First Time Managers

Just a quick note that I’ll be presenting much of the material from this book at the MYOB Conference in NYC. For more information and to register, please navigate to http://www.howbusinessconference.com and you’ll see the other speakers who will also be presenting.

Managing Right for the First Time, by David C. Baker, was released on June 4, 2010, by RockBench Press, publisher of courageous thought leadership content.

Scan the author, book, and content pages above for more information.

On this page I will periodically publish portions of the book.

From the preface:

We’ve all heard those jokes about how it’s harder to get a driver’s license than to become a parent, right? Well, it takes even less to become a manager. One day you aren’t and one day you are. You might not have seen it coming, and you probably didn’t get any training even if there was a slow build up to that eventful (or fateful) day.

What happens when we don’t get the managing thing right? Well, I guess sometimes people die when the anger builds to the point where the co-worker brings that gun back to work and then shows up on CNN. (The amount of workplace violence alone should give us pause.) But normally, the results are simply grouchy managers, disgruntled employees, and unremarkable business results.

That may not seem all that significant in relation to the co-worker gone berserk, except that bad management is a lot more widespread than violent employees.

Think about it. You spend an enormous percentage of your life at work. Your circle of friends comes largely from workplace connections. And finally, what do you whine about the most after you get home after a long day? A boss who isn’t managing or a co-worker who isn’t being managed. So this is worth talking about.

We’re humans, after all, and at its core, managing is essentially a human activity. As impactful as it is, it’s still sloppy, never ending, unclear, and satisfying only at unpredictable moments.

That’s why you don’t find many books on the topic, by the way. Because it is essentially human, there’s little science to it. What’s more, everyone has a different style of managing and the notion of corralling all those “best practices” into some useful tome makes as much sense as asking all the best song writers in the world to divulge their best practices.

No, managing is individual, and that’s because it flows from who we are as individual people. What that means is that the best we can do is get the core principles right and then forget about the rest. That’s what this book is about: the core principles for first time managers. If you get those right, you’ll figure the rest of it out in time.

The truth is that figuring it out is part of the reward for managing. There are many times when the light will go on in your own eyes and the resulting epiphany will deepen your motivation to do it right.

So we’re going to talk about two big concepts, really. The first will revolve around the core principles you’ll need to follow to get it right the first time. What you build on those core principles will depend on who you are as a person. But you must get the basic principles down, just like any athlete. Experimentation before mastering the core principles is irresponsible. Experimentation after mastering the core principles is a satisfying thing to watch.

Most of this book is about those core principles, but we’ll touch on the second core concept toward the end: managing others individually without violating those core principles. You’ll only be free to do that once you’ve mastered the basics. Again, like any professional athlete, the basics must be automatic to free up your brain for the extraordinary things. What does any good coach do if a team is struggling? Drag them back to the basics, which are the foundation for personalization.

So if you are a first-time manager who wants to get it right out of the gate, or a long-time manager who wants to get it right for the first time, this book is for you. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do with this book now that you bought it or received it as a gift, but may I make some suggestions on how to benefit from it? Here we go.

First, read it when you need it. Unless you’re itching somewhere, a scratch is just irritating and unconnected to a real need. So you might want to read this at the outset of this managing journey when you are truly mystified about how you’re going to manage this person that you had lunch with just yesterday as a peer, where you whined about the boss together. Or you might want to read this right after you’ve been criticized, fairly or not, by your boss or one of your charges. All this to say that there must be some motivation for you to listen and then change your behavior.

Second, read it when you can get through it in one or two sittings, like on vacation, on an airplane, or just before a planning/management retreat when you have to be a tad introspective and lead a discussion.

Third, read it when you are so engaged that you don’t need to take notes. If you are engaged, you will remember the important things you read as you look at a thought from multiple angles, wrap it in your own experience, and store it as your own “aha” moment.

Fourth, read it in a reckless mood, like the mood you have to be in to really effectively clean out a garage. Don’t think too deeply about anything—follow your first instincts and pitch the thought or keep it, but don’t noodle anything to death. There is no magic, here, just a basic guide designed to point you in the right direction while you blaze your own path through this management jungle.

There you go. Now let me explain where this comes from so you’ll have some context.

I wish I could tell you that I’m one of the world’s best managers and I’m just doing a mind dump so you can be as good as me. If I did that, I’d have to make sure no one who knows me got a copy of this book because I’d be run off the planet.

