Lessones learned from managing 8 volunteers

In the past four weeks, I have been moonlighting as a general manager for a production company that is producing two events in the upcoming weeks. Although my title is "Marketing Manager", I am doing everything from recruiting, sponsorships, project management, the works. I have a couple takeaways from this, and they are as follows.

• Making the best out of what you have: As a former consultant with a type A personality, I push myself to produce my best. I have beat myself up for things out of my control. Since I am managing seven volunteers across two continents, there are things I just have to do what I can given my resources
  
  
• Bucking up: Because of the exposure of this position, I am having to work with clients, teammates, you name it, most of whom I don't know. This allowed me to be bold in calling up cold contacts for my job search efforts, which I was dancing around with before
  
  

Since I am working with a team of 8 volunteers, I spend more time than I normally would in a professional environment in getting them to deliver. There are two things that are essential in making this relationship work: commitment, and communication. Everything else is icing on the cake. I am happy to support you, as long as you are committed to the production. And I will work with you to make you successful, even though you may be new to this game. For instance, one of our sponsorship team members scored an advertising deal, thanks to the prospect materials we put together, might I say, I am a newbie too.

I will be passing on the torch in two weeks, but, am definitely grateful for this experience.