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| 4 worst mistakes of a first-time manager | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 1 2015, 08:00 AM (77 Views) | |
| Entity | Apr 1 2015, 08:00 AM Post #1 |
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First-time managers are generally nightmares to work for. They are people who got promoted by doing a non-management job well, and in fact they probably have little experience in management. Here are four of the mistakes that will undermine a new manager the fastest. 1. Focusing on tasks instead of people. Before you were a manger, your number one job was to accomplish tasks. You were someone with skills to get something done. Maybe media buying, or programming, or selling. Now your number one job is to help other people to accomplish the tasks in an outstanding way. Sure, you'll have tasks, too. As a manager you'll have weekly reports, budgets, planning. But your tasks are secondary to helping other people to do their tasks. Your job as manager is to get the best work from the people you manage. The measure of how well you're doing as a manager is how well each individual on your team performs. Ideally, you should be able to show each person you manage how to see themselves differently so that they are able to produce at a higher level than they ever imagined. For one person this will mean you need to teach organization skills. For another person, you will help her discover what she loves to do and then set her up doing it for you. Each person wants something, and you need to find out what that is. Then help them get it. In return, your employees will do great work for you. This level of management is superior to task-management; helping people perform at their best impacts the quality of your team's work as opposed to just getting the work done. 2. Being slow to transition. Moving into any new position requires that you get rid of the stuff from your old position. This means delegating. It means getting over the idea that you were indispensable on any of your old teams. You can't do you new job well if you're still doing your old job. Delegating your old job should take three days. You find people who are taking a step up when they accept pieces of your old job so that they are excited. You give them an explanation of how to do it and tell them where to go when they have questions. You are going to tell me that one day is not enough, that you have a very complicated job. But think of it this way: If you died today, your job would be delegated in a couple of days. Delegating is not enough, though. You have to stop caring. If you are no longer on a project because you got a promotion, then you have to stop obsessing about how the project is doing. Remember how quickly the girl who dumped you hooked up with her next-door neighbor? You need to move that fast, too. 3. Forgetting to manage up. Managing up means steering your team to hit goals that the people above you care about. Figure out what matters to your boss, and your boss's boss, and make that stuff matter to you, too, because you can only impress your boss with your management skill if you are accomplishing things she cares about. And be loud about your accomplishments. Set measurable goals for yourself and let people above you know that you're meeting them. Do this it right off the bat. People's perceptions of you as a manager will be made during your very first actions. That saying, “People judge you in the first two minutes they meet you,” is true for management, too. So give people reason right away to think you're doing a good job. 4. Talking more than listening. My sister-in-law, Rachel, has been a manager for a while. But she just accepted a position where she is managing three times the number of people she had been managing. Her first step was to go on a sort of listening tour of the organization. She had lunch with people to find out what matters to them, she sat in on groups and even visited some people at home, all in the name of figuring out what matters to whom, and how she should set up goals for herself. Consider your own listening tour as soon as you start in a new position. After all, there's no way to figure out what people want without getting them talking. And the most annoying thing about any manager — new or seasoned — is when they just won't shut up. -read more |
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| Entity | Apr 1 2015, 08:07 AM Post #2 |
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How to be a good manager: Be generous There are a lot of rules for first-time managers. For example, never hold a meeting without an agenda, because if you don’t know what you’re going to do there, then no one else will know what you’re doing, either. But the rule about agendas is a great example, because, like most rules for good management, it is about being kind. Your job as a manager is to make sure your employees are growing and learning and enjoying their time at work. Bringing them to a meeting without an agenda is wasting their time, and that is disrespectful. A meeting without an agenda is like saying, “My time is so much more important than yours that instead of taking time to prepare, I’m going to figure out what we’re doing in real-time, and you will sit here and watch me.” So the first rule, and probably the only rule of management, is to be respectful. A lot of questions I get from managers can be answered the same way: ask yourself if you are really being respectful. Example: Manager: My employees are totally unmotivated. What can I do? Me: Do you give them work that respects their intelligence or is the work you give them crappy? Manager: There’s nothing I can do. Someone has to do the low level