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Help and advice for new managers

There aren’t many things in life more intimidating than your first day as a manager.
The first couple of weeks in the job can determine your success for the next couple of years. Get off on the right foot and they’ll think you’ve been a manager forever. Get off on the wrong foot and you may never recover. This is especially true if you haven’t come from within the organization. As an outsider your new staff will generally give you the benefit of the doubt until you make your first mistake. At that point no matter how minor the infraction you’re considered the worst manager ever to come down the pike.
If you’ve been promoted from within the department you’re now managing you’ve got a great head start. You know the people, you understand the company procedures, and you have at least some level of understanding as to what everyone is working on. But it doesn’t guarantee your success. In fact, this can be just as tough as coming into a new department because of the relationships you had with your staff as co-workers. People tend to socialize with co-workers and you’ve probably developed a few close friendships. Now you’re their boss. What may be even worse is if you’ve had a not so good relationship with a few co-workers. All of these factors can conspire to make your career as a manager a tough road for the first several months.
In chapter eight we’re going to try and get you started off on the correct note. We’ll take it slow and give you a step-by-step method to getting control of the department and gaining the respect of your staff and your boss. I’ve laid out a short list of questions for you to refer to from time to time so that you can measure your own success and stay on track to becoming an exceptional manager. We’ll also look at some common mistakes and a list of things not to do.

Your first week on the job.
The first thing an entrepreneur would do when taking over a department is come into the position with confidence. You’ve been promoted or hired for good reason (I hope!), and at some level everyone in your new department understands this. Your director is probably the person who hired you and wants you to be successful. If he didn’t think you had the tools to handle the job he would have more than likely given it to someone else. Keep this in the back of your mind at all times.
Your very first day on the job have a quick staff meeting and introduce yourself. Have each member of your staff offer a brief description of their history with the company and what they’re working on right now. Asked them to state any concerns they have so you can get things out in the open quickly. Be careful not to let this turn into a gripe session. If someone is getting beyond the scope of what you want to handle in this first meeting let him know. Just say, “That’s a little deeper than what I want to tackle in this meeting. Why don’t you meet with me a little later on and we’ll discuss it in more detail.”
You’ll also want to layout a quick summary of your management style and goals for the department near the end of the meeting.

Small business management primer;

Life is drudgery enough. I’d like to help make your job as enjoyable as possible. Short of that I want it to at least be tolerable.
I’d like us to be considered the top small business in our segment. Both in terms of profitability, and from your perspective as the best department to work in. The reason for this is we’ll be able to attract the best people and keep them around, and when we ask the higher ups for something they’ll give it to us.
In three or four years I’d like to get promoted to a higher level. One of the best ways for me to insure that is to develop a couple of people inside my group who can take over as manager in the future.
My management style is entrepreneurial. That means if you’re at the top of the group in terms of productivity I’ll do whatever is in my power to make sure you stay happy and productive. If you’re in the middle of the pack and getting your job done effectively, I’ll leave you alone for the most part and reward you accordingly. If you’re at the bottom of the pack and you’re a drain on the bottom line, I’ll make the necessary changes to get you productive or find someone who is.
I’d also make clear that I’m up to the job. In my case I’d say something about having 15 years of very successful management experience. I’d mention that I have a pretty broad range of understanding of information technology, sales and marketing, or whatever the department I manage did.

Immediately after the meeting make a few notes to yourself on anything important you’ve discovered. Jot down your first impressions of each person in the department. After a few weeks refer back to that initial assessment and see how good your instincts are.
You should also find some time to get together with your director in the first week. Find out what projects are most important to your boss before you set priorities for yourself and your staff. The first person you need to make an impression on is the person who hired or promoted you. In what not to do later in this chapter I’m going to stress that you don’t want to go overboard with this impression. You just want to give him a sense of comfort that you’re in charge of your group and you can handle the issues. If there isn’t a hot project you could find out what’s causing him specific problems within your group and try to handle some of them.

Get control of the projects before you try to get a handle on the people.

Find out what’s going on and who is doing what. You should also prioritize these projects.
When you have a handle on what the hot projects are find out who are potentially your HIHMs. Don’t permanently assign someone as an HIHM until you’ve had at least three or four months of experience working with him. You can do this by using some of the tools outlined in chapter 2. Occasionally a guy that doesn’t usually get much done will bust his hump like nobodies business for six or seven weeks, then revert back to his old ways. One exception to this rule is if you’ve come up through the ranks in the department you’re now managing. If that’s the case you should have a pretty good understanding of how people really work. Feel your way through the first couple of weeks if not months on who needs to be managed and the guys that are doing just fine on their own. From your top people try to pick two or three trusted advisors. These guys can help you avoid mistakes and guide you along the way for the first couple of months. By picking two or three people you can adjust which ones you take advice from in specific situations.
Get involved with the work your staff is performing. It’s as important to understand what they’re doing as it is to understand how it’s getting done. This is particularly true if your very skilled at the job your staff does.
What you don’t want to do is jump in and start cranking out work the first day. I’ve seen more than a few managers do this, and I’ve been guilty of it myself. Your job is to make sure all of the projects get done and all of the plans of your boss and others higher up the food chain are executed. If you have the skill set to jump in and start working the way you did before you were a manager you’re going to lose sight of the big picture, and other projects will surely falter. That’s not to say you can’t help out from time to time. I think that keeps your skills sharp and keeps you in tune to what your people do for a living. It’s just not a good idea to take a project of your own and run with it when you are supposed to be managing the entire department.
You also need to get a handle on the paper work portion of the job relatively quickly. I’ve seen more than few guys get buried by the bureaucracy of the job and never get off the mark and actually manage the people. I’d strongly recommend doing the paperwork portion after normal working hours for the first few weeks at least. I know you probably don’t want to work 50 or 60 hours a week but you need to keep yourself in the thick of things until you get a grip on what you’re doing.

