The Accidental Manager

The employee should have an exploratory meeting with their Manager or Directors to discuss the next steps in becoming a Manager. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, and they are normally installed as a Manager without the first hint of any training.

Then the issues start. Complaints from team members, stress for the individual involved because they are now fully out of the comfort zone, and then the realisation that they are a million miles from the profession they studied so hard for.

It is quite some time ago since I first started on my managerial career, but the above is a snapshot of how I started out. Maybe you can learn from some of the things I picked up along my managerial journey.

1.   How Young is Too Young For a Manager?

I was 21 years old when I first started in management. I was working in a Purchase Ledger office for a Manufacturing company when my then manager went on long term sick leave. I was asked to take over the department and I jumped at the chance. However, I did not have the maturity or experience to do the role, and I was managing much older members of the team.

I struggled through and won people round with some wit, charm and no little flannel. However, it got quite close to breaking me, so my advice here is that younger managers can work out, but they also need support and coaching.

In the first instance, make sure that they actually want to manage people. Not everyone does. Secondly, put in a mentor who can guide them through the numerous issues and pitfalls that they will come across. Thirdly, if they show willing, are competent and enthusiastic, then give it a go on a probation period. You might just have a jewel of a manager in your midst.

2.   Quick Management Decisions Are Always Best, Right?

Well this is what I always thought. My thought process for many years as a Manager was to make a decision and see it through no matter what. Action was better than inaction in my thought process and this was how it went for many years.

One day about twenty years ago, I received an invoice for payment for around £10k. It was for a supplier that I knew well and normally I would have processed it and paid it to terms. For some reason, I left this invoice sitting on my desk unpaid. Two weeks later, no one had chased it. It turns out that this was a scam invoice and had been sent though to the company to try and illicit payment.

The moral of my story is that some of the best decisions I ever made weren’t the ones I took decisive action on, they were the ones that I decided not to take action on. It’s amazing since that time how many times a situation has resolved itself by giving myself some space and time, and not taking an immediate definitive decision. This is not a case of putting your head in the sand and hoping the problems disappear, but to give yourself some time to make the right decision. You are still taking a decision, but it is a decision to wait. Next time you are faced with a difficult decision, try sitting back for a moment and see what happens. It might just be the best decision you ever made.

3.   Managers Hire on Skills and Fire on Behaviours

Poor behaviours will destroy your team. It is a fact. You only need one individual with a poor behaviour trait or attitude in your team and it destroys the morale in a team very quickly. So how do you employ techniques to guard against getting into this situation?

You can ask candidates to complete a personality test to see where they are at in terms of their personality traits such as Activist, Theorist, Reflector or Pragmatist. This will show you whether they are likely to fit with the rest of the team. Of course, you will need to test your whole team to understand the current make up too.

Secondly, make sure you manage the probation period. If you don’t like what you see in the first 3 or 6 months, then you are unlikely to like what you see after this point. If a new employee is not giving 100% in those first few months, they are unlikely to give you this once you have passed their probation. Don’t be afraid to dismiss employees who aren’t right for you in that period. It is your “break clause” for the employment contract. Don’t let it pass you by.

The new laws that Labour are looking to introduce are likely to radically change the behaviours of employers towards recruitment and performance management. It will become ever more important to ensure that you manage out employees who are underperforming or do not exhibit the behaviours you are looking for in your business.

4.   Managing Recruiting

When was the last time your Director or Manager asked you how did a candidate behave in the interview?

Recruiting new employees is fraught with danger. I have been caught out on more than one occasion with the wrong candidate fit for my team. However, there are some simple things you can do to reduce this risk.

I got to the point where I was tired of hiring Finance Assistants that didn’t know their way around a P&L or Balance Sheet. After a while I decided to put in two 20 minute tests to show that the candidates did understand what they were doing and knew the basics of accounting. It was simple to do, but it knocked out the poor candidates fast, saving me a lot of time in recruiting the unqualified or inexperienced people. Why not devise some timed tests for your roles, so that the candidates can prove their aptitude and save you a lot of time?

Make sure that you ask the right questions at interview. Dig into their character. Ask them exploratory and open questions about why they gave up sport at an early age or why they do not play a musical instrument anymore. Ask them to talk you through a difficult period in their lives and how they dealt with that. If you feel they are holding things back, keep asking the searching questions. Eventually you will have a feeling as to whether they are a good fit for your team.

Lastly, remember that a candidate that has all the skills and knowledge, but a poor attitude will learn nothing and may destroy the team. However, a candidate with lesser knowledge and skillsets, but a first class attitude is much more likely to be worth their weight in gold to the organisation.

5.   A Non-Communicative Manager Is A Failing Manager

People know that the majority of issues in the workplace are often down to poor communication or being too busy to communicate properly. This can happen all too easily. When business owners lose interest or motivation in the business, personal issues clouding their enthusiasm or simply they forget that there are people out there who need to need to be led.

I have been through these periods where communication has been difficult. One particular case was when there was a death in the family, and I became a different person for a few months. This was very noticeable to my team who had known a fun and chatty person who all of a sudden had become a very closed, angry and saddened individual. This is of course not permanent and there is always a journey to go on through grief, but the impact it had on my team was marked and long lasting. I wish I could have handled it a little differently.

Whatever the problems, issues or obstacles you need to overcome, keep communicating. Even if it is to say that communication will slow down for a period of time. Keep talking, keep in touch and don’t let a void open up between you and your team. It is counter-productive and will make life harder than it has to be for longer.

Summary

These are some of the lessons I have learned over the years during my management career. I hope that you can take some of these stories and apply them to help make your life easier and less stressful.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact Jon at jon@hrmartuk.com or call us on 01903 754107.