FOREW O RD
Ram Charan , Global Advisor to C-Suite Leaders and Boards
The change that comes when a person moves from being an individual contributor to becoming a supervisor is profound and difficult. Helping a new manager succeed was a problem long before the pandemic, before there was email, before there were teams working in dispersed locations. Most companies failed at it; most still do. A person needs to be coached, mentored, and trained to succeed as a manager. But in most cases, new managers get little of this, not even a full day of conversation about how to do the job. They get shown the policy manual and receive some training in legal stuff. But when it comes to becoming a true boss, they get a pat on the back, a new office and an introduction to their team, and that’s it. Who normally gets the promotion to manager? The best individual performer, of course. The problem is that the talents that earn someone a promotion are not the talents needed to succeed in the new job. The content of a management job is fundamentally different. Your job is no longer about how to produce good work, but how to get other people to do good work. You need to distribute work and help others organize themselves. You must learn how to orchestrate collaboration. You must learn how to select, motivate, and supervise people. You need to learn to coach, which is very different from supervising. Supervision is about monitoring current performance; coaching is about helping someone get better. And the manager must be able to teach skills to subordinates. Accountability is fundamentally different, too. When a person becomes a manager, accountability shifts in three ways: to the people who work for you, to your boss, and to your peers. You are accountable to your people for their output; their failure is your responsibility, just as their success is to your credit. To your boss, you are now one of a team of managers who are responsible for advancing each other’s work to achieve collective goals; you must interpret those goals to your people and vice versa, ensuring they have the resources they need. You will also, perhaps for the first time, link with other parts of the organization in interdepartmental or cross functional projects. This transition was always difficult, but it is much harder in remote or virtual work. There are fewer opportunities for the new manager to be observed in action, or for informal counselling and advice. Consequently, the process of training a new manager must be institutionalized, while at the same time being very personalized. What was done informally (and often not done well) needs to be done more explicitly (and done better).
5
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog