First time managing people - any tips?

[MichaelAwkward]

Thanks all, just caught up with the replies. A lot of good pointers and tips (mostly along the lines of what I expected, as like I said in the OP, it's mostly common sense stuff that so many managers miss from my own experience).

Will definitely explore some of the situational leadership/ILM resources over the Christmas break before I start in Jan. I imagine I'd have to make the business case for any CPD spend so that will come later on once we're fully up and running with NetSuite and I've settled in.

Definitely like this approach -

The only thing they really need to know is what they are doing, why they are doing it, when they have to have it done by and if they have the skills to do it

It's something that has frustrated me in my own roles before, with one or more of these things not being made clear and leading to issues later on.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

A little story about my youngest (35).
She has to give people sound financial advice when they are in mortgage arrears and according to my other daughter who works at the same place and a couple more rungs up the ladder she is brilliant at her job.
She can't manage her but this other woman does who has taken a dislike to her and makes her feel like poo, it doesn't help that just like me she has mental issues.
She's always telling her off where the whole team and other Managers don't know why.
One month ago my wife was called to go and collect her because things turned serious and she was threatening to kill herself.
Her works HR suspended the Manager because they had heard rumours earlier and help was quickly setup for my youngest.
For the time being she is under my other daughter and working 100% with her nasty thoughts all gone and now her bitch ex Manager is off with stress

This is what a bad Manager can cause so be careful out there.

 

[Ayahuasca]

^ This kind of thing is all too common with people who are good at their jobs but can't advocate for themselves well due to mental health issues, etc.

A lot of managers will take advantage of any kind of "weakness", but it's good to see that her employer handled it the right way.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

^ This kind of thing is all too common with people who are good at their jobs but can't advocate for themselves well due to mental health issues, etc.

A lot of managers will take advantage of any kind of "weakness", but it's good to see that her employer handled it the right way.

We lend out one of our small offices in the hospital to a bloke who spends all day speaking to staff about how Managers are treating them, I think it comes under the title Speak Up or similar.
He said he will never be out of a job and he needs staff to deal with it.
One of my colleagues had an horrendous time in the Cancer Centre before joining us and you can tell he still suffers from the abuse.
I have 3 of the most amazing bosses ever - Trust Lawyer and 2x Trust Solicitors, they will do anything for us as long as the work gets done which it always does.

 

[mid_gen]

Understand the difference between telling, and coaching.

Sometimes you need to tell people what to do. But long term, you want to coach people so they can know what to do themselves, and aren't reliant on a hierarchy to function.

It mostly boils down to asking questions and leading people towards finding the answer themselves, although there's a billion hours of waffle people will sell you to explain it.

 

[Grim5]

I managed over 500 people at one time, be nice and empathic.
I'm the only ex manager who still gets invited to reunions/curry nights etc.

This is a bit ridiculous, do you actually interact with other each one? How do you manage their on going personal development? How do you mentor them? Doesn't seem like there is enough time in the day to deal with 500 people, even just approving/declining their leave applications will take up half your time. How do you have meetings with 500 people at once? How often do you have these meetings and how long do they take?


Or are these 500 actually managed by other team leaders and you're just claiming you manage 500 when you manage a few team leaders? CEOs of big companies can claim they manage 20k people but that doesn't make it true

 

[shifty_uk]

Be competent, know what you’re talking about and above all, just be a good person.

I’ve seen too many think the stick method needs played and then come crying when the staff member isn’t performing. Treat people as you’d like to be treated and lead by example.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

This is a bit ridiculous, do you actually interact with other each one? How do you manage their on going personal development? How do you mentor them? Doesn't seem like there is enough time in the day to deal with 500 people, even just approving/declining their leave applications will take up half your time. How do you have meetings with 500 people at once? How often do you have these meetings and how long do they take?


Or are these 500 actually managed by other team leaders and you're just claiming you manage 500 when you manage a few team leaders? CEOs of big companies can claim they manage 20k people but that doesn't make it true

It was an assembly factory on the Twilight shift.
Yes I was responsible for all of them with a couple of Team Leaders and I patrolled all those lines for all the hours going up and down speaking with people.
I didn't have an office to work from and any problems I would sort it out if I could.
That was one of the conditions for doing this cushy job on great pay because all other Managers/HR were at home or in bed.
In 6 months I only had one problem with one person.

I do agree, leaving one person to take care of that amount of people was ridiculous.

 

[NickK]

- Have regular catchups with your direct reports which is classified as their time, where they set the agenda to talk about whatever they want. You listen and feedback.
- Mistakes happen, ensure where they do happen the person is aware and what needs to be improved.
- For the love of god do-not micro manage. Trust the team until such a point that trust is breached.

Pretty much the main crux of it all. Mistakes do happen, and I would also provide freedom enough to make them but able to recover from them without being career limiting for everyone.

 

[MissChief]

Listen to your team. If they have issues that you can resolve, then try to. If there are improvements in ways of working, include then, they know the job inside out and will tell you if your idea is garbage or not. Don't micromanage, let them get on with it, but any issues should be tackled early.

