Episode 99
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to the show. You know, those times when you feel like I'm not really in touch with what's [00:01:00] going on on a certain project and you want to check in, but you kind of avoid checking in because you don't want to come across as overbearing or micromanaging. Well, there's actually a way we can work around all those fears.
And make sure you stay informed on what's going on with projects and work. And that's what I want to talk about today. Okay. How to check in on Project Rest without being overbearing, without falling in that micromanagement zone, while also being able to do it. Because I think what often we avoid. is actually following up of giving feedback of checking in because we say, Oh, I'm sure someone will bring it up.
If something's wrong or if something's off track or, Oh, you know, I'll just wait till our next meeting. And then we realize actually we really needed to know what was going on with that project way, way sooner, but we have these fears and it gets in the way. Now, I think, you know, a lot of times we might've been in a situation in our past in other jobs where people were constantly breathing down our necks and constantly checking in and that's not what we want to do.
That's [00:02:00] not the end goal. But today we want to talk about how to find that middle ground. And so the first thing that can really, really help us is setting clear priorities and goals for each week. Now, without clear priorities and goals for each week, you really run the risk of having your team members kind of deciding that stuff for themselves, not kind of, definitely deciding that for themselves.
And the risk there is that they decide on things that are important that maybe aren't as important or that they're running through a plan that maybe you set for the quarter or the month that, well, actually a couple of things have shifted and something is a little bit actually should be focused on and as opposed to something else.
And this is a really important thing to do if you're managing virtual assistants or folks you're not talking to every day is, Hey, here's the game plan for the week. Are we all on the same page? Here's what we want to accomplish. Okay. And if you are in maybe more service based business or you're, you're in a wellness or a clinic or a gym or something like that, then, you know, priorities or goals for the week might be more [00:03:00] conceptual.
These might be, Hey, we want to help three clients achieve a win this week. Hey, we want to make sure to land a few more memberships for our facilities, whatever. Okay. So it doesn't all have to be something getting done. If that's not the way your business lends itself to this kind of thing, but we want to have some sort of focus so that everyone on your team is like, boom, yes.
Here's the baseline. Now, these priorities and goals, these are the expectation, okay? And I always say we can't deliver feedback if we haven't first planted that flag of an expectation. So by setting the priorities and goals, you've said, Hey, this is my expectation of you by the end of the week. And now we have something to check back in on.
I think sometimes we feel hesitant to check in on work because we realize, well, I didn't really say what I wanted to get done. So now how can I tell them I don't think it's enough or fast enough when I didn't even say. So around this, when you set the priorities and the goals, you can be really clear on, does this feel [00:04:00] like the right amount of work for a week?
Or Hey, it's a really busy week. I know we're going to be a little bit Kind of really right at that threshold of capacity. I know we're going to be working a little bit extra that we're all on the same page. We're agreeing to that at the beginning of the week again. So you don't get to the end of the week, like, Hey, we had this huge deadline and this huge event or this huge launch and I took it seriously, but why didn't my team take it seriously?
Right? So again, when we set these priorities and we set these expectations up front, Now we get everyone aligned around goals, priorities it a busy week or not? You know, are there big milestones? Things like that. Now the second thing is all about work tracking and I know I talked about work tracking last week.
Again, this is such an important thing. I strongly believe if you're not tracking work and tasks, like how are you running a business? How do you have any idea going on? Especially if you're running an agency or you're kind of billing clients hourly or with, retainers, all these things, like how do you know you're charging people the right amount of money if you're not tracking [00:05:00] work?
If you run any other kind of business where there's dependencies between team members, okay? I worked in tech for a long time. There were huge dependencies between designers and engineers, and if we weren't tracking work, we wouldn't know, well, when is that person going to have that deliverable that they can move forward across the finish line?
So the second thing around checking on work is you gotta have somewhere to check in on it. That's not asking that person. Okay. If our system is, well, I check in with Lia when I want [00:06:00] to know where the status of our projects are. This is, you create so many problems. you make this Lia person, whoever that is, a single point of failure.
If that person doesn't come into work or quits abruptly, like I talked about last week, or, get sick or, you know, Whatever. Wins the lottery. That's everyone's favorite example for why someone doesn't come back to work. If that happens. And the only way you know what's going on with work is by asking that person...no like that's not running a business.
Okay. Let's be real. So instead you have to have a place, whatever it is, it could be a spreadsheet, could be a more robust tracking system, a sauna or a click up or whatever. Where you can look at what the status of things are without asking people now, what does that require? Well, it requires people to have entered in their tasks and keep it up to date.
So it doesn't matter if this Leah character entered all our tasks in, in the beginning of Q1 and hasn't updated it since, you know, it's, like March 15th and she hasn't updated it since January 2nd. Okay. That doesn't help anybody. So you had to enter that information. And then you have to keep it [00:07:00] updated.
So as a team, you really want to talk about, well, what's the frequency of updates that we expect? Is it on a weekly basis? Is it on a daily basis? Whatever it is. And as I always say, And this is a huge part about, when we talk about work tracking in the ops playbook program is I suggest we always track two things at least, what is the status of work and what is the overall capacity of our team members.
I think that gives us enough to really understand, Hey, who's working on what how things are moving through the company and the team. Through the workflow. And like, can we take on more work? Okay. Those two things, status and capacity, that's going to always be the most important things. And again, this is what I can help you figure out in the ops playbook program, because we will figure out, well, what is, the right tool to do that?