Make small positive changes to start
After you have a handle on what the day-to-day portion of your job is. And you have a solid understanding of the projects and where they are, find out from your staff what projects and issues are the most troublesome to them. Try to make a few positive changes for the entire group right off the mark. This can earn you their respect and at the same time make your transition as the new manager a little easier.
Make note of your progress and problems for the next couple of months, I’d strongly suggest putting a list together for yourself at night after the day is done. After a few weeks you can slow down and check your list once a week.

Who is giving me the straight story?
Who are the big complainers? Is it justified?
Who is the go to guy. When you asked them to do something they put their nose to the grindstone and get it done.
Who is at the bottom of the barrel?

Many new managers will pick this guy out quickly and make an example of him by firing him to gain the respect of the department. This really won’t get you respect but may cause others to fear you and thus briefly raise productivity. I don’t recommend it. Further, what if you’re wrong about the person. It could be she wanted your job and is going to give you a hard time for a few months, then turn into your most valuable person on your staff. A decision like this should be made with logic and not bravado.

Who shows promise but needs training (future HIHM)
What’s the average person getting done?
Did I step on some ones toes just getting this job? Is she an HIHM?
Is there anything obvious I can do to get a quick productivity bump? Moving people onto different projects or job responsibilities. Lateral moves can be great productivity boosters.
Look for patterns of behavior that slow progress over the long term.

By keeping this simple list going you’ll keep yourself on track. It prevents you from keeping your head down and plodding through the mundane side of management or bogging down in project management tasks that you should be delegating. You want your employees to constantly be growing, and you should be constantly striving to be a better manager.
In the first two or three weeks you should have uncovered a few of the big issues that are troubling the business. Pick one of these issues and make it better. Maybe they have too much paper work and you can streamline a process. Perhaps a particular project is bogging down the entire operation and you can figure out a way to spread the load around.

The first couple of months.
As a new manager you’ll be developing a management style that fits you and your staff. Keep flexibility at the front of your mind at all times. Even if you only manage four or five people you’re going to find that each of them reacts differently to you. Because of this you need to manage each of them a little bit differently.
I’d recommend picking a straight shooter as you’re reality check person. This person doesn’t have to be an HIHM. Somewhere in your group you’ve got someone that you’ll find always gives you the straight story, no matter how painful.
This next paragraph is very important. If you do nothing else with this book read this and follow it.
Understand the financial numbers associated with your department. In smaller companies this is usually easy. The information is not going to be more than one or two steps away. In very large companies this is possible but can take some working through the bureaucracy. In medium sized companies it can be tough. A good example is a quality control department in a company with three or four hundred people. A company that size isn’t going to have a multi million dollar data warehouse, and staff of programmers to generate the report for you. The only people who may know this are the CFO and the CEO and you’re probably four or five levels removed from them. Find a way to get access to the most recent and reliable numbers on your department. If you don’t someone else certainly is. And that person is measuring your success as a manager with those numbers. Nothing will keep you focused on the bottom line like a quarterly report showing how well you’re really doing. It not only allows you to keep track of your success it encourages you to set goals for the future.
The new managers guide to What not to do.
Now that we’ve spent some time laying out a strategy for things you can do to get started on a positive note, let’s take a look at a few things you shouldn’t do.
Don’t try to be the new sheriff in town.
I’ve actually read this in a book about buying a business. The author suggested that when you buy a business (or become a new manager) on day one you tell the employees things are going to be different, you’re in charge now and they better listen and get used to it fast.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. If you manage telemarketers for a living fine have at it, you can replace these people easily. If you manage highly skilled, or really even semi-skilled workers you’re asking for trouble. If your personality is such that you need to run things your way you’d better make sure you have a long time to implement your new management strategy. If you go in with this attitude you’re going to lose people, lose customers, and have a dramatic drop in productivity until you essentially replace the entire department with people willing to work just like you want them too.
Don’t make new friends to quickly.
There’s nothing wrong with developing personal relationships with people in your department, you just need to keep your distance for the first few months. There is an almost overwhelming desire to buddy up with a couple of people who are giving you positive reinforcement. Having a friend in the trenches with you is comforting, and can give you a sense of security. If you do this in your first couple of weeks you may end up regretting it later.
Don’t try to copy another manager’s style.
You need to develop your own style and get comfortable in your own skin as a manger. It’s ok to seek out a mentor but you don’t want to be a carbon copy. Your own personality traits and management style will eventually get in the way and confuse everyone in the department.
Don’t put all of your energy into dazzling your boss.
This is the biggest mistake I think new managers make. Trying to impress upper management before you understand what you’re really doing. Get your department running efficiently and have a solid understanding of your entire staff before you embark on any major changes. If this is your first job as a manager it’s probably going to be a couple of years before you get promoted.
Don’t try to fix everyone’s problems in the first few weeks.
This is another classic mistake first time managers make. This is even more the case if you came up through the department. You have all of these preconceived notions about what’s wrong and how to fix it. But you may not understand the big picture. As you get more familiar with other company issues you often find that what you perceived as a local problem (within your department) is actually company wide and can’t be fixed with your first quick idea.

And never forgot, all managers started out as new managers, even the great ones. Learn as you, and keep an eye on improving.

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