Managing your Time and Training Employees in a Chaotic Market

Communication Resources has grown by leaps and bounds in the last year.  In a relatively short time frame, we have grown from 3 employees to 8 communication professionals.  I’m learning that growth is tough but can also be pretty exciting. I’m enjoying having a team who can back up my clients with strong research, training design and technical skill. However, more employees and more projects means that I need to practice what I preach relative to strong project management.

Like many of my clients, I’m finding that the market is moving faster and is less predictable than ever before.  I may find myself in St. Louis one week and in Austin or Orlando the next.  Some weeks I might just find myself working at my desk. It’s extremely difficult to predict which way the market will swing or where my time will be needed next. Schedules are tighter, clients are more demanding, and it’s getting tougher to balance all the demands on our time.  At Communication Resources, we like to say that “We pull the rabbit of the hat,” for clients. When I created this saying, I never realized just how tired the rabbit was going to get.

So, the real question is, how do we learn to manage this chaotic market? I’m finding that, as a manager, I need to lean more on the incredible staff members I’ve brought on board.  From technical writing and proposal review, to presentation research and training design, we can only get it all done by working as a team.  Utilizing the skills of my staff provides an incredible opportunity for me to mentor the next generation of professionals, while growing my business. I’m still leading incredible presentation teams to win great work, and flying from one end of the county to the next.  But, I like to think we’re all working smarter while, by necessity, we work faster. Maybe this new market reality is a good time for those of us who are in the middle to later years of our career to intentionally mentor younger professionals and start thinking about the firms we’ll leave behind.  The professionals we develop and pour into today will be the ones who will take this industry to the next level. I’m not leaving any time soon but, this period of growth and chaos is making me think harder about my responsibilities as a professional and about the real value each of us brings to our profession.

The best strategy firms can use to thrive in this chaotic, unpredictable market is to invest in mentoring and training employees. During busy seasons, it is often difficult to implement strong project management skills. But, constantly running a hundred miles an hour with our hair on fire and simply reacting to crisis isn’t a healthy, sustainable business model. All our firms could benefit tremendously from taking a collective deep breath, and from a philosophy that prizes employees and invests in their professional growth.