Sometimes you need to play Whack-A-Mole, and that’s ok.
When deciding the topic for my next article, I thought back to the questions I get asked most often. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of interesting people at different points in their career - both within Social Chain and outside - and the same question repeatedly crops up.
“What does your day to day look like?”
Honestly, I couldn’t give you a definitive answer. No day is the same. I can have a great plan in my head on the drive into work, have decided what things I really need to get done that day (writing an article is usually one of them!), but I can walk into the office and my day can completely change. For a control freak like me, this can ensues panic and sometimes I can feel like I’m losing control. Having those niggling feelings of forgetting things actually held me back from getting anything done for a while. It was only when I was in a meeting with a new client that I realised I wasn’t on my own feeling like this. The client in question had just started a new role themselves, and we began talking about how they were finding it. Their response was; ‘I’m on a constant game of whack-a-mole!’ That was it. Summed up perfectly. I’m playing my own personal version of whack-a-mole and that was the cause of these feelings.
I see the synergy between this and Imposter Syndrome and how it makes me feel about not being involved in the day-to-day work for the agency. I’m not writing proposals or strategies and I’m not involved in creative executions as much as I’d like to be which often makes me feel guilty. One of my greatest work fears is the worry that the team around me are thinking ‘what does she do?’ I want to ensure that, as a leader, I am accessible and that the team can see how my input helps the overall business.
We all get to this stage in our careers where the focus shifts. We move from being doers 100% of the time, to getting involved in people management, team structures, commercial proposals and finance quandaries. Moving out of the business outputs can often leave you feeling unsure of your value, but I’ve learnt that by enabling both yourself and your team to grow, they can learn and move up to do the work you were doing, which then gives you more time to strategise and come up with new ideas and solutions for your clients.
I’ve had to learn how to make time to strategise, when you end up playing whack-a-mole on a near daily basis. Here are some of my tips that I have gathered over the last few years from my own experience and from support from my team and business leaders I have had the opportunity to meet.
1. Sometimes you need to play whack-a-mole, and that’s ok.
When I was researching this article, a lot of what I read online was negative about the whack-a-mole employee and management. But, for me, I don’t see it as a negative. Yes, it can be chaotic, but I hope that it helps the agency in the moment when it needs me most. I can have the greatest plan in the world and yet I would always drop it in an instant if someone needed my help or support. There will always be certain things that require urgency, however if someone is struggling with a problem or something has gone wrong, I see it a much better use of my time to try and help. One of our values at Social Chain is that ‘we give a shit’ and if I was to hide away and block people out, I wouldn’t be living our values. In that instance, I just need to quieten my inner control freak and know that that issue is more important.
2. Don’t panic
Sometimes, solving one problem is like picking at a thread that slowly but surely starts to unravel, uncovering other issues that you didn’t know existed. This is also ok. If you hide away these issues will only grow. It can feel like you’re losing control in these instances, but don’t worry. In my experience, it means that you can re-strategise, looks at team roles, understand where the issue is coming from and make the business stronger as a result.
3. Have a good support team around you
You can’t have a team full of people that cause you to play a game of whack-a-mole on a daily basis, you’d end up never getting any work done. I am fortunate enough to trust the team I have at Social Chain. They enable me to have the time out to solve problems in the moment and I know that they are on hand to pick up other areas of work. Having this strong team also gives you time to sit back and think about your vision for the company and the next direction of the business.
4. Set your own rules
I went to a brilliant talk a couple of weeks ago given by Tamara Lohan, co-founder of Mr and Mrs Smith, who offered some fantastic tips. I often feel guilty that I am doing multiple tasks but not giving my full time or attention to one thing in particular. Her tip for that was to create my own set of rules and stick to them. Focus on one problem at a time and if you can’t fit it in that day, be honest to the person or team you are trying to help. I’m currently working on my rules, so if you have any suggestions or have any rules you stick to, I would love to hear them.
5. Give yourself some time out
Running from one thing to the next can be exhausting. Time can rush past you in a flash and before you know it it’s the end of the week and you’ve missed those 3 sessions of exercise you promised your PT (sorry Steph, I will get better once I have my rules set, I promise!). What helps me the most is giving myself time working from home to get my admin done, respond to emails, clear up queries and answer LinkedIn messages. This clears my mind and makes me feel a lot lighter. It removes that sinking feeling that you have something to do but you can’t remember what.
Whack-a-mole can feel chaotic but for me, it also has a place. I work in a company who pride ourselves on being agile and fast moving. If I didn’t encompass that in my day to day, I guess I wouldn’t be right for my role. It’s all about finding the balance and not being hard on yourself when things don’t go as per your to-do list that day!
Katy x