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Managing time, stress and expectations through reflection
- 1. The Clock Still “Ticks” Ryan VanSickle
Editor's Notes
- I woke up that morning with intentions to get a ton of work done today. I knew I had a lot on my plate that day, and it was going to be a rough one.
- I got to my desk about 7 minutes late, as traffic was backed up from the Pier in St. Petersburg all the way to the 54th Ave exit, about 4 miles that took me around 20 minutes to travel that morning
- I hadn’t even sat down at my desk before the phone rang with a daunting task to add to my seemingly never ending laundry list of tasks to finish before I went home. It was a local client of mine in Clearwater, needing a proof for a seminar they were holding. They wanted it to be brought over to their office that afternoon for final review, so they could give the go ahead for the invitation’s printing. They wanted it to be brought over to their office that afternoon. I, as I always do, ensured my client that they were my number one priority, and I’d be there right on time.
- I went about my day, sweating practically the entire time, for me work load was that of two people that do what I do. I sat on the phone with affiliate companies all day trying to “put out fires” and maintain relationships with my clients. By about 5:15 PM, I realized I had totally forgotten about taking my client the proof. I called before leaving to say I’d be over on my way home, but I got no answer.
- The next morning, I learned that they had gone to another marketing company, saying that I didn’t value our relationship. I lost that client and will never gain back their business.
- In reflection 2, our situation from Reflection 1 is revisited from another person’s point of view that had something to do with it. Logically, I chose the potential client whose business I lost from my lack of time management.
- I arrived at the office 15 minutes early this particular morning to get a jump start on the seminars I, as always, was way behind on. Planning these things was always such a pain; getting together all of the power points and equipment, booking the venues, etc. was such a tedious task! Blah! I was really hoping Ryan could come through in the clutch and bring me over a proof around lunchtime so I could get it approved by compliance by tomorrow.
- All I had to do was finish booking the restaurant locations where the seminars would be held and get all of the info on the dates times, and locations over to Ryan, and I figured I’d use all of the same copy as we did on our last invitation to make it simple. From there, he just had to get the graphics completed, queue and print one up, and bring it on over here by lunch time. Hell, he had 6 hours or so to do it, there’s no reason he couldn’t get this done for me.
- I completed the venue bookings in about 30 minutes and emailed Ryan all of the pertinent information. He called me, gathered all other necessary details on the job so he could process it in his system and get a move on for me. He assured me that despite having a very busy day ahead of him, I was his number one priority and that he’d have it over to me by lunch time. I was confident that he would come through, as he normally always did. This time was crucial though. It was the last seminar of the season, and my boss was looking for some outstanding Return on Investment from this campaign.
- I went about my day without putting another thought into the seminar situation, as I had many other things to do, and it wasn’t my job to worry about it at that point- it was Ryan’s. Before I knew it, it was 3 p.m., and I had not seen or heard from Ryan at all. I figured I’d give him until the end of the day to show up. That is, until Mr. Harwood (my boss) came into the room, inquiring about the planning of his events and the invitations associated with them. I had to tell him the truth about Ryan not showing up, and he immediately blew up on me and “fired” Ryan as his marketing rep. He promptly went about calling another local company and hasn’t looked back on it since.
- I chose to call and speak with the marketing assistant for Mr. Harwood, who is the “narrator” for Reflection 2. She spoke very highly of me, which caught me off guard, but proceeded to say that it will certainly take some time for Mr. Harwood to get over the negligence on my part that day. I totally understood where she was coming from, and it made me feel MUCH better to hear her side of the story. Things take on entirely new meanings when you look at them from different perspectives.
- Organizational Leadership- The textbook describes Organizational Leadership as “…an interpersonal process that involves attempts to influence other people in attaining organizational goals” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd edition, p. 206). This is a KEY concept regarding management in the workplace, and has also been influential in the effectiveness of a parental unit. Problem Solving and Communication are two key components two effective leadership. When I received the news that I needed to create an invitation in practically no time, both problem solving and communication were immediately involved. First, I had to figure out how I was going to move this week-long process forward fast enough to crank out a mail piece so I could take it over to them. It was a day full of problem solving. An even more prominent component of the leadership concept is communication. From the very start, I should have communicated with the marketing assistant, and let her know that her expectation were simply too high and that I wouldn’t be able to create the proof she needed on that very day. It was my lack of communication with her that caused the entire process to spiral downward. I was too afraid to lose the sale, when they probably would have respected me for my honesty and simply pushed their seminar date back.
- Another management concept that presents itself often in the situation I described is perception, defined as “a way a person sees a situation based on past experiences, personality, and current needs” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd edition, p. 335). The way a person sees a situation determines how he/she will handle it. Two key components of perception are past experiences and current needs. They both shape the way a person views a particular situation, thus affecting how that person treats and remedies the situation. Past experience inevitably will always shape the behavior of an individual. In this situation, I had turned around a complete job in a single day, so I thought I could do it again. Little did I know, we had a very busy production schedule, and there was no down time on the presses until the end of the day- LONG after lunch! I had done it once, and I thought I could do it again. I thought wrong. Current needs are without a doubt one of the biggest factors in the way a person handles ANY situation. In this case, my needs were CLIENTS and MONEY. I needed the client that month to get my bonus, and I knew that client would be all kinds of residual income, so I didn’t want to turn down the business and miss out on a thousand dollar commission.
- There are obviously MANY more concepts that could be applied to this situation, as it wasn’t handled in the most efficient manner. However, it is this analysis my deficiency in certain managerial facets within my life that is proving to be effective. I ultimately think that continue retrospective thought will shed much light on many topics that I have daily struggles with and highlight the exact techniques I should use to fix them.
- After analyzing the entire situation I realized a lot about myself. Though I try and pay much attention to detail and stay on track with all of my assigned tasks, I do not do so. The biggest personality trait that presented itself in this particular situation was my procrastination. I waited and waited, doing other things throughout the day, and before I knew it, not only was the deadline passed, but the day was ultimately over for both myself and the client. I also try and make everyone happy- ALL THE TIME. In my line of work, I simply cannot do that, and prioritization becomes a key skill in solving this problem. I tried to take on an almost impossible task, while also helping over 15 other clients throughout the day and, simply put, failed in doing so.
- This entire project has made me look further into a situation I had simply written off in my mind. I looked as myself as a failure in the situation and took nothing positive from it. In retrospect, I should have initially used the experience as a learning tool to help me in future situations as they inevitably present themselves. I know now that the client really had unrealistic expectations from the beginning, and it was much less my lack of performance than it was my failure to let her know that what she wanted just wasn’t feasible anyways.