How do we get people on board to understand that piece? Okay. So now you have a place, it's a tool, it's a spreadsheet, whatever it is. And you know that, Hey, every Tuesday and every Thursday folks are updating it. I can always look there. So just knowing that, well, that's a way to know what the status of work is without being overbearing because, [00:08:00] because you can look passively without asking someone.
And because you are looking at it and maybe you have a question about something that's going to create an accountability loop. Okay. If we never look at the task tracking system or we never look at where the work tracking is, then people are going to think, well, you know, why do I have to enter?
It doesn't even matter. It doesn't make a difference. So you actually want to continually refer back to it and say, Hey, I noticed this. Or it looks like, you know, everything looks great in ClickUp this week. Yeah. Really, it really feels like we're, we're making a good pace. Even if it's all positive, you want to kind of plant that seed that, yeah, I am.
looking at this thing. Okay. Third thing. And again, I think this is really, really helpful. If you are working with vendors or virtual assistants or, you know, whoever, or contractors, folks that are not full time employees, folks that might be working on a number of projects, not just with your team and company is to ask for a summary at the end of each week of what was accomplished.
Okay. And I wouldn't ask for the summary. Like once you feel like stuff's going off the rails, I would in your [00:09:00] onboarding really early on set the expectation like, Hey Monday we set the priorities for the week or maybe Friday afternoon you send an email, whatever it is, Sunday, Sunday, whatever works for you.
And then on Friday before you wrap up for the day or before the end of that person's a week, whatever day that is you send a summary email of like, Hey, what got finished? And maybe like looking ahead at next week, what's on that person's mind for the top priorities or top focus areas.
And, you know, this alleviates us having to chase things down, us asking, what was the status of that thing? Like, I don't even know what happened here. Right. It, puts that person in the driver's seat for proactively communicating about what they're doing and understanding what finished looks like.
Okay. So this is really, really helpful to kind of make sure you're feeling like you're getting what you needed. Obviously you have your goals in the beginning, you have what happened at the end. So it's very, very clear if someone is not keeping up at the pace that they've committed to or not delivering on, their promises really.
For what they said they were going to accomplish. So with those three things, you know, that's [00:10:00] how we can track work and really feel like we have a solid handle on projects without being overbearing. And again, this is really for folks that work with virtual assistants or folks that work with a lot of contractors and consultants.
This is a really, really helpful, simple expectation to set goals at the beginning of the week. Here's where we put that stuff and just share where you're at by the end of the week, really, really lightweight so that we feel comfortable with it. And then when we set the expectation of this upfront, I always say this when I talk about setting expectations, we say that upfront, Hey, here's how we work here.
Here's how we do business. Here's how we plan each week. Then when you're following up and you're saying, Hey, let's do those priorities for the week. Hey, what's the status of works Friday afternoon when you follow up on that now it doesn't feel like micromanaging or pushing or, or again, like, you know, hanging on too tightly because that's just how we do things and everybody's totally aligned around it.
Okay. So work tracking, this one can be, I think the keys here again, simple is better. Okay. We want to be [00:11:00] tracking status and capacity. If there's other things you need to track, then, you know, really make sure that you've simplified and this is something I can help you with. Of course, figure out like what is that right level of detail for folks?
What do we want to track? Like how do we want to track it without making people feel like, you know, They're being overly monitored or it's overly complicated to enter in updates, right? Things like that. And the key there, the secret, and you know, I've said it before, is always, always, always articulating what's in it for them.
Okay? We're tracking our work this way so I don't have to bug you. So I can see it in the system at a moment's notice and I feel like, whew, okay, we're okay. We're tracking the work in this way so I know when you're over capacity and I can bring someone in to help you. Or I can take some of that on, whatever.
So that we know how long things take, so that we know we are pricing the right way with our services. So I know I'm paying you the right amount so that I can manage my own expectations around projects. All of those are the reasons that are in it for that person. And when we say that we get so much less pushback.
I think a lot of times we [00:12:00] overly explain or justify or, you know, we're worried someone's going to say something. So we don't even really explain, like, we're just doing it this way. Like, sorry. Say like, Hey, here's how we're doing this. Here's how it benefits you. Here's how it helps us run this business better.
Boom, boom, boom. Any questions, any feedback, let's go. All right. So this is something that is going to really help you with worries and overwhelm and concerns around. Hey, I, do I really know where things are at? This is something that business owners shared with me all the time that they feel like they just don't have the right pulse on stuff.
So try these three things. Send me an email or a message if you have any questions of any of this stuff's confusing. And getting people bought into a work tracking system is literally my superpower. I've done this. Across many, many large tech companies where people were really not on board with doing it.
And I was able to really get people kind of shift that perspective, get people bought in by doing this stuff I'm talking about. So if this is feeling hard, if it's stressful, it is very hard and I'm here to help [00:13:00] you. So do not hesitate to reach out, schedule an SOS call at leahgarvin. com slash SOS. Or if it feels like, yeah, I think the whole playbook would be the right solution for me.
where we map out not only work tracking, but some of these things we talked about, like expectations and onboarding. We'll then reach out and we'll talk about the Ops Playbook. So I cannot wait to support you. I think you've got a great handle on this. Know that you're not alone and I'll see you next time.
