Friday, May 2, 2014

I Acted Like A Manager Today (in a good way)

When I interviewed for this job, one of the questions they asked me was, "If you were given this job, what changes would you make?"  I had been thinking about the answer, and I didn't think I had a good answer.  I responded, "Well, just having me here would be a big change, because I am not Karleen.  But I think I would like to look at the duties of each individual and determine ways that the people can learn and grow.  So maybe some cross-training opportunities.  That kind of thing."

As it turned out, they gave me a job that was much more people-intensive than my predecessor, and I've been excited about the opportunity to see what kind of meaningful and good changes might need to be made.  During some conversations a couple of weeks ago I had a clear picture in my mind of what needed to happen in order to fix x, y, and z.

My direct supervisor and I put together recommendations, which were approved.  We then discussed everything with the section manager over the managers who would be affected AND the section manager over the admins.  They approved the changes.  THEN I discussed the changes with all of the group managers and got their buy-in.  And today was the day we told the admins (my employees) about the changes.

It was very managerial.

It also went well, and I'm grateful for the wonderful people I work with.  Next step is to implement changes (beginning on Monday) and pray that things run smoothly.

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