Managing co-managers' expectations

There's a chinese saying, 一山容不了二虎. A mountain can't have 2 dominant tigers.

Unless the core of the business only have one department tapping on one source of manpower, it is important to be very clear what other departments want before attaching people to them.

Here are some tips to manage the different expectations of other managers!

1) Always keep track of the wherabout of your manpower to avoid oversupply or undersupply of manpower

2) Always be objective when understanding what other managers want from this manpower, list them down and ensure all jobs are done. This helps to account for performance of that individual and as well as our department.

3) It is known that sometimes an employee receives instructions from more than 1 manager. This is very common when this employee is multi-tasking in different projects. Thus, it is important to speak to other managers to align expectations to avoid confusion and potential conflicts.

4) Sometimes, expectations of difficult managers can be tough to manage. This often leads to less effective communication and can pose problems later. Hence, it is important we keep ourselves approachable to allow unhindered communications among co-managers.

5) It is important to align expectations with the higher management together with co-managers. The management team plays a very important role to the direction the company is taking.