Time Management and Control

You miss 100% of the shots you never take.

-- Wayne Gretzky

All in one year I got a new Vice-President (that I will report to), A new Group of Centers. Plasma Centers are facilities that stand alone in different cities, and countries that collect Human Plasma used for further manufacture in the production of medicines for Hemophiliacs as well as other specific medicines. They numbered about 75 in total located from Seattle WA to Berlin Germany, both Company owned and contract facilities, Quality Assurance problems both in number and type like I had never had, installed in several locations programs that had failed miserably. And now it was evaluation day, by my New Boss.

During my performance Evaluation, my VP made a remarkable statement to me.

He said, “If I do not have direct reports that are not making mistakes, how do I know who is trying?” He actually praised my performance and out of the 6 Regional Managers at the time, he ranked me as the top performer for that year.

How does one know the difference between the trying hard to do the right thing to the person who is just goofing off? Talk to his employees. They will fill you in on the absolutes of a good or just a fair or even rotten Manager. On visits to the facility always invite the Manager and his spouse or significant other to dinner. This will give you information beyond belief of what is going on with your operations. It will also give you an opportunity to praise the performance of your Manager in front of his significant other, this is vitally important for good performers on up. Pinning as many (earned) medals on him/her in front of their significant other is the best praise you will ever give. It will also take care of all the HAEA’s (Honey, ask Ed about….)Your person, man or woman who keeps forgetting to ask about the company, be it benefits, policies, or just why can’t significant others go to the annual meeting/

Got an idea you would like to try at a specific location or local business group? As long as the money is there or you can finance the plan or can go find the money to do so, then go for it!!

Most Senior Management is made up of folks that could/would take a chance, and make it work. If they failed, they modified their concept or dropped it all together and started on another one. Fact is how you make all of this work. The first thing I would suggest is to never use the word busy. This is an over used word to begin with and it does not fit the role of someone who wants to take/make all the shots.” Busy” has become the world wide answer to ‘Hi how are you?” If you truly want to succeed in business you will remove this word from your vocabulary. We will discuss this more in detail in future Blogs. Take on as many assignments as you can say for…6 months. Evaluate your “Time” at the end of it. Now what do you call busy? Some how in the last six months you will have learned to budget/schedule/manage your time. This should make you shine within your department/business walls.

Just a quick word about the employees, both who work with and report to you. You must tell them what is going on. What with the change in your work activity and/or theirs. Remember, it really doesn’t matter what you meant to communicate---all that matters is the response of the other person as to what they understood. This is why I am so negative sometimes on meetings. Something of this nature and complexity needs to be communicated one on one to each of the people you will be influencing with this change.

Now it is time to think about challenging your staff, or anyone that will be effected by your change of “taking more shots”. Develop a Plan (which will appear in later blogs) present it to the group, then meet with each one of your staff and or others effected one on one. For your direct reports, make it a bullet point on their evaluation.

Remember, no one has enough time, everyone has all there is. What we do with our time determines what we do with our lives.

How many shots have you taken recently?

Spend the extra dollars

Spend the extra dollars to maintain your equipment. Remember, you don’t have to brush all your teeth, just the ones you want to keep.

Seems year after year I was always trying to explain to a few of the managers within my group about the importance of budgeting for the upkeep from the simplest of things like painting interior/exterior walls or upkeep of parking lots, to the maintenance of freezers, centrifuges, and blood/plasma separation equipment devices. You see, in a truly successful operation this budgeted (Dollar amount) grows higher and higher each year with growth and looks to be very easy pickings when pressured for dollars to fill other dollar requirements. I think the old saying “ you gotta dance with who brung ya” started in a discussion over this very subject.

It is really funny, we purchase something one day and the next day we immediately start to depreciate it for our financial needs, while operationally we want to get as much life out of it as possible. We have to not just keep things in good working order, in most cases we must keep them in a “good looking” sense of repair as well.

Are we budgeting yearly to replace certain items that we know will need replacing annually, bi-annually, or within our five year long term planning budget? This is a critical step in keeping us successful/up-to-date with current technologies, moving forward in all aspects of our business.

Can you operate with/plan for/or accept cavities to form within our business? You bet you can! As long as you are in control of and have at least some of the direction. You can fill the cavities to

meet the Quality Assurance Standards (QA) of your company. Just remember in this highly competitive market QA is every thing, and standards of QA must be met.

I will cover in future blogs long term planning, delegation, and short term delegation. However for this example today I must use a few of the rules associated with them.

To make sure you “brush all your teeth” you must delegate! To me this must start in your strategic planning process, allowing the appropriate dollars to be available first. Then a planning process within the walls of the business to monitor/track success throughout the strategic planning time. This can be as simple as a large wall calendar or a computer program.

Of course all of the management team of the business should be well versed in the expectations of the plan, but more importantly the rank and file should know the expectations and goals that need to be met as well.

I have said for years, “ A key tactic to success is to model your business on the distinctions of others---processes, thinking, habits and characteristics.” Your people will win or lose weather all the “teeth” are brushed!

Just getting started and the hope of good things to come.

Hello to all that may be there, in the coming weeks I hope to be sharing my experiences of 40 plus years working in the field of business. I happened to be in the Pharmaceutical manufacturing side of dealing with people, but Hey! people are people are people not matter where they work. Am I right? I hope to be sharing some cute little sayings with you and then elaborating on the real meat and potato's of what is at hand. I hope to do this in a language that all can understand. I do hope I can gather from your experiences as well with feedback that will help us all.

So look for me coming soon!!!
Ed Vreeland