Today an Employee. Tomorrow a Manager.
Jack is really good at what he does. He shows up on time. Gets his work done. He helps his co-workers. He’s efficient – a good “do-er.” So you decide to promote Jack to a management position. Now, he’s struggling and not meeting your expectations. How many times have we seen this scenario?
At first glance, we might think it was simply a poor choice to promote this person into management. After all, we know that doing technical work is far different than managing people doing technical work…right? Maybe…Or it may be the person in the management position has not made the behavioral and attitude shifts necessary to be successful.
A few years ago, ConceptReserve, a research-based training firm, released findings of a study of 2,600 managers tracked over a five year period. The data revealed 9% of managers were still acting as individual contributors. And a whopping 66% were stuck somewhere in the transition. Only 25% were fully functioning and effective in their management role.
The managers surveyed were also asked to describe the most difficult challenges they faced during the transition to manager:
Doing vs. managing the work
Managing former peers
Letting go of being the expert
Lack of time to get things done
Developing & coaching people
The logical approach? Provide them with skills training addressing the previous list…That’ll fix’m!But wait... Developing management skills is important and helpful. But the training must first address the required behavioral and attitude shifts or the skill training will have little effect.
Talk to the soon-to-be manager. And managers within your organization.
Do they believe that their technical knowledge and individual contribution will translate to management success?
Do the people on their team think and believe the same things as they do?
What are the assumptions they have about the role of a manager?
Do they think that people should just “get it” because they are smart?
Do they believe that “management” will take only a few minutes per day?
Assumptions like this will quickly erode the effectiveness and satisfaction of a person in a management role. Helping an individual start and complete the transition to a manager role can increase productivity and confidence. And if you can do that with the manager, think of the effect it’ll have on his team!
Want more tips on how to transition to a leader? Click here!