should a manager’s time be spent?
These are questions we get asked quite often in our work. Whilst everyone’s role is different, and the answers can vary a lot, there are some common themes worth considering.
We have taken a weekly view of the Manager’s Diary to ensure an optimal perspective of not being too short-term (daily) or too long-term (monthly).
A weekly perspective offers room for flexibility – the ability to make up for the reactive, the unexpected and the unplanned interruptions to our day.
The week offers time for rest and balance – time at work, time to work and time away from work.
In essence, a manager must make time each week for four essential functions:
1. Revising the organisation’s purpose and communicating it to its people.
2. Team Meetings
3. Time on the Front Line
4. 1on1s with key personnel
Read more about these critical functions in our detailed article here. Email download@marv.com.au for a copy.
In a 2018 ground-breaking Harvard study, professors Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria profiled how CEOs spend their time. They concluded that face-to-face interactions took up more than 60% of their time with a further quarter spent on electronic communication. Another 15% was spent on the phone or reading and replying to written correspondence.
In a recent study published by MIT, only 25% of managers could list three of their company’s strategic priorities; more concerning, one-third of leaders charged with implementing their organisation’s strategy could list even one.
Another key revelation in Porter and Nohria’s work was that managers spend just 3% of their time with customers!