But you do deserve to know where this comes from just like you deserve to see the Doctor’s diploma on the wall.

First, the material from this book comes from my experience as an employee. From what I can remember, I’ve worked at about fifteen places. Most were the odd summer jobs, but the remaining handful of jobs were “real” jobs where I stayed for years. I’ve had great bosses, evil bosses, and mainly normal bosses, but I’ve learned things from all of them.

Second, the material comes from my experience as a manager, either as a pure manager or a manager/owner. I’ve held management positions at three companies that I didn’t own, and I’ve been an owner/manager at two companies.

Third, the material comes from my experience as a parent. Julie and I have two grown boys and probably nothing taught me more about management than being responsible for guiding them. I learned from the things I did well and the things I failed at.

Fourth, the material comes from the more than five hundred small businesses I’ve worked with over the last sixteen years, spending extensive time with each founder. In addition, each employee of those companies has completed an exhaustive on-line survey followed by a face-to face interview with most of them. I’ve heard the manager’s side, heard the employee’s side, and then seen the truth with my own eyes. I’ve helped countless employees transition to managers, often because I saw something, blessed the decision, and then watched in the background as the person flourished. Or even owners, who suddenly found themselves facing a much greater management role. I’ve helped fire managers that weren’t cutting it and I’ve stepped between an owner and a manager to prevent an unfair dismissal. I’ve had more than eight thousand conversations with people about how they want to be managed, what they wish were different, and how much they appreciate some particular aspect of a manager’s style.

Fifth, the material comes from speaking on management topics to audiences large and small, where it has always been my practice to take any question from the audience. Standing naked, so to speak, in front of thousands of people and having to explain/defend a management concept leaves you no option but to know what you believe and be able to articulate it.

So that’s it. Notable by their absence from this list, as you’ve probably already noticed, are two things: formal education and books on the subject of management. I have more than enough of the former (six years of my life in graduate school that I’d love to have back, just for starters), but I’ve never wanted to learn all that much from professors in a sterile environment. It’s great for academia, but it’s not all that great for life. What I do value from education is the discipline required to actually graduate, as well as the opportunity to make so many friends in the process.

And books, well, what can I say. Besides what you’re cradling gratefully in your hands at the moment, most are full of fluff, fad, or fantasy. There are a few notable exceptions, though, like this one. But mainly they don’t resonate with my own experience and so I don’t know what to do with the suggestions.

Finally, let me thank you for interacting with these ideas. As you read this and as you apply it to your situation, please continue the discussion with your fellow managers, and do let me know what you discover along the path.

Now to the core concepts of managing well.

From the introduction:

You haven’t noticed yet, but there are several little red light points on your chest. And no, it’s not because the neighbor kid is playing with the slide presentation pointer that fell out of your briefcase last night when you stumbled home, finally, after a hard day at work. It’s more that you’re in the cross hairs of one or more people who are watching very carefully how you react in the next few weeks.

You’ve crossed a threshold, see, by either managing people for the first time, or trying to do it right for the first time. This is your chance. You’ve experienced a seminal event in your life by entering the “management” room that you’ve only heard of in the past. You’ve criticized the people who have occupied this room without ever knowing what it was really like to be in their shoes.

Now you get to find out, and you get to do it better. Are you ready? Have you been paying attention? Do you understand the minuses that will come with the pluses? It’s a wonderful journey, but it’s not without difficulty.

I can’t remember much about the first time I managed people. Maybe for you it was like my experience, a more gradual transition in that I was managing them in reality long before I was managing them officially, and being promoted was more about recognizing what was already taking place. That’s probably the best way for it to happen.

But I probably don’t remember that first time simply because our culture doesn’t value management all that highly. You don’t read about great managers like you read about great athletes, and so we aren’t accustomed to thinking of the entry to management as some sort of anniversary.

It is, though, because it changes your life. It may not change your life to the same extent that childbirth, marriage, divorce, or death will change your life, but it certainly sets a course with all sorts of implications for your life.

This is a change, and how you react to it will affect your happiness, relationships, health, and wealth. It will also have a strong impact on the people you manage.

You do realize that, right? Twenty years from now, let me sit down with one of your current clients and ask them about you, your impact, and what they learned. Chances are they won’t even be able to dredge a name out of their murky memories. The same is true of your vendors.

