Daily operational issues eat up much of a manager’s time. Too much for most managers. But by reversing this trend, you will have opportunity to correct those mistakes and build a superior organization that keeps your best people, increases revenue and increases margins.

Start by examining how to remove yourself from your business. Look at automating or outsourcing tasks you perform now. Any task that falls within tactical operation of your business should be transferred to another person.

If automating or outsourcing is not an option then move responsibility down organization and train your employees to take over those tasks. Most employees are quite capable once they have been properly trained and given enough time to become proficient.

Continuous improvement beats delayed perfection.

The business is not about founder, executive or management that has more experience, thinks they are smartest or can do best job. A business is about all of people. In fact a business is people.

Management’s job is strategic. Manager’s must focus on vision, mission and objectives of organization. Then deploy resources to see work gets done. Then measure, monitor and communicate results so that everyone has information they need to improve their performance.

Management job is to do strategic work and not to do tactical work or else who is doing managers job? The workers cannot.

If you and your team have delivered some important project ahead of schedule, make sure this is known by those that matter (your boss, his boss, heads of other departments, etc.).

If you have successfully concluded a tricky negotiation with an important customer, thus saving their custom for your company, be sure to tell people. If you have clinched a valuable deal to obtain goods or services at much reduced cost, then do same.

Don’t go around boasting of your achievements of course. That is sure to make you unpopular. But you can be more subtle. Does your company have an in-house magazine, for example? The editors are bound to be looking for success stories that show company in a good light. So write them an article.

Is there an opportunity to give a presentation about your department’s work at a managers meeting or at a seminar? Take up opportunity.

If you are in a operational or maintenance type of environment you have a more difficult task than most. It is not in nature of your job to be high visibility. It is usually only at times of crisis that others notice you are there. The more smoothly your department runs – fewer waves you are routinely making – greater danger of being forgotten and more important it is to do something about it.

So don’t be taken for granted. Don’t let your department be forgotten. Don’t become an unknown head of a department of which nobody knows what it does. If you do allow that to happen then you will be last to be remembered when new and interesting projects come up, but first for chop when cutbacks take place.