work. Me: People are much more motivated to do totally boring work (as a favor to you) if they feel respected by you in other ways. So give them good mentoring and pay attention to building their skills. In return, they will want to help you, even if it means sending 400 faxes. I receive lots of email from people who have just become managers but who are still figuring out what their new role really means. One of my favorites comes from Kristy, in Canada: I got promoted to being a manager last year. . . .. I have really struggled with trying to teach others, because coming from a background of life really being about myself, my own learning, and satisfying my own personal growth, making the switch to feeling like to have to now do that for others almost feels like you are giving something of yourself away. It has only been in the past few months that I have really come recognize that providing others with the opportunities that I have been given actually feels good. . . and that I am still growing, just in a different way. Kristy admits what most people won’t: that management requires giving so much of yourself that it’s disconcerting. Most people who are new managers just sort of disappear. They pop out of their office from time to time to tell people they are doing stuff wrong, or to let people know about new goals or new procedures. But that is not managing. That is being a human memo. A piece of paper could be that kind of manager. Real managing is about growth and caring. It’s about taking time to see what skills people need to develop to move in the direction they want to move, and then helping them get those skills. This means that you need to sit with the person and find out what matters to them. And then you need to sit with yourself and figure out how you can help the person. Most people don’t see management as listening and thinking, but that’s what it is. Because that’s what caring about someone looks like. A good manager pops up all the time, just to check in. Not because you are micromanaging and you don’t trust anyone around you. But because you can’t know how to help people if you don’t know how they are doing. And take time to chat when things are going fine, because that’s when it’s clear that you’re just talking because you care as much about the person as the work they’re doing. Once you get to the point where you are connecting with the people you manage, and you are helping them get what they want from their job, you are in a position to change the world. Really. I had a big moment in my own career as a manager when I realized that I could change the world, in a small way, just by being more open-minded and generous to the people around me. I was a very young manager, and found myself interviewing people much older than I was. Seeing those people from the point of view of my mom, who was working for someone my age, made me change how I approached my job as a manager. And I know that people today are trying to do this as well, because this post is four years old, and it was one of the most popular on my blog last month. All this reminds me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As a psychologist, he developed a theory to describe the path people take to address first their core needs, and then eventually to achieve their ultimate need for a life of self-actualization: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 1. Physiological — food, water, sleep 2. Safety — security of body, health, resources 3. Love and belonging — family, friends, sexual intimacy 4. Esteem — self-confidence, respect of others, respect by others 5. Self-actualization — morality, creativity, problem solving I think this pyramid applies to work as well. You start off just making sure you can get a job, and you figure out, eventually, how to use your job to make the world a better place. Pseudo-Maslow Hierarchy of Job Needs 1. Physiological – Take care of keeping yourself fed and clothed. 2. Safety – Work on feeling secure that you can keep yourself employed, if something happens. 3. Love and belonging – Figure out how to get a job that respects your personal life. 4. Esteem — perform well at your job because you have the resources and the security to do so 5. Self-actualization — help other people reach their potential through creative and moral problem solving So really, management is an opportunity to self-actualize. Some people will self-actualize by being artists, or writing code. Some people will self-actualize through management. Some, a combination. But the point here is that being in management is an opportunity to grow spiritually and give back to the world in a way that is enormously fulfilling. If you allow it. You will need to set aside real time to make this happen. And you need to give generously. No big surprise there, though, because why else are we here, on this planet, except to give to each other? |
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| Entity | Apr 1 2015, 08:10 AM Post #3 |
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Here is a list from Tulgan of five how-tos for managers: 1. Manage every day, not just on certain occasions, such as a project explodes. 2. Solve small problems every day so they don’t grow into big ones. 3. Have lots and lots of boring conversations instead of one, big conversation. 4. Reward people for what they accomplish; don’t treat people equally because accomplishments are not equal 5. Think of empowerment as helping someone to succeed instead of leaving them alone. Tape the list to your keyboard if you’re a manager. Email it anonymously if you’re poorly supervised – and if nothing changes, shop for a new manager, of course. |
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8:48 AM Jul 11