Managing Smart People is Harder than Managing Tasks

Managing good employees isn't about knowing how to do their jobs better than they do. It's about giving them the direction, trust and support they need to do their best work.

At this Lunch & Learn, presenter William Vablais will take a practical look at one of the more challenging parts of leadership: managing high-performing employees who ask questions, value independence and don't necessarily need—or want—someone telling them how to do every step of their job.

The conversation will focus on moving from control to context: clearly communicating the goal and why it matters, while giving employees more ownership over how they get there.

Attendees will learn how to:

• Give employees autonomy without losing accountability
• Recognize when managing becomes micromanaging
• Respond productively when employees question a process or push back
• Identify roadblocks and inefficiencies that frustrate good employees
• Make one-on-one meetings more useful
• Create opportunities for growth that help retain strong employees

You'll also leave with a practical 1:1 meeting template designed to move conversations beyond status updates and toward goals, roadblocks, ownership and professional growth.

Who should attend?
Business owners, managers, supervisors, team leads, HR professionals and anyone responsible for leading employees.

Bio | William vablais
30+ years of experience in distilling complex concepts into bite size chunks for any audience to understand. Big picture views as well as drilling down into the details. A no-nonsense approach to knowledge sharing with attention to
detail.

This ability wrapped in project management and business requirement sensitivity has allowed me to fit in an unseen boundary layer that requires translation and nuance among engineers, designers, sales, customers and executive management teams, all speaking different dialects but requiring the same result. I deliver results and I enjoy the interaction of different teams and groups.

Passionate about technology and how to find ways to deliver it to both hardened professionals and high-school students alike – seeking how a younger generation acquire and consume knowledge. I volunteer at a unique Entrepreneur and Innovation Center, EIC, that I helped establish in 2017 as part of the Williamson Co. Schools in Franklin, TN.

Most of what I have done in my career, as a head of partner relations, project manager, sales manager, developer, engineer, Business development manager, alliance manager, researcher has simply been about sharing knowledge – deciding what knowledge to share, when to share it and who to share it with. But more importantly, how to share it.