Managers, organise your calendar like a pro

The managerial calendar is undoubtedly one of the most underrated tools in the manager's arsenal. And yet, it is one of the fundamental ones. Let's take a closer look in this article.

Let's be clear.

Without a managerial calendar, you're not managing anything: you're reacting.

You lose control of your posture, your authority crumbles, and your mental workload explodes.

Your team moves forward in a blur, with no clear direction and no regular feedback. Tensions arise because there are no formal forums for exchange.

Targets are no longer met, because deviations are neither seen nor corrected in time. Staff become demotivated, stagnate or leave. Other departments suffer as a result.

The company loses efficiency, cohesion and credibility.

Remember that chaos doesn't come from the field, it comes from absent management.

A Solid Manager structures, anticipates and maintains the framework: that's his or her primary responsibility.

Here it goes.

1. Clarify the purpose of your managerial calendar

Your calendar is not a gathering of meetings. It is a management tool for :

• meeting objectives and monitoring action,

• team performance and any necessary adjustments,

• regularity of your posture to ensure informal legitimacy and managerial consistency,

• reducing ‘noise’ and freeing you from improvisation.

2. Set the essential management times

These are the times you should never skip. Think of “managerial hygiene” as you would think of personal hygiene. Normally you only leave the house without washing up, in case of an emergency (don't you?), so it's the same thing for the “essential times” in the managerial calendar.

Here are the slots to put in your calendar, ranked.

1. Your individual managerial time

• daily

• 1h30, minimum

• objective: dealing with your administrative tasks, emails and structuring your management around the 5 core tasks,

2 . Annual individual reviews

(surprising, I know)

• annual

• 3 hours (minimum) per team member

• objective: to review performance

3 . Group interviews with the team

• bi-weekly (weekday opening and closing),

• 45 minutes (to be adjusted according to the size of the team),

• objective: opening the week, ‘where are we going to this week?’, and closing the week, ‘where have we gone to this week?

4. Individual interviews

• weekly, bi-monthly or monthly (I know it's broad but your activity and the size of your team are going to structure it),

• 30 / 45 minutes (to be adjusted according to the size of the team),

• objective: following up missions and project of the team member

5. Informal moments of connection

• daily (e.g. coffee time)

• 15 / 20 minutes

• objective: to maintain a true and sincere human connection

Follow a strict philosophy

If you are an operational manager, remember that you are first a manager, even before being an “operational”. All these points (including informal ones) are the priority of your business activities and should be entered in your Outlook/Google agenda as fixed appointments that cannot be cancelled unless there is a real emergency.

Protect these slots as you would protect a client meeting or a critical deadline. In the event of an unforeseen event, plan again, never delete without having planned another slot.

If you'd like help structuring your team leadership, get in touch.

To your solidity,

Olivier KAMEL