Enhancing Work Execution for Federal Managers
Kyle Denton, Vice President, FMA Chapter 14
In today’s fast-paced, complex work environment, federal managers must lead their teams to achieve mission objectives efficiently and effectively. The question that often comes to mind is “how?” There are more requirements, tasks, and workloads on managers than ever before, so how can we get more done in less time? With this question in mind, I started interviewing federal managers as part of the Executive Development Program in 2022 and have continued today with my doctoral research.
One key repeated message across dozens of successful managers is to “elevate your mindset.” This includes thinking and acting, where your tasks help the next level of leadership to succeed. If you are a first-level supervisor, try to think through and meet the needs of your second-level supervisor. If you’re a department head, you apply the same logic to helping NAVSEA meet their needs.
At each level, whether out on the deck plates or in your own corner office decked out with a conference room table, we each have tasks to execute and higher-level processes and strategies to getting work done. When things get tough, and the workload increases, it can be natural and easy to focus on getting more done to free up time. Instead, this continually builds up a bow wave of tasks, and new tasks pop in every time you complete one and “put it in the drawer.”
Elevating your leadership mindset by focusing on higher-level strategic thinking rather than the minutiae of task execution can significantly enhance work execution and drive organizational success. In my most recent interviews, I learned how Jane Smith (her name has been changed to protect her anonymity) has been using technology to elevate her mindset. With new tools, she transformed her team’s performance through strategic leadership, overcoming resistance along the way.
Communicating Vision
Jane started by articulating a clear, compelling vision for her team, aligning with their part of the shipyard’s and Navy’s broader mission. During a team meeting, she shared her vision of transforming their unit into the shipyard’s most efficient and innovative support team. Initially, some team members were skeptical, questioning how this vision could be realistically achieved. Jane addressed these concerns by sharing stories of past successes and future possibilities, vividly depicting the potential impact. This vision motivated her team and provided a sense of purpose, guiding their efforts toward a common goal. As a result, team members understood how their work contributed to the larger mission and felt a sense of pride and increased morale.
Alignment to the Mission
Jane introduced a regular review process using Microsoft Teams Meetings with clear agendas and expectations for weekly project evaluations to ensure her team’s tasks and projects aligned with the Navy’s mission. Some team members resisted this change, preferring the old, informal methods where they showed up and just talked through what came to mind. Jane overcame this resistance by demonstrating how the new system improved transparency and efficiency. She specifically identified how it could help ease their frustrations. People wouldn’t be caught off guard by questions that came up, the agenda told them what to prepare for. They could spend more time focusing on solutions and planning the next step instead of describing the problem or grasping for answers they didn’t have at hand.
Not every frustration could be answered, but she actively took these in and wrote them down, seeing different ways the team members suggested they might be solved. This was how she introduced the team to Microsoft Planner. As they moved from the frustration of the change, they started tackling frustrations experienced with their regular work. They started keeping the regular project information for various tasks and initiatives in Microsoft Planner, ensuring they kept it up to date and used all the features to assign action owners, start and finish dates, priority, and adding links and files for projects directly to the action cards.
Details included what problems the task or initiative was intended to solve, tied to the mission of the shipyard and the Navy. This helped them prioritize and get things done quicker, rather than having a large WIP and constantly shuffling through tasks. When a low-priority project was consuming significant resources, Jane and her team used data from Microsoft Planner to redirect efforts to more critical tasks. This realignment helped her team stay focused and efficient. By prioritizing tasks that added value, Jane maintained a clear direction and accountability within the team. Along the way, they discovered that mission-aligned, high-impact, high-value-added tasks gained more stakeholder support.
Guiding Effective Communication
Effective communication was another cornerstone of Jane’s leadership. She established open-door policies and regular feedback sessions using a channel on Microsoft Teams for discussions. Initially, there was resistance to adopting Teams, with some team members preferring traditional emails. The key complaint tended to focus on the “task tracking” ability that you get with read/unread emails. By keeping action tracking in Planner, there were fewer emails, and the Teams chats could focus on getting the final product or action complete. Jane helped her team along this journey by organizing training sessions and showing the benefits of real-time communication and collaboration. One team member suggested integrating Microsoft OneNote for shared documentation, which Jane approved and encouraged. This proactive approach to communication ensured that everyone was on the same page, preventing misunderstandings and fostering a collaborative environment.
Driving Change through Empowerment
When Jane first started out with her team, she found there were three types of employees. The most desirable type were self-starters who kept her informed at the right-level, identified the right work, and collaborated across the right stakeholders. Two other types introduced opposite problems: the employee who would wait until told to do something and the employee who would go off on their own and work on seemingly disconnected, low-value tasks. Empowering her team to take ownership of their work and develop standard processes became a game-changer. Instead of dictating every step, Jane reinforced how Teams can be used to collaborate with other branches and divisions, Planner could be used for various working groups, and OneNote could provide a collaborative documentation.
More than just the current tools she showed the team, Jane provided a framework for innovation. She encouraged her team to propose improvements to existing workflows and see how new Flank Speed tools were being used by others to make work easier. Initially, there was hesitation, with some members doubting their ideas would be valued. Jane held brainstorming sessions and celebrated successful initiatives. One day, a junior employee developed a new inventory management system using SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lists that reduced errors and saved time. Jane encouraged the employee to work with others on the team, and they quickly rallied around and implemented the idea. By supporting such initiatives, Jane fostered a culture of continuous improvement, enhancing productivity and instilling a sense of pride and ownership among her team members.
It’s Not About The Technology
Elevating your leadership mindset by focusing on higher-level strategic elements can transform
the way your team executes their work. As Jane Smith’s story demonstrates, “strategic
leadership” is not some esoteric framework or vendor course you have to get certified in, but
instead a set of aligned actions. While Jane used tools from Flank Speed, other tools could serve
just as well. The real story of Jane’s success is the way she focused on the power of clear vision,
mission alignment, effective communication, and empowerment in driving team success, even in
the face of resistance.
By adopting these strategies, you too can lead your team to not only meet but exceed mission
objectives, ensuring the United States Navy is prepared to defend liberty on our shores and
project peace across the globe. This mindset shift requires moving from managing tasks to
leading people, but the rewards—enhanced team performance, increased morale, and greater
mission success—are well worth the effort.