People Management Case Study

Summary

How do you adapt your team to respond to new stressors in an unpredictable environment? The world became an increasingly stressful place during Covid-19. I detail my approaches to simplifying operations while building individual approaches to maintain a high-performing team. 

Situation

I was promoted to lead the team responsible for virtual training in December 2019, just in time for Covid-19 to make in-person training impossible. In addition to the team being overburdened and understaffed, we were given the challenging remit of enabling the continuation of training during a ‘once in a lifetime’ pandemic. The internal (to work) stressors and external (pandemic) stressors grew until we began to see sharp decreases in productivity. Significant concerns included:

  • Pandemic

    • Fear of safety

    • Adapting to quarantine

  • Workload

    • Inefficient team processes

    • Increased area of responsibility

    • Increased visibility of area of responsibility

    • Limited support from wider function

  • Health

    • Increase stress-related illnesses

    • Team members getting Covid-19

“…we were given the challenging remit of enabling the continuation of training during a ‘once in a lifetime’ pandemic.”

Task

The tasks for meeting this moment were simple: simplify the team’s day-to-day operations, maintain ~80% pre-pandemic productivity, and ensure my team stayed healthy. I had confidence that our team could perform the necessary work if we stayed healthy, so the work/life balance had to tilt towards ‘life’ while we adapted to the pandemic and its stressors.

Action

To better understand our day-to-day operations, the team implemented a time-tracking tool. The data from that tool enabled us to highlight a few key areas including project management, support ticket routing, and individual “focus management”. We were able to:

  • Replace our dated project management tool to gain 10-25% individual efficiency across the team,

  • Run training programs to significantly reduce the number of support tickets routed to our team saving ~40% of one team member’s time,

  • And utilize the physical ‘die’ that came with the time tracking tool to provide a physical act to highlight a mental shift to improve focus.

“Through these actions, we were able to focus on reducing our technical debt and start building sustainable processes.”

Through these actions, we were able to focus on reducing our technical debt and start building sustainable processes. 

The stress of the pandemic resulted in reduced productivity expectations. To me, this is one of the most important parts of being a people manager. The understanding of when to ebb productivity and when to allow it to flow. A manager that requires a constant flow ensures a team will burn out, especially during a period of great external stress. Working with my leadership team, I was able to build a case for reduced productivity expectations to allow and ensure my team could manage their lives in an increasingly dynamic environment. 

The first two actions resulted in the third, ensuring my team stayed healthy. A stressed or tired person is much more likely to fall ill. By clearing the path for your team, a manager can reduce the stress of a work environment. Healthy, happy, and rested teams are productive teams.   

Results

The focus on simplifying and improving the work environment for our team resulted in the correction of years of technical debt in a single year. We implemented several new tools during Covid-19 to enable virtual training. We were able to demonstrate the value of our mission resulting in the governance and project management functions being broken out into their teams. By all metrics, we were extraordinarily successful after these changes. 

“all of my employees were promoted to become function managers with two becoming people leaders”

My favorite success metric is all of my employees were promoted to become function managers with two becoming people managers. The foundational work we did together ensured we were seen as exceptional subject matter experts and valuable leaders to the wider organization.

Lessons Learned

I attribute my success as a manager to understanding the ebbs and flows of productivity. There will be moments when parts of your team will be distracted or preoccupied with public or private events. It is the role of the manager to assess the value of utilizing a stick or carrot approach in these moments. It is my opinion that the appreciation and loyalty you gain by making space for someone to be distracted is significantly more valuable than the limited, unfocused effort when pushing someone to be productive. 

“I attribute my success as a manager to understanding the ebbs and flows of productivity.”

Position: Manager, Learning Infrastructure & Governance

Industry: Medical Devices

Keywords: team leadership, people manager, corporate operations, software operations, managing up, leadership, cross-functional leadership

  • It is rare to find a leader who has an innate strategic mindset and is an empathic people enabler; something Brent does very well. I have watched Brent first hand coach people to excel beyond their own expectations while simultaneously having a strategic mindset which will have positive impacts for the organization for years to come.

    P. Naine

  • I worked with Brent at Elekta for several years in his marketing and IT roles. Brent was a very detailed and effective leader at Elekta.

    T. Valentine

  • I worked in the global marketing department with Brent when he was the Head of Digital Marketing at Elekta. He brought a fantastic perspective and balance to the team in his digital marketing role by understanding – and helping us all learn - all aspects of digital marketing strategies and tactics and how the application of these tools would work for Elekta.

    M. Joiner

  • I had the pleasure of working with Brent when he stepped up to become the digital marketing leader at Elekta. He provided my agency with a clear strategy for an integrated campaign across multiple channels, quickly responded to removed barriers to execution, and effectively communicated project status across critical stakeholders.

    S. Farina