Becoming great managers?

It has happened to me. And I think you're not the exceptions.

I didn't have enough preparation, before becoming a manager.

Though I did come through the transition and such to become a manager, I think it's much better, if I was prepared more with some of the things I will walk you through in this presentation.

And would hope you find it useful and applicable to your management career path.

These are not something I invented or wrote up. The info is from a book. And I am going to share some key points in the first few chapters. If you feel like knowing more, just have to buy the book and fully read it.

And here is the book.

It talks about 6 turns in the managerial career path.

For this presentation, I would address only two first passages, from what the book suggested.

What I love the most is the skill, time, value framework suggested by the book.

At each turn, you will have to switch, change your skills, time application and the focus on the different values that you would need to contribute for the role.
For some skills, values , you even have to drop it completely, to make it a successful transition to the new role. Watch out for those...

Okay. No more chit-chat. Will go to the first passage right away.

From managing self to managing others.

It's when you are promoted to be the manager for the first time, mostly from the fact that you are an excellent individual contributor.

Refer to the next 3 tables for what is required for managing self and managing others.

* is what you have to drop a lot or completely to transition to the next level.

Untitled Slide

Mangers must cease thinking only about themselves and start thinking about others.

Top challenges

• Defining and assigning work to be done
• Enabling direct reports to do the work
• Building social contracts

Defining and assigning work to be done

• You will need to discuss with boss, talk with peers, customers, suppliers, partners, and other relevant parties to assure the work to be done and make appropriate assignments.
• Any pre-defined work breakdown structure would help facilitate the process.

Defining and assigning work to be done

• Then, you will have to practise delegation. Make sure to be the master of it :).
• The other focus should be hiring the right (talented and fit) people to do the assigned tasks

Enabling direct reports to do the work

• Do you views questions from his people as interruptions?
• Do you fixes their mistakes rather than teaching them to do the work properly?
• Do you refuse to take ownership of the success of his people, distancing himself from their problems and failures?

Building social contracts

• Build trust and open lines of communication vertically and horizontally
• With boss, direct reports, suppliers, customers, and other relevant individuals

But who is responsible?

• HR with formal training?
• Nah. Training only gets us this far: awareness and knowledge.
• Practising, being coached is where we really learn the things.

But who is responsible?

• The direct responsibility for preparing first-time managers rests with managers of managers (need to learn how to coach their direct reports to make this transition Unfortunately, managers of managers receive little or no training in this area )

That brought us to passage #2: Becoming manager of managers

Five signs of a misplaced manager of managers

Difficulty delegating

• As a result of this, the first line managers are often more frustrated
• Managers of managers take too much on themselves, have to much to do and not enough competent direct report to help them do it
• Delegate improperly: lack a control system that ensures accountability for what is delegated

Poor performance management

• Provide poor or little feedback to his managers
• Isn’t a good coach
• Doesn’t offer clear direction
• Unsure about their goals
• Unable to communicate productively with his direct reports

Other signs

• Failure to build a strong team
• A single-minded focus on getting the work done
• Choosing clones over contributors

What should managers of managers do (skills)?

Selecting and training capable first-line managers

• Giving people team and project leadership assignments are two ways to observe
• Training first-line managers is the art of creating a supportive environment that allows mistakes but not failure
• Sensitivity of power: use their power in the ways that motivate and instruct rather than demean and demoralize

Holding them accountable for managerial work

• Evaluating people based on the quality of their selection decisions, the frequency and quality of their performance feedback, their ability to team with other units, and their skills at producing results through a team
• Need to remove first-time managers who don’t make the level-one grade

Goals and measurements must be put in place

• ... that create accountability for new managerial behaviors
• Amount of improvement in efficiency , degree of improvement in quality , frequency and impact of coaching sessions , number of first-line managers promoted to bigger jobs , success rate of new first-line managers , teamwork within the assigned area / other areas

Those are some highlights for the first two passages.

If you notice, you will see that 80% of those people who pursue management career should be in these two passages, struggling.

Are you one of them?

If you are, I would suggest you to go back, understand about your skills, time application, values.

And from those awareness, do something. To get the skills, to switch how to use your time, and to focus on the right values you need to contribute for the level.

Good luck.