Chapter 18 The Balancing Skills New Managers Should Possess

One day, you are called in for a long conversation with upper management. The conversation can be many, but the core message is usually simple: "Your hard work has paid off, and tomorrow you will be a A manager." Congratulations!You may already be an unofficial team leader, have taken management courses, read a lot of books on how to be a manager, and have prepared a lot for this day.However, from now on, before and after you officially become a manager, you need to do more preparations, the most important of which is not the preparation of skills, but the change of concept. The newly appointed team leader is the one most likely to break down.It's not often that we see new manager meltdowns, as incompetent new managers disappear so quickly that we completely forget about them.Virtually every new manager psychologically goes through a longer or shorter period of self-doubt, and there is often a downward sag in their growth path. A new level, regaining the ease and ease you once experienced as the best employee.

For how to become a good leader, there are a large number of theoretical works and self-help (How-to) books, which list seven steps, five aspects, four myths, etc. for people to choose according to their needs.They are usually summed up very well. For example, there is a classic leadership book that puts forward the five behaviors of leaders: leading by example, sharing the vision, challenging the status quo, making others act, and inspiring people.These leadership principles are indeed effective, but I think that despite these brilliant words, the first thing a new manager needs to keep in mind is a very simple sentence: Remember when you were a subordinate.

Most people have been subordinates before becoming managers, and they may have complained about their former direct superiors: such as grasping everything tightly, not knowing how to authorize, only knowing to ask for better results, not knowing how to encourage at the right time, I only know to pay attention to the current goals, have no long-term planning, treat all team members unfairly, always interrupt your normal work with affairs, etc.However, when these new managers look back at their initial management experience after a period of time, they often find that they have done a lot of management behaviors that they did not like when they were subordinates-they seem to have completely forgotten that they have done it before. The managed, forgetting what annoyed them before.

For new managers, their first psychological preparation is: When making any decisions related to subordinates, think about it in another way. How do you view such management behavior when you are a subordinate? Generally speaking, subordinate employees are more disgusted with the following two aspects, but this is precisely the most common mistake new managers make.First, managers intervene too much in the work of employees.When a new manager is a subordinate, they usually have excellent work ability, and they don't want the manager to interfere more with his work.However, when he became a manager, his original work ability became an obstacle, because the subordinate employees generally did not do as well and as fast as he used to, and he could not help but intervene.Second, there is not enough time and space for employees.When working as a subordinate, many of the most disgusting things are often that the manager has no plan, or temporarily changes the established plan, so that he has no time and space to freely arrange the work rhythm.New managers are often poor at planning, and without empathy, they don't even realize the disruption they're causing their employees to do.These two disliked management behaviors from the perspective of subordinates should be avoided by new managers as much as possible.

However, this is not to say that you don’t do anything you don’t like when you are a subordinate. There are two reasons. First, the position changes, and the criteria for judgment also change. It is what he should do to demand results and give more space to capable employees.Moreover, the new manager usually hopes to make achievements as soon as possible, and cannot measure various management behaviors in a normal and ideal way. At this stage, his work focus should be to complete short-term goals with the highest quality.On the other hand, the new manager has not really established the self-awareness of the manager in his heart, nor has he established prestige among the team members, nor can he accurately predict the work results of the team members. Many factors make the delegation of complete hands-off usually not the best. good choice.

The growth of a new manager usually goes through a process. He will slowly build up the awareness of himself as a manager in his heart, and form a relationship of trust between him and his team members. Look at the problem from a perspective.To put it simply, trust, if the connotations of praise and derogation are removed, actually means that both the manager and the subordinate know what kind of behavior the other party will have, and know exactly what the result of the behavior will be, that is, they can predict the behavior of both parties .A new manager will be better and faster through the initial transition from employee to manager if he can "remember when he was a subordinate" before self-confidence and trust are built.

The second thing new managers need to keep reminding themselves is: "Now, you are the team leader." This is equally simple and almost common sense, but it is also often forgotten. Doing most of the work that should be done by the team alone is both the result and the cause of forgetting this sentence.Generally speaking, the newly promoted manager still needs to undertake a lot of specific work, and he also needs to be able to fill in the position to complete the work when the team members have problems. Usually, they are given the title of team leader precisely because of their excellent work. responsibility.In this case, the new manager often unconsciously does more and more specific work on his own, leaving aside the management coordination tasks that were originally his main responsibility.

In fact, unless necessary, managers should not replace employees to do their jobs, but should provide "support and service."Peter Drucker once said that he would ask himself in every new position, "What should I do now to be effective in the new position?" Those who worked efficiently in the original position were promoted Then suddenly become incompetent, the reason is not that they suddenly become stupid, but that they work in the wrong way.In my opinion, the responsibilities of a manager, simply put, include: first, coordination and planning, allowing everyone to do what they should do; They do things with peace of mind, three, motivate the team, four, and finally do their own professional work. As the level of managers increases, they will undertake less and less professional work.

"Now, you are the team leader." This statement also means that you must change the way you speak.There are some things you can no longer say, and some things you must say in new ways.That's not to say the new manager has to put on a mask, or even speak in the annoyingly "official tone" that so many do.While changing the way you speak, you should still be expressing yourself.However, since your role has changed, your words are given greater weight by the position.For example, in the past, you could complain about something you didn't like, but now, a casual sentence you say may make team members think that this matter should not be done or can be dealt with, or affect the team's mentality.By becoming a team leader, you lose the right to complain.

