The Deliberate Manager – Seven Steps to Scheduling Yourself for Success

Most of us become managers because we excelled at our previous jobs, not because we had a grand vision for leadership. One day we’re individual contributors, and the next we’re juggling endless meetings, urgent emails, and last-minute crises while trying to develop our teams in whatever slivers of time we can find. Sound familiar?

Here’s the hard truth: great management doesn’t happen in the margins of your day. It requires deliberate time and attention. But here’s the good news — you don’t need a management degree to get it right. With a few practical steps, you can carve out the time to lead effectively and still keep your sanity.

Step One: Figure Out Where Your Time Actually Goes
Before you can fix anything, you need to know what’s broken. Start by tracking your time for one week — every single thing you do, from impromptu hallway chats to late-night email marathons.

Look honestly at how much time is going toward reactive firefighting, how much is lost to email and admin work, how much of your meeting time is actually productive, and how much of your day is spent in real, meaningful conversations with your team.

The results might be sobering. Many managers discover they’re dedicating little to no time to actual leadership. That’s okay. This exercise isn’t about guilt; it’s about identifying the problem so you can fix it.

Ask yourself: Where am I spending time that doesn’t align with my priorities as a manager?

Step Two: Block Your Calendar Like You Mean It
Once you know where your time is going, it’s time to reclaim it. Treat management time as non- negotiable, just like a critical client meeting or a project deadline. That means blocking time for weekly planning (30 to 60 minutes to review priorities and get organized), brief daily check-ins with yourself each morning, regular one-on-ones with each team member, and dedicated space for team development.

One-on-ones in particular deserve a standing spot on your calendar, not just a slot you fill when something goes wrong. The same goes for team development, whether that’s a workshop, a group discussion, or time to share skills across the team.

Ask yourself: Is my calendar reflecting my role as a leader, or am I letting other priorities take over?

Step Three: Learn to Let Go
You can’t do it all, and you shouldn’t try. Delegation isn’t about offloading work you don’t want to do. It’s about empowering your team while freeing up your own time to focus on higher-level priorities. Before you delegate, think through a few things: What tasks are you currently doing that someone else could handle? Who on your team is ready for more responsibility? Are you providing clear instructions and expectations? And how will you check progress without micromanaging?

Done well, delegation is one of the most powerful tools in a manager’s toolkit. It builds capability on your team and gives you back the time you need to lead.

Ask yourself: Am I delegating effectively, or am I holding on to tasks my team could manage?

Step Four: Stop Playing Whack-a-Mole with Problems
Reactive management is a time and energy drain. It’s like bailing water out of a boat without
plugging the leak — you stay busy but never make real progress. The antidote is proactive
management: looking for patterns in recurring problems, building systems or processes to
prevent issues from arising in the first place, and fostering a culture where team members feel
safe raising concerns early, before they become crises.

This shift takes time to build, but it pays dividends. Every fire you prevent is time you get to spend actually leading.

Ask yourself: Am I spending more time fixing problems or preventing them?

Step Five: Make Development Conversations Count
Conversations about growth aren’t just nice to have. They’re essential for your team’s success and, over time, for reducing your own workload. When your team is developing their skills, fewer fires land on your desk.

Come to one-on-ones prepared. Review recent work, know your team members’ goals, and ask about their aspirations and challenges. Set clear, actionable next steps and follow up on them — show that these conversations aren’t just lip service. At the team level, encourage peer learning, share skills across the group, and give stretch assignments that challenge people without overwhelming them.

Ask yourself: Am I dedicating enough time to helping my team grow?

Step Six: Guard Your Time
Your time is one of your most valuable resources, and it’s your job to protect it. Let your team know when you’re available and when you need uninterrupted focus time. Clearly define what counts as an emergency, set boundaries for interruptions, and train your team to handle certain situations on their own.

This isn’t about being inaccessible. It’s about being intentional so that when you are present, you can give your full attention to what matters most.

Ask yourself: Am I setting and enforcing boundaries that allow me to focus on high-priority work?

Step Seven: Check Your Progress Regularly
Management is a constant learning process, and regular self-assessment is essential. Schedule time to reflect on what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change. Are you consistently holding to your management time? Is your team performing better? Do you feel more in control, or are you still overwhelmed? These questions don’t have permanent answers — check in on them often.

The Last Idea
Becoming a better manager isn’t about working more hours or saying yes to everything. It’s about being intentional with your time and energy. Start small. Block time for one-on-ones. Carve out 30 minutes each week for planning. Build from there.

