The notes of first line manager

So, finally we have the team that expects you to help them to succeed into organization. At the same time they have no idea what you are going to do next. To address these concerns you need to learn more about each person and overall of the team. Before we start talking about the process I recall one of the best examples that I have seen into my practice that clearly illustrates the gap between what we are as managers see vs. what others see.

Exercise:

Let’s imagine a situation when you play the role of top manager of the organization. You have a team and you have to deliver tough message to them by saying that because of developing new market you need to move the whole team from one region to another. The process itself is very challenging as you need to deliver it and make sure you have commitment from your team to support this change. This is the first time when you share this news with your team. Try to capture 4–5 key messages that you are going to deliver to your team, i.e. what you are going to address while talking to the team.

Another person plays the role of individual contributor who is impacted by this change. You are more or less aware what is going to be delivered. Try to summarize 4–5 key topics you would like your manager to talk to you during this meeting.

Now we uncover these two lists and compare them. I have seen several examples of this exercise and this is what usually managers start to write down:

1. Business environment overview;

2. Organizational changes and strategy overview for next 2–3 years;

3. New market opportunities and how critical it is to explore them to be successful;

4. New region overview and market demand and how it fits into the company and team’s strategy;

5. How team is being impacted.

This is pretty logical, isn’t it? Now let’s see what people in the team put together (not always for sure but more likely you will see the following list):

1. Who is going to be impacted and how;

2. If there is any relocation package to support these changes;

3. If my family had opportunity to move with me and how;

4. What’s the life standards in new region and how they looks like vs. current region;

5. How these changes correlate with long term strategy of the company.

Now take a look at these lists, the problem is that if you compare them you find that managers start with messages that are less relevant to many people into the team. Even more, priorities in the first list completely contradict with team members” expectations. There is no surprise here. Put yourself into the shoes of your team members. What would you ask your manager if they ask you to move to another region? People take care about their life standards, their security etc. This is the fundamental part of their life (just recall classic Maslow hierarchy of needs). At the same time as soon as you become a manager you start shifting your vision by completely ignoring that your team can see your steps in completely different way. It doesn’t mean actually that you should change the way of what you are saying. The key point is:

This is not what you want to deliver but rather HOW you deliver it!

“HOW” doesn’t mean that you simply rephrase the message but how well you understand team’s expectations and utilize them in the right way to get the maximum outcome for the organization. I strongly believe that when you are able to find the right balance between what people want from one side and what they have to do to make them successful into organization the better outcome you get for the organization and you team. This is not an easy task as you need to be aware of many details and actually keep very close link with team members, i.e. to understand crisp and clear their concerns, their expectations, their desires and what drives your team members.

4.1 Understanding of your team

This is critical part. I believe this stage is even more important than the first meeting with the team. When you first time faces your team members and introduce yourself you have just little time to demonstrate who you are. When you spend time talking to team members you have much more opportunities to show both positive and negative sides of your character and your management style. So, take time to be prepared for this stage.

First of all you need to allocate enough time for meeting with each member of you team. It doesn’t mean having 15 minutes chat during the lunch into canteen. Make sure you allocate at least 1 hour with everyone and book a room for this discussion. Put together specific agenda for each meeting and make sure you clearly articulate the purpose of this talk. Capture key items you want to cover. If any item into your agenda requires additional information make sure you have this information in place.

The idea of such meetings should be to understand concerns, individual expectations, and learn as much as possible about team members. You will need to listen to people rather than talk. This is not an easy task but you have to learn.

It’s extremely difficult to start this discussion as you have no idea what each individual has in mind and if they have own agenda for this meeting. At the same time you should try to manage the flow. You need to break the ice when you start this conversation. I don’t like a situation when you are treated as a boss. In such case you will not be able to learn too much. You team members should feel that you are on their side, they should trust you to share details. Perhaps it is not easy to achieve in the first 2–3 meetings but step by step you should encourage people to do that.

I had many situations when I was not successful in this exercise. Perhaps I should refer to one of my worst experience here:

We started to work together with one of my peers and after some time I was offered a management role in the same team. My colleague had a lot of concerns and he was very open about that. We sat together in a room and I asked him to share feedback about me as a manager as well as to share his thoughts on future of the team. He was very straight forward by saying that he didn’t see me as a manager at all. Even more he gave the whole list of reasons why. My first reaction was just awful. I understood that he had opinion that I couldn’t change in short term. He was one of the brightest persons I had ever known and one of the best experts in our team that made his voice very powerful. I spent approximately 2 years to change his perception and change myself to be recognized by him as a good manager.