But let me do that with one of your current employees in twenty years and they’ll remember you for sure. Hopefully it’ll be for the right reasons, and that’s the opportunity that is in front of you.

from chapter one: Who Managers Are and How You Become One

What is management, anyway? In the context of this book, I’m going to define it as taking responsibility for the performance and output of another employee in a business setting. There is obviously some overlap between that and leadership, and in many cases we can use the terms interchangeably, but in the end it boils down to being responsible for those two things—performance and output—and it relates to doing so with people in a business setting.

With that in mind, I want to make some statements about management to set the stage for our later discussion. Unless we’re on the same page here at the outset, we’re likely to be miles apart at the end of this journey.

Your Aptitude Comes Largely from the Choices You’ve Already Made

I’ll start by noting that management is not natural, and there are no “natural born” managers. Good management comes primarily from who you are as a person, and if you’ve made the right choices as you’ve responded to the circumstances you’ve encountered, there is a higher likelihood that you’ll be a good manager. That’s the first point, and it’s a very important one.

Who you are as a person stems from the choices you have made in the circumstances you have faced. You have had precious little choice about some of those circumstances, but you have had all sorts of freedom in deciding how you would respond to those circumstances. All those little choices added together make up who you are.

So you live with that reality. It is what it is, and there’s no changing the past. If the few big decisions and the many little decisions you have made were good ones, you’re probably closer to being a good manager out of the gate and maybe all it will take is some good advice from this book and a few trusted friends, along with a huge dose of more self-awareness.

At the other end of the spectrum, you might be a downright evil person soon to be an evil manager. I’m not worried about that, though, because there’s no way you’d be reading this book. What’s more likely is that you are ready, and just need a little help, or you aren’t ready but are quite willing to start making better choices.

I have to say that from a cold, statistical viewpoint, the odds of you changing significantly as a person just because you are a manager are not all that good. The additional power and isolation that will come your way will be severe tests of your character. But if you’ve been selected for management by a good manager, you can take solace in the fact that he or she sees something in you that you may not even see in yourself. This is good news, and it means that maybe you can grow into this position that is being carved out for you.

On the other hand, if you received a battlefield promotion (defined as nobody’s first choice until the person who was the first choice got killed unexpectedly and now you are the first choice), then all bets are off. Or if you were chosen for a management position by someone who is a bad manager, it’s just as grim. Not just because their judgment is suspect, but also because they won’t necessarily support your new management role properly.

All this to say that you have to be ready, nearly ready, or willing to make a lot of changes to be ready if you want to be a good manager, and that what you’ve done since you started making choices has a lot more to do with your aptitude for management than anything your DNA might say.

If You Have Made Good Choices, Management is Not Exclusionary

I want to continue the thinking above but take it in a different direction. Unless you are a terminally evil person, there is nothing about who you are that disqualifies you from being a good manager. There is no personality type that must be present for you to be effective as a manager. Your personality type definitely shapes how you will manage people, but you can be effective in that role with many different styles.

This is a very important point, and here’s another way to see it. There are very specific management jobs that will exclude the vast majority of the population, but for every management-ready individual, there is some management role they can fill. For instance, managing an NFL team will require someone who is not afraid of conflict as they shape the effort of huge egos and strong-willed stakeholders (owners, fans, media, etc.). That’s just part of the job, and putting a conflict-averse manager in there is a sure recipe for failure. But managing a classroom of special needs children doesn’t require that so much as it requires empathy and patience. If we swapped roles between these two people, they both would fail, not because they aren’t good managers but because the specific requirements of that management role weren’t taken into account when managers were considered.

What this means is that some managers fail because of the fit and not because of their aptitude. It also means that in the right circumstance, a good person—no matter the personality traits—can manage well if attention is paid to that fit.

Management Does Not Make You Special

There’s a strange hierarchy built into the socio-economic structure of the “developed” world. If you want to make a lot of money, you either have to be one of the lucky few entertainers or athletes inexplicably lauded by the unwashed masses, or you have to manage people. Left out of this mix is the craft or skill person who accepts a management job because of the money and prestige that comes with it, never mind that they are a terrible fit.

What this heading should have said, really, is this: Being a Manager Will Make You and Others Think You Are Special, but You Really Aren’t. What I’m saying is that management should be viewed as a job. That is, it’s a job that involves stepping out of the details, looking at trends, acting like a coach, and all the other things that come with it. But that’s not necessarily more important than what the people on your team do, and you need to disabuse yourself of that idea or you’ll be haughty and unapproachable.