 

[HangTime]

The main tips I would give are:

1. Don't underestimate the importance of articulating the Vision. It's easy to tell yourself "these guys won't care about the big picture, I need to focus more on their day-to-day" but it became clear that people often like to know what they are working towards, why it matters, how different things hang together. Maybe less important with just two reports in a small team I suppose.
2. Fight the corner for the team and they will follow you in to the trenches. Make what you are doing behind the scenes on their behalf more public. Think of it like you are the advocate for the team, it's a bi-directional relationship not just you cascading stuff down to them.
3. Actively solicit feedback on what you could do differently. Often we are a bit blinkered when it comes to ourself, you sometimes get surprising feedback. I once found out someone felt I was micromanaging them in some areas which was a big surprise because I felt like I was consciously making efforts NOT to dictate how something should be done but perhaps the 'challenges' or risks I was raising felt like it to them.

SMART goals make me feel physically sick

I think the problem with SMART goals is they are inherently sort of designed to be unambiguous and facilitate tangible assessment, but there are lots of things that are worth doing that don't lend themselves fully to that format. It comes down to whether you want objective tracking to be a tick box exercise to make performance management (good and bad) easier, or whether you want people to focus on things that have the highest potential to add value.

The M in SMART in particular I prefer to be a bit liberal with e.g. "measured by feedback" other coming up with arbitrary measurements. Like suppose you want somebody to build relationships with certain stakeholder groups. How do you measure relationship building? Depending on the nature of the interaction you might be able to shoehorn in NPS or something but I'd argue that in many cases a qualitative measurement from the other parties is more valuable that some sort of made up thing like "Measured by how many times you met with them" or whatever.

There's also the challenge of "Achievable" and "Realistic" not becoming a race to the bottom whereby in enforcing that you set very basic, boring objectives that won't move the dial because it has to be something you both know enough about long in advance to commit to anything that will move the dial. So you end up committing to partial or low value objectives simply because of the risk of 'overcommitting' on objectives. I'd argue it's often better to achieve 70% of something high value than 100% of something low value.

 

[throwaway4372]

The problem with smart is the same as all objectives, there's an implication you might progress if you meet your objectives, but that typically doesn't happen and is outside of your manager's control anyway, so it's just a more convoluted and time consuming way of getting nowhere.

 

[NickK]

Also the issue is that IT 'performance' is so complex that achieving a number return or value is almost impossible without invoving business as a shared responsibility.

In reality it should be the business defining the products/services (ie the 'business' and 'IT' combined) KPI/OKR/SMART/GOLF. Then it's easy for the business to hold the shared collective responsible. The result being a product that doesn't perform can easily be dissected and the performance attributed. If product/sales ask for something, it's delivered super quick but the sales folk were talking out of their behind - then it's everyone that gets penalised.. it will quickly make the tech and product people ask stiff questions.
Issue is having a disjointed business case.. results in divergent business units with their own ways to save the world. In reality it's the board not delegating and putting into place a correct framework that leads to that.. yet none of them every work differently..
I can tell you right now, the shareholders don't give a stuff about SMART or performance objectives other than the ROI. I always see products/services as little companies...

 

[the_worrier]

As a military officer with 28 years experience myself, don’t be surprised by the volume and frequency of disciplinary and welfare matters.

 

[BongoHunter]

Some good advice in here. My 2p:

- Do regular one to ones
- Don't get over friendly or over familiar - you might one day have to discipline these people or even fire them or make them redundant in the future - it's horrible if you've become good friends
- Set boundaries early
- Make it clear that pay and progression is out of your hands when doing the performance management side but tell them you will fight their corner (whether it's true or not)
- Be prepared to deal with clashes in holiday
- If you go to the pub with them then make sure you buy the first round
- Never moan about stuff to your underlings - only to your peers or people above you
- Never tell them what you get paid
- One or both of them might have applied for the job youve just got - they need to see clear evidence why your right for the role early in your tenure.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Be prepared to deal with clashes in holiday

I work in a great department but this is the one that causes most arguments especially over Christmas.

 

[Nitefly]

Some thoughts:

- I want to be approachable so that people ask for help, but I want people to be courageous enough to make decisions without referring to me. Otherwise it’s just adding to my own workload. So I tell people, in an informal / jovial / conversational way, that their role is to provide resource and boost output, which requires them to make decisions and progress matters.

- That massively clashes with me being a perfectionist and mostly knowing better what I therefore have to do is ‘let go’. You can’t save the world and you have to allow for people being human, mistakes and things slipping through cracks. Otherwise I’d never log off!

 

[MissChief]

I work in a great department but this is the one that causes most arguments especially over Christmas.

The expectation that people with families and kids should automatically be granted priority over those without at Christmas caused a whole boatload of issues. I allowed others to apply over me for years then one time I applied for holidays too I got some very barbed comments about how I shouldn't 'need' or 'want' holidays at this time of the year and should 'allow' others over me.

 

[NickK]

I'll normally have all my year booked by mid January. I may keep a few days for issues etc free but usually 3 weeks are in the approvals including Christmas etc.

 

[something daft already!!]

Be fair, firm and approachable. Don't be their friend, a detached friendly demeanour is best.

Appear to be confident and decisive but listen to your subordinates. Consider your options and think carefully about your actions and how they will affect them. Have empathy but don't allow them to walk over you.