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Running a web marketing department in Corporate America is hard work! I’ve been here for about 15 minutes so far and I’ve already had to sign 4 documents! FOUR! I even have to READ these things before I sign them. I get paid to LEAD not to READ! Now granted, today is a light meeting day (only 3 scheduled) but seriously they better have bagels and / or donuts ready because all that listening and talking is gonna be SO HARD!
Decisions don’t just make themselves!
And now that I’m on the subject, let’s talk about these darn parties conferences, dinner parties off-site meetings, and vacations business trips. Getting paid to have a drink and laugh discuss business with friends business partners and coworkers is really difficult. Really.
…uhm I hope you’re picking up the tongue in cheek tone of this message…
[transition]
Honestly, the differences between upper management and professional services amazes me to this day. The more I climb up the ladder… the more I explain, communicate, decide, and delegate, and the less I actually do. It amazes me that I actually do less of the doing, but I become more important. Such a weird mind shift.
When I first started in web marketing, my job was to do EVERYTHING. I ran my own web design and marketing company, MCP Media. I had to learn it all, and get it all done myself. Nobody to delegate to. This was great training, because now I know at least a little of pretty much every aspect of web marketing, I even know a real lot about some key aspects.
As my career matures, I have become a mentor, a decision maker, a trainer, a coach, a motivator, and the guy who takes responsibility for others’ actions. But I do less actual work work… it’s so weird. At first I felt guilty about it. It was such an odd transition from being the only one I trusted to do any task to having everybody else do things I need done. I’d go home at the end of the day and I felt like I didn’t have my hands right in there for the entire day. It didn’t feel like work. But I still had no time to breath because I was busy pushing others to succeed and keeping things running.
Has anybody else felt this type of guilty feeling when learning to delegate instead of doing it all? Have you had difficulties in trusting others to get things done right? Have you been in that same quandary, you do less but you’re needed more and paid better? Do you spend all day meeting with people instead of designing, developing, number crunching, and things of that nature? Do you sign things all day?
I wanna hear from people who have experienced the same weird feelings I have about moving up the corporate ladder so I can assure myself that this type of feeling is more normal than I think.
Tags: Professional, Signal
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Leave YOUR Comments!
Aaron Chronister Says:
September 21st, 2007 at 11:53 am
I’m totally in the same boat. More meetings, more explaining, more reports and less work. I think all in-house SEO’s are probably up against the same garbage. One of the major drawbacks of staying in corporate (or semi-corporate) America.
As for the feeling guilty, definitely not. Give the grunt work to the underlings so you can focus on higher level stuff.
Cygnus Says:
September 21st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
It’s totally normal to feel the way you do. Soon you’ll notice hair in strange places and your voice will deepen too.
Congrats again.
Chris Hooley Says:
September 21st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
lmfao! Cygnus, what’s a dikfor?
Rach Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Chris - it is very natural to feel this way during the transition… you still retain all the accountability but done of the actualy responsibility - which is hard for type a, control freaks like US! (and i mean that in the nicest possible context - loveya! ) -the changes in work - is now you are to motivate, inspire, delegate and manage… much tougher as these things are not tangible and the outcome is not in your control - a paradigm shift for sure.
mb - geeks Says:
September 24th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I feel ya….I went up the ladder then climbed back down intentionally.
You can only take so many ‘meetings, just to schedule meetings’ and it’s scary when your reports start to know more then you, because you are in hiring, budget, or strategic planning meetings all day, while they are on the ‘front’ lines, keeping abreast of what the hell is going on out there.
Enjoy the free meals!
Pny
John Power Says:
September 29th, 2007 at 1:57 am
I have a lot problem with delegation when i started because i am a perfectionist. Now I try to let go a little but its still hard.
Pamcakes Says:
October 1st, 2007 at 11:08 pm
The hardest part for me is telling people to do something I could do just as easily. But how else will they learn and do more so you can sit back and “manage”?
Emotion Says:
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:32 am
I agree with you John, really, I’m also a very perfectionist person, so I think we all are in a certain way.
Ump Says:
October 11th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I’d rather do real ‘work’ and not delegate. I tried the delegation thing and i dunno, the sense of REALLY completing a project than just watching someone do it is more rewarding. I prefer to be a ‘working manager’ and stay in touch with those around me. I’ve never been keen on being seen as one of ‘the suits’…it’s not worth the loss of true friends to the pretentiousness, but that’s my opinion.
