Becoming a Better Manager: A Joint Perspective from Bruce Oakley & Christine Isnor

Over coffee, Bruce and I have discussed at length, the challenges facing technical experts who are promoted to manage people. Far too often in my practice I witness this challenge; rewarding ‘loyal’, ‘smart’, ‘accomplished’ professionals by placing them into a new role ill equipped, inexperienced and essentially, dropped in the soup to achieve expertise as a manager of people. Bruce, a self proclaimed ‘non engineer - engineer’ has generously co-written this article to share his first hand experience (and wisdom) with those out there who have experienced such a promotion.

Navigating the Hurdles for New People Managers

Bruce Oakley & Christine Isnor

The situation is quite familiar: You were trained in a specific discipline, developed expertise at doing ‘the work’, then got promoted to manage people doing the work. Unfortunately, you have no management training and often times, need to navigate these new responsibilities on your own. Suddenly, your expertise, education, years of knowledge do not apply to this new landscape of ‘peopling’. Let me walk you through common pitfalls many of us have faced and my firsthand account of how best to avoid potential pitfalls.

Hurdle #1 - “I can do it faster myself”

When you are managing less experienced people, they have yet to develop a good level of efficiency. You know that you can do the job faster than them - in fact it often seems like directing them takes more time than just doing it yourself (in fact, that’s the truth). This can be frustrating, especially when there is a lot of work for your team to do and you’re in charge.

When approaching this situation, remember that coaching and training is an investment. Your time guiding the new team member will pay dividends in the future. Yes, the first job you guide them through might be a ‘net negative’ in terms of efficiency, that is a fact best to embrace. However, improvement comes through repetition, trial and error and consistency. Change the goalpost; it’s not perfection out of the gate, it’s progressive performance. If you are able to exercise some patience and truly give them your time, before long they will be doing jobs with very little effort on your part. Think: it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Hurdle #2 - “My way is better”

We all have our own approach to doing work and managing our time. It can be tempting to enforce our practices on our team, but what works best for you, may not work best for others. People may appreciate your suggestions, but flexibility on your part will generally lead to a happier, more productive and engaged team members.

There are exceptions:

- Standard professional practice, where it exists.

- Safety. No deviation from standard and established safety protocols.

- Software and other tools prescribed by the company, for which data compatibility is often important.

Judgement is required on your part, but keep in mind: diversity of thought and process thrives in autonomy, creativity and new perspective.

Hurdle #3: Take mistakes in stride

We learn more from mistakes than from successes. If your team, especially those with less experience, never make any mistakes then you likely aren’t challenging them or engaging them enough. Expect mistakes to happen, even if you wouldn’t have made them yourself, and help your team learn from them.

Clarify what differentiates a mistake from failure. As a manager, your main job is to help your staff succeed, guide and well and then step out of their way. Failure occurs when basic goals and outcomes are simply not met. Mistakes, however, take the form of smaller impacts along the way: some extra cost, some extra time, guidance and perhaps work that needs to be redone. As a manager, you will be more successful if you take a pragmatic approach to mistakes and help your staff develop means to avoid them in future. Turning mistakes into a crisis, and/or resorting to blame, is far more dangerous and costly as it erodes trust and confidence.

Hurdle #4: Communicating the big picture

You’re now part of the ‘in between’; managing staff and company expectations. Mediator, communicator and leader are new expectations that align to people management. You will be responsible to collaborate with other managers and departments, and have more ‘corporate responsibilities’, such as budgets, hiring and strategic planning. It can be tempting to try to minimize this; to slide into your comfort zone of technical work and you may feel like “protecting” your team from corporate affairs will help with focus and successful execution. The reality of the management title is these are now part of your responsibilities. Embracing these priorities is key to your success as a manager. So, go to the meetings, collaborate, review performance, build the budget; these are non-negotiables of your new role.

Pro Tip: Expose your team to core management responsibilities and emulate positive performance. Remember, you have eyes on you and if you dismiss these responsibilities as unimportant, you’re sending a powerful message to your team as well.

The BIG Hurdle: Face the gorilla in the room …

Almost certainly the biggest fear that new managers have is the possibility of having a difficult conversation with a subordinate. At some point, you will have to address a performance issue, or perhaps even terminate employment. These conversations are difficult for everyone.

Avoidance is not the answer. Performance issues do not resolve on their own, they do fester. Here are the fundamentals to addressing this like a pro.

Establish an honest relationship with each staff member right from the start. Don’t wait for a problem to occur before you start being clear and direct. An honest relationship is critical to managing staff, and not just to minimize discomfort. The practice of offering guidance and constructive (and positive) feedback in real time, will create an environment of trust and your staff will take it in stride. Also, the converse is true: they need to trust that they can tell you bad news without being reprimanded. You’re very unlikely to succeed as a manager if your staff are afraid to tell you the truth; remember mistake vs. failure. You need to work deliberately early and consistently to establish this trust and honesty.

1. Once there is clearly an issue, the longer you prolong or avoid the conversation, the worse it will get. Fact.

There are really only two ways this story can play out: the employee works to improve the problem with clear direction, expectations and guidance, or it is left unchecked and their progress stagnates, leaving them unaware and you frustrated with the lack of change. The latter often leads to a more uncomfortable scenario. If you decide to not have the difficult conversation, you are essentially ensuring the second path. Even delaying it significantly will make it harder and harder for them to correct. You are also making the conversation more difficult than it has to be.

The resolution? Set a time, lay out the facts, the expected outcome with the tools, guidance and timeline that clarifies your expectations as soon as you see a looming and repeated performance issue. Trust me when I say, the earlier conversations, while difficult, tend to net more positive outcomes than those unchecked.

Becoming a great manager is recognizing that your role, priorities and outcomes are not just your own, but your teams’ outputs, satisfaction and engagement. Acknowledging this as your new reality can help align your time, effort and focus accordingly to include coaching, feedback and communication. With those as your key metrics, finding your communication style and rhythm are sure to follow.

Bio

Bruce Oakley was an electrical engineer for 35 years, working mostly with electronics. He spent the latter part of his career as a manager, including a 10 year stint in senior management with a Nova Scotian manufacturer. Bruce has helped a number of engineers transition to management and business positions, and has experience mentoring startups.