Condo Media - January 2014 - 36

by Julie Adamen

MANAGEMENT

The Art of Getting Things Done
Why Are Some Managers Better Than Others?

R

emember your first day in the
management office you now
work for? You could spot the
good managers, the not-sogood ones, and those select few who
truly excel at their jobs. So what is it
that makes some managers better than
others? They know how to get things
done. They find, organize, prioritize,
and schedule. Then, they act.
What do you need to act?
* Discipline
* Problem-solving skills
* Confident decision making
* A "move it" attitude

Discipline

Developing personal discipline means making a decision to do your best at all
times no matter what.
Completing your
minutes in a timely
fashion, making
your action list, and
regularly updating
your master calendar
all require personal
discipline. Luckily,
the more you practice
personal discipline,
the easier and more
natural it becomes.
Tackling the tasks you
most dread also takes
an enormous amount of
discipline. As a community
manager, you will inevitably have some work that is
easily put off with no one being
the wiser (at least for a while - we
call that "flying under the radar"). To
be a good, or great, manager you must
develop the personal resolve to tackle all
36

tasks - however unpleasant - and follow through all by yourself.

Problem Solving

When people are faced with a seemingly overwhelming issue, they will do
one or all of the following: walk around
in circles; flap their arms; focus on
some minute aspect of the problem; or
ignore it and hope it goes away.
Community managers do not have
this luxury. They must be able to
analyze a given situation, quickly boil it

down to its simplest components, and
act. In other words, they must move
past the symptoms of the disease and
then on to a cure - or bring options
for the board for further guidance.
Most importantly, managers must be
able to ascertain which problems can
be cured and which they will only be
able to mitigate. The reality is that some
boards will not step up to the plate and
address problems that have a host of awful symptoms. Things may be truly out
of the manager's hands. Recognizing
this fact is a talent unto itself.
As an example, let's say you are
regularly receiving complaints about
a particular flowerbed. The plants
live for a brief time and then
suddenly die. Treating the
symptom would mean
continually placing
new flowers in the
bed. But if you boil it
down to the root (no
pun intended) of the
problem, there has
to be some underlying cause for this
problem. It could
be the flower vendor's responsibility
because the plants
are diseased. Perhaps
an owner is poisoning
them because he does
not like the color. Has
the landscaper installed
insufficient irrigation?
Maybe it is no one's fault
and is simply a problem with
soil contamination.
If the rest of the flowers in the community last like they should, it's probably
not the vendor's fault. The owner loves
the color and flower type, so it's unlikely

Condo Media * January 2014

CM0114_Management.indd 36

12/3/13 11:57 AM
Condo Media - January 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Condo Media - January 2014