Don’t give up! Even in a situation like this. You should always remember that other people may have different experience with different managers. Sometimes the bar is very high and you as a new manager may not fit into someone’s perception about good or bad manager. The key point here – continue to listen to those who criticize you. You will find a lot of useful comments. At the beginning of your path as a new manager you will have to change a lot into your approach to work and people.

4.2 How do you behave in the office?

I like my job…. I don’t remember a day for last 10 years when I don’t want to go to work in the morning. I spend a big part of my life here and this team is a part of my world already. I would like to allocate some time to chat about behavior. This is really critical part. Many of us don’t think how much it impacts our relationships with the team. Let me share a couple of examples from my personal experience:

Once my wok desk was in a separate office space relatively far away from the team. That was calm and quite space and I liked that. After 3 months” time I realized that I missed some link with my team. I spent the same amount of time by having official meetings with the team including staff meetings, 1:1 chats etc. At the same time I missed huge part of informal talks. I decided to move back to sit close to my team.

After that case I didn’t try to seat separately any more if possible. The key point here is about being the part of this community. You should understand what is going on in your team, what they are discussing, what they feel about work, tasks, projects etc. Be careful and don’t take another extreme when you behave as a spy. You should contribute into their discussions, into their chats and be inherent part of this team.

Ask people how they are! You need to know what’s going on with them outside of work hours. This is extremely crucial. Put yourself into their shoes. If you have problems in your family or whatever else how do you find your level of motivation when you come to the office. May be you can abstract your mind from these problems but I have not met such people too much. I clearly understand that sometimes I can’t help them but I have to support them and take care of them. I would call this “personal touch”. Below you can find a few great (from my point of view) examples of managers who applied such approaches in a very smart way:

1. First example comes from one of the companies where the manager has about 100 people in staff. He allocates about 2 hours twice a week to go around and simply chat with different people in his team. This is not officially scheduled meeting. In most cases he takes some tea and walk around asking people what happens, what they think about latest news etc. Sometimes he shares some jokes or talk about funny stories. He dedicates time to this chats. The bottom line for this example – this manager wants to do that! He doesn’t have this in his scope he takes care of people who works for him. And he is interested what is going on around.

2. Second example is about a manager who bought doughnuts and delivered them to each cubical with tea on Friday every week. 1–2 mins chat with many people in the office helps him to keep in touch with the team.

3. The final example is about the manager who invited team members for short walk around the office after lunch just to have informal chat about work.

You don’t really need to replicate the same in your team. Probably you will find something unique for your situation. Anyway you should find some options applicable for your case.

I also try to work on that. This is in my agenda. I would avoid doing some special attempts to develop such relationships but having strong believe in that I simply try to follow simple rules:

А. Do not be afraid to show that you are human being. This is much better than artificial management model with clear instructions what others need to do.

What I mean here – you have life outside of work, you have hobbies, you can laugh so you have the whole bunch of feelings. This is normal! When you share with your team members that you like watching comedies or you like dogs you behave naturally. You don’t raise the wall between you and your colleagues but rather you build bridges with everyone in the team.

В. Communicate more with people. Encourage them to speak, share feedback, give inputs and proposals, and share their concerns. Make this communication open, honest and make sure you don’t use them for blaming or criticizing others. Make this communication easy to do. It means your team should have an easy way to chat with you when they have topics to discuss.

I still try to avoid any doors between my office and the rest of the team. First time when I found that quite useful was about 15 years ago:

Working into local company I had a team of 10 people and we were based in a small room all together. It was not convenient for us and we finally negotiated a bigger room. We got a lot of space and I had a small private office there. At the same time due to lack of money we didn’t have a door there after redesign. But I still felt like I had some privilege to have better office than my team. So after some time I decided to use this room for join meetings rather than a private office. That was right decision because I started to recognize that my colleagues were shine to come without knocking.

I definitely vote for pretty equal conditions when you work together. I am lucky to have experience of working with top managers who sit in the same office space in the same cubical close to you so you feel them engaged into work process.