If I could wave a magic wand, there would be two career paths—one for skill/craft and one for management—and given individuals could move up each path without crossing over to the other. In that world, some skill/craft employees would be making more money than the managers who are responsible for them. Who cares? This notion that money moves in lockstep with your ascent on the corporate ladder has left us with a lot of idiots doing what they think is management only because that comes with the higher salary and they can’t ignore it entirely. If you can’t manage people well, you shouldn’t be a manager. It’s that simple, really. And you could even extrapolate that and say that if you can’t manage people, you don’t have any business owning a company that employs them.

The Title Must Flow from the Activity

When you think about it, I believe you’ll agree that there should be no surprises in management. Kudos, disciplinary actions, promotions, demotions, labor contraction. All these things should be largely expected when they happen (except perhaps to the clueless crowd).

Looking more specifically into promotions, ask yourself this: when the people who work around you found out that you were being promoted to a manager, did they scratch their heads and say: “Wow. I wonder where that came from. What an odd choice.” Or did they nod their heads and note the decision, even just in passing, as one that made sense.

You’re always aiming for the latter. Great managers are generally great managers before they ever have the title. They’re like an inner tube you’re trying to hide from your brother by submerging it. Eventually, you get tired of holding it down and the inner tube (or the truth, in this case) pops to the surface.

Managers manage. Leaders lead. It generally happens or it doesn’t, and the title is almost immaterial. If you’re promoted to management for the right reasons, you’re already doing it, even if you don’t recognize it.

This is all really good news for most of you, because it means that all you have to do now is maintain the same direction, learn the formal parts of what is expected of you, avoid the land mines, and not let your head get too big. (I’m going to help you with that last part in this book.)

People Must Know You Are Managing Them

Similar to the idea that there are few surprises in management decisions, there are absolutely no secrets when it comes to who people are reporting to. There may very well be significant confusion about it, but there are no secrets. If people don’t know you are managing them, well, then you aren’t managing them. Period.

I’ve asked more than 8,000 people to name their boss. That’s always struck me as a pretty simple question, right? You’d probably agree with that. They do, too, until they have to answer it.

Most people give me an immediate answer, and they identify one person by name. This indicates that there is a clear reporting structure in that particular management environment.

Others pause, think a little, and then finally give me a name, and that’s a sure indication of some problem in the environment. Listen, asking someone to identify their boss is a lot like asking them who their Dad is. Either you know or you don’t, and there shouldn’t be much delay between the question and the answer.

Worse yet is the person who pauses, and then names several people. That’s no good, folks. What it generally means is that no one is managing them at all.

So here’s the point: someone cannot promote you to a management role and keep it a secret. Either you are officially managing people or you aren’t, and if you are, they must know that you are. When someone tries to promote you to a management role but doesn’t want the people “below” you to know that, there’s a very good chance that what they are really doing is making you responsible for the results without giving you the authority to shape them.

As Dr. Phil would say, “Let me know how that works out.”

There is No Official Management Without Power

That leads us to the final point of this section, and that’s the relationship between your management role and the power that comes with that role. The essence of management certainly isn’t power, at least wielded power. It’s more about influence, which in itself is power, but it’s more the ability to instill in people a legitimate desire to follow your leadership.

Real management, then, is about how you act and what you say and what you ignore and how you treat people and all those other things that we’re going to talk about. But as critical as all those things are, and as well as you might handle them, you really aren’t managing people in the truest sense of the word unless these things are largely true of your role.

First, you are responsible for hiring the people you manage, even if the decision must be approved by someone else. Or at least you are a significant part of the approval loop.

Second, you make the decisions or at least the recommendations for the compensation of the people you manage.

Third, if the people you manage receive performance reviews, you are the person who gives them, and if someone else attends the performance reviews, they are there merely as a silent witness.

Fourth, you have the authority to dismiss someone you manage, even if the decision must be approved by someone else.

Be sure to look a little deeper under the title you’ve just been given to see if it’s really management or not. If these things aren’t true of your new role, you ain’t managing, baby. And if that’s just now become apparent to you, put the book down and ask for a clarifying conversation with the person who promoted you and don’t proceed until you know what you’re getting into.

When you’re ready, the next thing we’re going to do is take a deeper look at why you were promoted. Understanding that will help you understand the things that happen early in your career as a new manager.