I like gettin my hands dirty and plan on staying that way.
Congrats bro!
A
Lynn ("Mommy" to the TB's in the blog listed) Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Type B personality responding here! When working for others, my requirements were fairly simple:
1.) Warmth in winter, cool in summer.
2.) 37.5 hours work for a 40 hour work week.
3.) At least half an hour for lunch.
4.) A fair number of days off for sickness and vacation.
5.) No bosses looking over my shoulder, once they trust that I’m doing the work properly and timely.
6.) Fair pay and merited raises as requested, (assuming I could prove the merit, since the last raise.)
Meetings?! Perfect waste of time usually, for me. I was hired to do a job, just leave me alone to do the job. Most of the meetings I’ve ever attended came under several headings:
- Pep talks.
- Keeping everyone in the loop as to what’s going on within the company/department.
- Bosses liking to prove themselves important.
- New direction/new techniques for working in the department.
Out of all of those, only the last one was worth attending, and even that was iffy, depending if the new way of doing something was useful or, at least, purposeful.
Maybe it’s different for other services, but I’ve been in a variety of jobs in a variety of services such as counselor for rehab, runaways/throwaways, and other folks in dire need, teacher, telemarketer for business to business, office manager for an ad agency and the maintenance department for a property management group (900+ apartments), and bookkeeper/office manager for another apartment management outfit and a lighting/outlet manufacturer. Shouldn’t most employees know their jobs, and need little supervision to do the jobs? Seems to me, meetings are generally a waste of needed time!
And as for delegating, not being a boss over the people I’ve delegated to (bosses suggested I ask, and I did politely ask, giving them a chance to say “No,” if they wouldn’t or couldn’t), I’ve never had that work out for me, ending up rushing to get the job done, including shoving in lunch and working on it at the diner, to make sure I didn’t get interrupted from coworkers and bosses.
I don’t trust others to do my work, so I ended up doing the obvious — started my own business. Before my chronic health problems forced me to end the business, I was just getting to the point of outsourcing others to help me do a particular job. Even there, I discovered that there were two people I could trust to help me, and one that was rather useless (constantly asking how to do the work — simply typing addresses into a database — not even as tough as telemarketing in brain power needed.)
Gotta admit, I admire you for climbing the coorporate ladder. I’ve calculated that less then half the work force has the ability to do that, and much less then that have the will power to shut up or speak up at the right times, to get passed the first rung.
Just one question, is that coorporate ladder the best choice for you, job wise? No need to answer me, just a question you might want to ask yourself, but if it feels wrong, because you are a doer, not a delagator, or you spend most of your hours doing stuff you hate doing, it might be wise to search for the job or business that you can get into, and enjoy most the time. At the very least, most people spend 25% of their time at work, during their working years. Life is too short to spend it hating 25% of it! Probably why the “best” time to get a heart attack is Sunday afternoon or night.
Mark Says:
November 15th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
If you’re feeling guilty about orchestrating the work instead of doing the work, it shows you don’t understand your own value to the company. One of the hardest thing for individually talented people to understand is that individually talented people aren’t really that hard to come by. The people that are worth the most to a company (and as a result get paid a lot more) are those hard to find managers who can create an environment where individually talented people thrive.
The real money and profit in this world is in effectively orchestrating the work of others as opposed to doing it yourself.
J. Paul Getty - “I’d rather have 1% of the efforts of 100 men than 100% of my own efforts.”
sharon q Says:
November 27th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Hi Chris,
You feel guilty for doing less? Maybe you’re a lot smarter than a lot of web marketers who feel they have to do it all (entrepreneurial ego perhaps?). But as James Brausch says, his Freedom Business System automates most tasks these days so you have more time for the nitty gritty. He even says, “get yourself out of the picture.” Has anyone else read about Brausch’s methods?
Simon Smith Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I agree with John Power, Delegating really doesn’t work because nobody can do it how i want it done! SEO takes a lot of time and effort which nobody else seems to be willing to put in.
There are some great tools out there, James Brausch has givn me some fantastic suggestions. These aren’t magic solutions however.
Jerrific Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
A wise manager told me once when I first expressed feeling that way ‘if you keep all of your people productive, then you have had a productive day’.
Delegation also requires empowerment and a great leader cultivates that environment.
News » Conference Burnout Says:
February 14th, 2008 at 8:39 am
[...] see too much opportunity to have to travel once or twice a month. And conference overload leads to burnout, a line I am near more often than I should [...]