Baby steps on Management land
Once upon a time a ship arrived at Management land. Okay, in real life it might have been slightly different, but the point is every adventure has its beginning. And I do not want to tell you how I got onboard as it would be a whole other story. I would like to share my idea of how to ease the first baby steps in a supervisor role. To be more precise it is based on a collection of ideas which I learned as I was entering this whole new world. Because, with no doubt, every single experience is unique. And then again, you can still do it your way and use some wisdom of the past.
In my case, after I got promoted and emotions cooled down, I sat down and asked myself “okay, now what?”. Where to start, what is the next move? Obviously, I was not the first to ask all these questions. Instead of reinventing the wheel I started to search.
People, knowledge and private time — those are the three areas I focused on. Just three, but they all come in so many kinds, shapes, subgroups. All are important, complex, not obvious and need some decant time to understand. Also, maybe there is some order in which we should get to know them, but for all I know they overlap most of the time. Having said that, my intention is to share only some of their aspects. Aspects that I found to be useful just at the beginning of the management journey.
Let’s meet and discuss
When it comes to me, becoming a manager also meant saying hello to all kinds of different meetings: one on ones, status reports, planning sessions, brainstorming. It is not like I never joined any meetings before, it was their number. Of course, it was not a surprise. Everybody knows that managers love to spend their time talking and listening. Okay, if it is not love it must be at least a healthy relationship. If there is one skill that should be developed to perfection, it would be communication. It is a key that opens many doors.
I guess we all have been misunderstood at some point. And the manager, most of the time, is this one man in the middle. Right between team members who are in conflict. Passing some guidelines from directors or sharing status reports with sponsors. In all these cases there is information. And information is knowledge that could be simply misinterpreted.
Based on my experience, for team members, meetings in general are not something they would consider as their first choice. Especially if they have to attend many of them during one day. It is their precious time that they have to share and it should be respected. Just because of that, every single meeting should be thought through.
It is an art to organize and facilitate a good meeting. And as in art, there always should be an outcome. It does not have to be a masterpiece, sometimes a simple conclusion at the end should be enough. But let us start from the beginning.
The most important question before we start our preparation is: “do we need to meet at all?”. Just because we have some issues to resolve does not imply that we need to organize a conference call right away. In general, jumping into problem solving without any analysis is not always the best answer. Maybe a meeting will be necessary after all, but firstly let us spend some time on defining a problem.
There should be a clear topic on which we want to discuss and a goal that we want to achieve. Also, ideally, this information is shared with attendees in advance. I believe that it is not a secret that a nice, well written agenda is always a great benefit. Creating one makes us think about what we actually would like to cover and also, it helps to stick to the main topic.
The world is not perfect and during a meeting we might witness some discussions not related to our subject. For all I know, it is always good to address them by proposing a new meeting or simply to take it offline. That way or another, common sense should always win. Let’s remember that after all we meet with other people and in order to accomplish something in a group. In that case we should expect some different points of views. Otherwise, we could simply take a piece of paper, pencil and make a decision by ourselves — and in some situations that is actually the only solution.
Is there anybody out there?
Once we are in a new place, in a new position, it is perfectly normal that we would like to understand our environment and get to know people around us. Especially at the beginning, there is one useful tool and it is called listening. In most cases it is also very helpful to ask right questions, or if you are lucky, just to say hello to the right person.
On a new land there are three basic areas that it is good to get familiar with — team goals, roles and responsibilities. It is good to understand the purpose of your team in general and of each member individually. It would be just wonderful if everyone has the same goal set in mind, but it is completely enough if there is at least awareness of one common objective. From that point, it is usually much easier to build a healthy team spirit.
Next thing is to take a look on your organizational chart. It is extremely helpful to know who is who in your company. With time it tends to be more tasks on the todo list and creating a simple relations network can save time and effort. But even before that, there is another very important thing to do and it is to make sure that all roles and responsibilities are clear in your team. After all, it is nice to know who decides on what and to whom I can go to get advice. That knowledge can simply reduce some misunderstandings and confusion in a team.
Sometimes in your new reality there is this one person who seems to know everything. She or he has this special power to lead people and to achieve one essential milestone after another.
Most probably you are dealing with a normal human being who can be reached by email, messenger or even chat during a coffee break. If that is the case, I would strongly recommend meeting such a person.
As I already mentioned at the beginning I do not see any reason to reinvent a wheel. Management planet was discovered some time ago and since then a lot of research has been made and many books were written. A mentor can help in navigating through this world, share some experience and best practices.
Me, myself and my time
Back in the days when I was implementing new features, fixing bugs or simply writing some performance test report, my day in most cases was one thread only. From time to time there was a meeting, sometimes a coffee break, besides that there was just me in my flow state. Wonderful feeling when everything else is just passing by and you are at the top of your possibilities.
Well, that ended, but there is a hope. Usually, for a new manager, there are just a couple of meetings and discussions that should be taken care of. With time there might be more and more situations in which we should switch context. And that is where your prioritization skills come into play.
There is no one tool or one best practice. Some use simply pencil and notebook, while someone else will install his favorite application on a mobile phone. That way or another it must be done or you are doomed. Actually, to be more precise, in that case it is not just about you. There will be people waiting for approval, decision or sign-off and also their precious time.
From my point of view, organizing a day with a little help of technology makes it much easier to switch from one topic to another. There are plenty of tips and tricks on how to do that. I would like to highlight one: pick the most important task for a day and make it happen. As it is more about quality, not quantity.
What is the most important, with all of that we should get to this special place which is called peace of mind. Once you close your laptop and leave an office, you should feel calm about your tasks as they are waiting in right boxes for the next day.
Enjoy the ride
On Management land every day brings a new adventure — at least at the beginning. Also, it is just wonderful that nowadays there are so many places where we can read, listen and learn about it (such as, hbr.org, ted.com, pmi.org). Of course, it is worth getting some basics. However, nothing can beat experience. I would say, go for it, try, do not be afraid to fall and after all just enjoy the ride.