Your team doesn’t need another firefighter. They need a leader who knows how to manage time, build trust, and drive progress. The first step is deciding to be deliberate about it.

Ask yourself: What’s the first thing you’re going to block time for this week?

Kate Zabriskie is the president of Business Training Works, Inc., a Virginia-based talent development firm. She and her team provide onsite, virtual, and online soft-skills training courses and workshops to clients in the United States and internationally. For more information, visit www.businesstrainingworks.com.

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How To Pitch Big Ideas To Senior Stakeholders – Six Steps To Doing It In 10 Sentences

By Rebecca Okamoto

Jennifer had a problem. She was the program manager for the number two business priority at a multi-billion-dollar company: rolling out sustainability programs in manufacturing. But when she presented, she kept hearing: Too complicated; Too time consuming and Too costly. And she couldn’t figure it out.

She was a top-rated engineer, handpicked to lead a CEO-mandated program. Sustainability had long-term margin impact – and with her modified approach – could even bring savings forward into this fiscal
year. But whenever she gave an update saying, “I have a proposal to accelerate the sustainability program into this fiscal year,” she was told, “No.”

Her big barrier? The number one priority – a business-wide ERP upgrade that was monopolizing capital, downtime and resources.

Jennifer’s response was to dig deep. It was clear her SVP didn’t see how both priorities could be executed at the same time. To bust his outdated beliefs, Jennifer doubled down on granular details and specific timelines.

After more rejections and pressure mounting, Jennifer needed a different approach. She had just learned about pitching the big picture, so at the next SVP touch base, instead of a 30-minute line-by-line review, Jennifer gave a 5-minute update.

And in 10 sentences she:

• Explained breakthrough value.
• Shot down conventional wisdom.
• Created real interest in her unique approach.
• Described a few incredible, tangible benefits.
• Outlined the critical next steps.

Everyone in the room did a doubletake. Immediately the SVP asked her to schedule time to review her proposal in depth. That’s the power of pitching the big picture.

To many people, pitching is a mystery. It’s a fantastic skill if you know how to do it, but next to impossible to teach, especially to super-smart engineers or analysts who love to go deep.

But here’s the thing . . .pitching is not just a marketing skill, a sales tool or a gimmick. It’s an essential communication tool with a specific, time-sensitive objective. You don’t use it to update, review, educate or
entertain. Pitch when you need to attract and intrigue your time-pressed stakeholder and convince them to say, “Tell me more.”

Ready to pitch the big picture in 10 sentences or less? Here’s how.

Step 1: Explain your strategic insight in one sentence – this is the big picture.

Think of the big picture as the ONE thing you want your key stakeholder to remember and explain to others.

It should answer the following in 20 words or less:

What’s your topic and why should I care compared to my other priorities?

The big picture should address your stakeholder’s top-of-mind concerns, not yours. When you use their priorities, they’ll want to know more. Check out Jennifer’s before and after.

Before: I have a proposal to accelerate the sustainability program into this fiscal year.

After: I’ve identified high savings, low capital and complexity sustainability projects that can be deployed with ERP upgrades this fiscal.

Step 2: Match their top-of-mind priorities.

If the first sentence is intended to capture attention, your next two to three sentences are designed to keep it. Share background that demonstrates you’re on the same page and give a few facts that match your stakeholder’s top-of-mind priorities.

Get them to think, “Right. That’s what I’ve been worried about” Or, “Good one!”

Don’t skip this step.

It’s tempting to think, “They already know this” and move straight to your topic. But the thing is, people pay attention to what they know. The right background keeps your audience engaged.

As we’ve discussed, the ERP upgrade and sustainability are both viewed as critical, but conventional wisdom says they can’t be deployed at the same time due to cost, complexity and resource constraints.

ERP is clearly mission-critical for long-term margin improvement and asset utilization. However, consumers are increasingly demanding sustainable solutions and companies like ABC have taken a leadership position.

STEP 3: Provoke them to action.

Now that you’re on the same page, motivate or provoke your audience to action by reminding them what’s at stake.

Your goal is to strike a nerve with a critical problem or point out a showstopper that primes your audience for action and shifts them into thinking, “Something needs to be done.”

The bigger problem is we also have waste reduction commitments and short-and long-term margin improvement pinned to making significant progress on sustainability this year.

STEP 4: Tell them how you’ll solve their problem or resolve a showstopper.

You’ve motivated them to action, now tell them in one or two sentences that you’ve solved their problem. You can repeat your claim from step 1 or give them more specifics.

I’ve identified some low-capital, low-cost, high-savings sustainability projects that can be deployed during ERP integration and scheduled down time.

