A Thorough Novus Management System

Speaker A My name is Michael Wimmer, the communications manager in the communications department. I've been with Novus for ten months, so pretty new to the organization. It and started in the marketing department and have moved over to the communications department in my time here so far, I certainly worked in organizations that did not have nearly as thorough of a management system. So worked in organizations that it was a little unclear the progress of someone's career path or the management chain. It was left to a hierarchy based on the organizational chart we were given. I think the thing that I have appreciated about the Nova system in particular is that it's very clear and that has helped me as both a subordinate and then becoming a manager. Having that clearly defined for me is really helpful. I think the other thing that's been a major impact has been understanding the timeline of the decisions that I make. I think that as my role level changed the time in which I was supposed to be making decisions from two years out or something like that, that really helped me to think differently about what is it that I'm doing today? What are the pieces that I should be working on? What should I be having the people that I work with, what should I be having them do? And I think that's really been helpful and that's been a big difference from what I experienced in the past, where the assignments were just as whatever you were doing that day is what you were doing that day without it being very clearly defined. I was in the organization for a few months before we actually had the formal training, and Peggy did a great job of leading that discussion. We had a team of people together. I think we probably had about 15 or 20 people in our class. It was a great interactive opportunity to learn, discuss. We went through the level threes, we went through the training. We did exercises together to kind of work out mock situations. How would you respond in situations? I thought that was really helpful, and I think the orientation process was really helpful. I think putting it into practice now time and time again is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. I think as Peggy was talking, one of the things that came to mind was that I had been at Novus for a few months before we started, before actually going formally through the training. And as we're going through the formal training, I'm realizing some of the decisions, some of the actions that the people that I worked with took fell right in line with the Novus management system. So it was kind of the AHA moment, as we're going through the training, to realize, oh, that's what they were talking about, that's what that means. That's why they were making the decisions they were making and walking through the process. So actually having experienced a little bit of time before the formal training became very helpful.