Success Stories

UW HOSPITAL AND CLINICS

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Executive Education courses were invaluable to me as I transitioned from being a team member into a management position without having any prior management experience. One of the most difficult things I had to learn was how to delegate application and support projects to my new staff. Many of the courses I completed helped me realize the benefits of doing so not only to myself—such as more time to handle my new responsibilities—but also to my staff, in that they could gain experience through me that no previous manager had offered. My improved understanding of business alignment and of how my work affects the entire organization alerted me to the importance of the big picture: I now take a step back to assess things more carefully before making a change, taking into account the true impact the change could have, and I talk with many more people now to get verification that the change is for the better. Another specific idea that stuck with me is that during an annual review, there shouldn't be any “surprises.” This means if I am properly talking with my staff, an annual review should really be no different than any other status meeting I have with them: both sides know what is or isn’t working, and we’re both focusing on improvement. If I were to wait for the annual review to tell someone they were underperforming, I wouldn’t have given them the opportunity to self-correct and the feedback would be perceived as an attack. This all sounds very “common sense” now, but until it was discussed it wasn't something I had realized or understood. To recap, I believe the courses I have taken through Executive Education have indeed made me a better manager. They’ve taken me from being a “staff member with the manager title” to someone who actually manages the staff, doing what I can to improve the work coming from my team. The courses really have made a fundamental change to how I think about or view situations that come up, and I’ve discovered how to tactfully and effectively deal with the people involved.