STEP 5: Tell them, “So what.” Address one to three key objections and tell them what will be different.

This is your conclusion. Your conclusion should address one to three key objections and answer the question, “What will be different?” This gives your listener reasons to believe you and helps them envision the improvement.

There are several promising projects: the best ROI is an air-handling retrofit designed for aging dust handling systems like ours. Even with a limited roll out it can reduce emissions by 10-15%. I’ve been coordinating with manufacturing, and my suggested projects are within this year’s resource plan, scheduled downtime and contingency budgets.

STEP 6: Tell them, “Now what.”

Once they understand your conclusion your audience should be ready for more. End by telling them the status, next steps, or give them a call to action.

There’s a small technical team vetting the scope, and we can start implementation within 90 days and see savings this fiscal.

You can pitch the big picture in as few as 10 sentences. The right 10 sentences will attract your stakeholder, target their priorities, and shift their point of view. Use the framework to ensure your narrative is tight and your conclusions will feel logical, smart, and breakthrough.

And instead of being told, “No,” or “I don’t get it,” you’ll hear, “Set up time and tell me more!”

Rebecca Okamoto is a clarity consultant, and the founder of Evoke Strategy Group. Her expertise is teaching professionals to successfully pitch, persuade and present to attention-deficit audiences. Rebecca
consults with corporate leaders who struggle to explain the strategic value of complex ideas to senior stakeholders. Her signature approach is how to introduce, market and influence with a 20-word sound bite.

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Have you Heard about the Ransomware Attack on Car Dealerships?

Have you heard about the ransomware attack on car dealerships?

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Severe Security Flaws in Mobile Chipset Expose Voice and Data

According to this article published on the Bleeping Computer website, Google’s Project Zero bug hunting team has reported the results of an investigation that uncovered 18 zero-day vulnerabilities in mobile devices that use Samsung’s EXYNOS modem chipset. Among the vulnerabilities are some that allow attackers to steal data and monitor conversations simply by knowing your mobile phone number.

Vulnerability is present when using free wi-fi calling and Voice over LTE!

Of the 18 vulnerabilities discovered by the team, 14 have already been addressed by Samsung, and they have provided patches to various device distributors. However, Samsung does not control when those distributors make the patches available to the public. The remaining 4 vulnerabilities are so severe that Google has broken with tradition and elected NOT to make details of the vulnerabilities public until Samsung has more time to address the issues.

Devices affected by the security vulnerabilities include Samsung phone models (S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21, A13, A12 and A04 series); Vivo phone models (S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series); Pixel phone models (Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series); as well as any wearables using the Exynos W920 chipset and any vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5183 chipset.

Steps to Protect Yourself from these Vulnerabilities

1. Ensure that you have updated the software on your mobile devices (including wearables and in-car systems) as soon as a patch is released. If you are unsure whether your device or vehicle is affected, contact the manufacturer for guidance.
2. If your mobile device is on the list, stop using your device to place free phone calls over the internet. Only place calls using your phone’s SIM card.

Summary

Most of the security flaws discussed here have already been patched, so if you are allowing your devices to apply security updates, you are at least partially protected. By discontinuing the use of free wifi calling using the internet, you can avoid having your data and voice calls monitored and stolen.

Jack Eisenberg, Owner
Safe and Secure Computing

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Digital Safety Program for All

The Brain Injury Association of Windsor and Essex County (BIAWE) is pleased to present four free public sessions about common safety issues one encounters when using technology such as a cell phone, chrome book, computer, or tablet.

Each year thousands of Canadians are targeted for online and telephone scams, frauds, and account breaches. Such security threats include calls from fake support, the CRA scam, phishing emails, and ransom viruses. This four-part series will provide information about common safety issues encountered with technology and online use and how to manage these threats and secure safety.

Kevin Cosgrove, a highly regarded Certified IT Technician and Civilian Security Advisor will be presenting the sessions. Attendees will learn more about understanding their device and internet addresses, setting up emails and keeping them safe. WIFI security, password management, junk programs and much more will be discussed.

To accommodate most everyone, these sessions will be offered in-person at 1100 University Ave. W. on Saturdays January 14, February 4, February 25 and March 18 at 1:00. People who attend the in-person sessions can bring their technology devices to get individual help. For those who cannot attend, the sessions will be offered on zoom.

Registration is required for the in-person sessions through Eventbrite.

This program has been made available through funding provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

The Brain Injury Association of Windsor and Essex County’s mission is to enhance the lives of those affected by an acquired brain injury through education, support and advocacy.

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