2 Management Practices That I Think Can Have an 80/20 Effect on Your Career
They will help you to slow down, reflect, document, and course-correct.
Not a Medium Member? You can read it here for free.
I left my job in a bank in 2011 after a 2-decade career.
I spent the next decade reading hundreds of management & self-help books. I share an image of my bookcase for fun. :-)
I read these books to understand — the issues I struggled with, and what more I could have done at work.
If you were to ask me what advice I would give to someone starting out, to my younger self — or even to someone in the middle of their career - I would advise the following:
- Have a regular 1-to-1 meeting with your boss, once a week.
- Send an ‘Achievement Email’ to your boss, every month.
These are specific activities and to a large extent within your control.
Done consistently, they will ensure — you slow down, reflect, course-correct, and document your career journey — a powerful set of habits for doing well in any career.
Done well, they will have an 80 /20 effect on your career.
1. A regular 1-to-1 Meeting with your boss, every week
If it is already happening, well and good.
If not, you can approach your boss with -
“Sir, the regular team meeting that you have with all of us, does not give me enough time to discuss my issues in confidence. Will it be possible for us to have a 1-to-1 meeting once a week, for 15–30 minutes, at your convenience?”
I doubt any boss will refuse.
But even after agreeing, you will have to be after them so that it happens regularly.
What should you discuss in this meeting?
There are many articles on the do’s and don’ts of such a meeting.
I would suggest — and also to keep it memorable — to use the SWOT format (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats).
I share an image with an example.
Additionally, this article has 10 good questions that you can consider using in your 1 to 1 with your manager.
(If you are a manager, reflect on your team-related points too, when you meet your boss for 1 to 1.)
Some additional thoughts on 1-to-1:
- Spend time preparing for 1 to 1 meeting. It shouldn’t look like a formality.
- Take notes.
- In the next meeting, give an update on the items discussed in the previous 1–to-1.
- If you think you don’t have anything important to discuss in a particular week, sound out your boss, and cancel the meeting, rather than letting it be a formality.
- If this cancellation happens frequently, consider moving to a fortnightly schedule.
- Depending on the time the boss gives you, 15 - 30 minutes, take only a couple of items in every meeting.
- Use the meeting to discuss both — the activities, and the competencies (soft skills).
The 2 biggest benefits of 1-to-1 are:
- It will force you to slow down and reflect on the overall picture — where you are good, and where you are struggling. The preparation you do will stretch you.
Additionally, the perspective you will get from discussing them with your boss will speed up your growth.
2. It will help you to feel more engaged at work.
In the busyness of work, what we crave is an acknowledgment that our work matters. A 1 to 1 meeting with your boss provides this.
As per Gallup, employees who have regular 1:1 meetings with their managers are 3 times more likely to be engaged.
Engagement decides the level of motivation you bring to the job, and how fulfilled you feel at work.
2. Send an ‘Achievement Email’ to your boss, every month
This is something I discovered late in my career.
As I see, all jobs — other than Sales — like, Ops, Services, IT, Audit, HR, etc. have a degree of subjectivity to them.
It is difficult to quantify what exactly you have achieved during the month.
Sending an Achievement Email, every month, will thus help in 2 ways:
- It will force you to note and quantify what exactly you have achieved during the month. (Do you recall what you achieved at work some months back, in Jan & Feb?)
- Importantly, it will bring an urgency in you to close out items, to show it as an Achievement for the month.
Earlier, you didn’t have an urgency — you could always say, The counterpart is not responding, We have given the details and are awaiting a revert, We await a system patch for the issue, etc.
Not now. Now, you would want to close the items so as to show it as an achievement for the month. It will thus give your work an ‘execution’ focus.
What should you include in these Achievement Email?
- Your 6–8 big-ticket achievements for the month. A 3-liner on each.
- Include specifics — cost saved, manhours saved, volumes processed, errors reduced, etc.
- Your big lapse during the month (Yes, if you want the boss to trust your email, include your lapses too and what you are doing about it.)
- Your people initiatives (if you are a manager).
- Send it by the 10th, for the previous month.
In short, a 2-page true snapshot of your performance in the month.
The first Email
The first such email might seem awkward.
You can start with “Dear Sir / Madam, I thought going forward I will send you an update on my work every month. Accordingly, please find the update for the month of ___”
The email subject can be ‘Update — (Month)’.
Once you send the Achievement Email, you will feel a sense of satisfaction, as I did, of a month well- worked.
These emails will help you at the time of year-end appraisal too.
12 monthly emails like this, and you will have made your case for promotion or better-than-average increment.
If a monthly email feels overwhelming, you can start with a Quarterly email.
(If you want a sample of such an Achievement email, I have made an e-Book to help with the same. You can access it here.)
Preparation is key in both the above practices
To put the 1 to 1 meeting in perspective, I share how I prepare for my session with my Executive Coach.
I usually devote 2–3 hours in the days leading to the session, listing the points I want to discuss, the examples I will share, what possible solutions I can think of, the obstacles I see, etc.
It is then a rich talk every time.
I encourage you to do the same in your 1 to 1 meeting with your boss / and in your Achievement email.
Make it so good, that the boss starts looking forward to it!
Conclusion
Every profession and business has a couple of things that deliver outsized returns.
For writers, the top advice is — to write consistently, and build an email list.
For online retail, Jeff Bezos is famous for saying — we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection …. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.
Likewise, in Management, new books and articles will come, suggesting newer things.
These 2 practices, however, will hold good for a long time, and give you outsized returns through out your career.
- Have a regular 1-to-1 meeting with your boss, once a week.
- Send an ‘Achievement Email’ to your boss, every month.
Done well, they will encircle and guide everything you do at work.
P.S.
I assume every boss will be receptive to the above.
In reality, you will know better. You will also get to know more once you start the 2 practices. Adapt as required.
If you are in an Individual Contributor role, or a new Manager, I have created an eBook, ‘How to Get a 5 (Excellent) in Year-end Appraisal’. Download your copy.
