Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip comes from Lindsay Pollock, who's an expert on
Speaker 1: generations in the workplace. Her new book The Remix looks
Speaker 1: at how smart managers work with diverse teams. One productivity strategy,
Speaker 1: she suggests hold office hours. You might remember this idea
Speaker 1: from college. Many universities require professors to hold office hours.
Speaker 1: The professor hangs out in his or her office, ideally
Speaker 1: with the door open. Students can come to ask questions
Speaker 1: or discuss topics during this time. Sometimes professors grumble about this,
Speaker 1: but there's an upside, even for people who would prefer
Speaker 1: to spend all their time in the books or in
Speaker 1: the lab. When students know there's a time they're completely
Speaker 1: free to come visit, they may be less likely to
Speaker 1: stop by at times when the professor would prefer they
Speaker 1: not visit. Scheduled availability allows for other periods of focus.
Speaker 1: Polic suggests bringing the same practice into the corporate world.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's probably even a better idea in the
Speaker 1: corporate world than at universities. Wise managers realize that everyone
Speaker 1: craves feedback and often just attention in general from their bosses. Ideally,
Speaker 1: you'd be able to give feedback and attention every day
Speaker 1: to everyone who works for you. Unfortunately, in the real world,
Speaker 1: people sometimes find themselves in charge of groups that are
Speaker 1: large enough that daily individual feedback would leave zero time
Speaker 1: for anything else. So here's what Polic suggests. If you
Speaker 1: lead too large a team for ongoing individual feedback to
Speaker 1: be realistic, she writes, then consider offering regular office hours
Speaker 1: during which anyone can schedule an appointment or just pop
Speaker 1: into talk in person or via phone, Skype, text, instant messenger,
Speaker 1: or any other medium. She notes that one of my clients,
Speaker 1: a millennial I t R, offers office hours to his
Speaker 1: intergenerational team from eight am to nine am every weekday morning.
Speaker 1: If no one shows up, he uses the time to
Speaker 1: catch up on his own work, and if any of
Speaker 1: his direct reports want to talk about a non urgent
Speaker 1: business issue at any other time of the day, he
Speaker 1: feels no guilt reminding them exactly when he is available
Speaker 1: for feedback and career related conversations. I think this is
Speaker 1: a great idea. One of the most common questions I'm
Speaker 1: asked is about how to handle distractions in the office.
Speaker 1: I ask follow up questions to figure out what those
Speaker 1: distractions entail, and people often mentioned colleagues stopping by to chat.
Speaker 1: I recognize this can be annoying if your colleague wants
Speaker 1: to come talk about that crazy thing that happened with
Speaker 1: his house renovation and you're on deadline. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Once you're in management, interruptions from the people who report
Speaker 1: to you aren't exactly distractions. In many cases, they are
Speaker 1: the core of your job. You want people to trust
Speaker 1: you so they take critical feedback and follow in the
Speaker 1: direction you lead. You want them to want to do
Speaker 1: their best work for you, and people only want to
Speaker 1: do their best work for people who seem genuinely interested
Speaker 1: in them. While a professor could get away with having
Speaker 1: office hours on just Thursday afternoons, if you make people
Speaker 1: wait a week to see their managers, they're not going
Speaker 1: to be happy about it. So the hour a day
Speaker 1: idea that Pollock suggests works, well, maybe it's eight to
Speaker 1: nine am, like the I t leaders she spoke with,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's one to two after lunch or four
Speaker 1: to five at the end of the day. Figure out
Speaker 1: what feels right for you and even if you're not
Speaker 1: in management, you might figure out ways to indicate that
Speaker 1: now is a good time for drop by chats and
Speaker 1: other times are not so good. Some people do this,
Speaker 1: whether intentionally or not, by putting headphones in. Blocking your
Speaker 1: ears raises the bar for interruptions. Though to make this work,
Speaker 1: you need times when your headphones aren't in two Otherwise
Speaker 1: people won't honor the signal and they'll be annoyed as well.
Speaker 1: Some teams decide to create quiet hours and then also
Speaker 1: collaborative hours so everyone can get both kinds of work done.
Speaker 1: Some offices create the equivalent of the quiet car on
Speaker 1: the train, a conference room with a library like atmosphere.
Speaker 1: If someone's in there, you don't bother them except in
Speaker 1: an emergency if they come out fair game, or you
Speaker 1: could think creatively. Productivity pro Laura Stack once suggested that
Speaker 1: open plan offices that pride themselves on their whimsy could
Speaker 1: use thinking caps, some sort of wacky hat. When you
Speaker 1: wear it, you don't want to be interrupted. When you're
Speaker 1: not wearing the thinking cap, all is good. In any case,
Speaker 1: Creating time when visits are welcome helps create time when
Speaker 1: people might be more likely to give you space being
Speaker 1: productive requires a bit of both. How do you balance
Speaker 1: interaction with focused work. I'd love to hear about it.
Speaker 1: You can email me at Before Breakfast podcast at i
Speaker 1: heeart media dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
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