As a leader, you have to articulate what you think and don’t let your team members guess what you think because they can never guess right.Moreover, if there is one person, there will be a guess. If everyone speculates on the core issues that the team has to deal with, it is impossible for everyone to form a consistent direction of action. In the past, you may have been a good speaker, or you may have been a good listener.In the eyes of many people, being a leader often means speaking more, and they tend to focus on further improving their speaking skills.In fact, to be a team leader, the most important thing is to "listen".If you don't listen, you can't possibly understand what your team members think.Related to that, you also need to learn to "ask questions", as Jack Welch said in "Win", keep asking questions, make yourself the dumbest person in the room.

In addition to the two conceptual changes of "remember when you were a subordinate" and "now, you are a team leader", there are two important reminders for new managers. The first is tolerating diversity.New managers who are promoted by good employees have friends in the company that are mostly the best employees, and they often have a lot in common and are very similar.After stepping into the role of team leader, the most shocking thing a new manager sees is usually that the members of his team are very different, and the appearance, behavior and thinking do not meet your expectations.Often, the image you expect to be is actually yourself.At this time, what you have to do must not be to adjust personnel or try to reshape these team members, but to tolerate diversity, accept people who are completely different from you, and discover their characteristics and advantages. The second is to start the "I'm not there" test as soon as possible.It may take you a while to get used to your new responsibilities, to be able to estimate exactly what the results of your work will be, and you may also feel that it is your responsibility to keep an eye on everything so that nothing goes wrong.However, when you have been a new manager for a while, you should start the "I'm not there" test as soon as possible, that is, as soon as possible to test whether the team can perform normally without you. The sooner this test is done after the initial trust-building period, the better, because without it, full trust between you and your team members will not be established.And, if you don't learn to let go at this stage, your mental perception of being always present can last for years or more, which will hinder your growth. To become a manager, you need to lead the team to complete tasks. "Remember when you were a subordinate", "Now you are a team leader", "tolerate diversity, and conduct an absence test" are all to achieve this goal.You also need to understand that you live in an organizational system. You not only have subordinates, but also superiors. When you become a manager, their expectations of you and this organizational system have changed, and you also need to take a new perspective look at them. Becoming a new manager means that you become an "organizer".Anyone who has a little understanding of management knows that the organization man (organization man) was proposed by William White in the 1950s. He used this term to describe the post-war American generation of managers who were loyal to the company and had no personality.After nearly 50 years, the location has also moved to China. The specific situation we face may have changed slightly, but in fact the essence of the company's organization has not changed much. No other word can show new managers more acutely than organizational man. The world you will be in: you become part of a management system and you have to compress your personality space, not expand it; the sense of control you hoped would come with a promotion is actually less; The system expects consistent performance while expecting you to be creative and drive change. Awareness of oneself as an organizational man is most useful in helping new managers figure out exactly where they fit in the management system.Managers are "people who are responsible for the work of others". To your superiors and the system, you are responsible for the work results of the entire team. To your subordinates, you are actually responsible for the instructions from the upper level.Compared with being just an excellent employee and being responsible for your own work results in the past, now you are under pressure in two directions, which is the main reason why your degree of freedom is actually reduced. To survive and succeed in this management system, you, as a new manager, need two conceptual shifts: first, you are in an uncontrollable world, and you can only struggle to find a certain balance between control and uncontrollability; Second, the paradox is that your management success depends on making others or the management system (which is composed of a series of people) feel in control, simply put, it is to make them feel "safe". "Leaders cannot control their world: the bad leader pretends he can (or has no uncontrollable duties), while the wise leader struggles between a rock and a hard place." From Shakespeare's plays So says Paul Corrigan, who manages revelation.A lot of things at work are outside of your control, a fact that many managers don't want to admit, let alone face.However, this uncontrollable anxiety has been affecting them. For example, many managers wake up every morning and find themselves in a situation where they are responsible for the final result, but it is impossible to control all the possible results. influencing factors. The new manager is usually at the tail end of the management system, which means that the management messages coming to him are often vague, mixed and come from multiple sources.This is very different from the situation he faced as an employee in the past, where the management instructions they received in the past were usually clear and specific.In order to effectively complete tasks, junior managers need to convert this information into very specific tasks and block out a lot of irrelevant information.Now, I have to do such conversion work.They come to a world they thought they could control, only to find that they have entered a world where their actual control may have increased, but their sense of control has greatly diminished. It is especially difficult for new managers to prepare themselves for a world they cannot control, and the main reason is the psychological gap.Newly promoted managers always think this way, I can finally have a certain amount of power and control, and finally I am no longer controlled by others, and I can decide what to do and how to work.However, as a new junior manager, he was exposed to greater uncertainty.He couldn't accurately predict what kind of orders would come from the upper echelon, and he wasn't sure whether he could get the desired results if he entrusted others to do things.The new manager, who thought being in charge meant gaining power, discovered that it was something to be earned. What makes the situation more complicated is that in today's fast-changing business environment, even the most junior manager cannot repeat the work and responsibilities of his predecessor. The organization is constantly changing, and he must be more or less Push for some change.This often means more uncertainty. If the new manager who expects power doesn't recognize the situation he's in—a world beyond his control, he may act wrongly.The most common mistake they make is that they think they should be in control and that they can't get anything done without control.So they spare no effort to make demands and seek power.In the early stages of their management career, they want this and that, but they don't get it, because he has not yet demonstrated enough management ability and established credibility with the boss and the management system.Generally speaking, managers need to win power, through small successes to win greater and greater dominance. In a conflicted situation of constant demands and unavailable, some new managers become very frustrated, or extreme: some begin to limit themselves, thinking that they cannot do things under such dominance, they refuse to take on their responsibilities, and gradually Loss of ambition; some will become a constant complainer, hostile to the entire management system; some will resort to less legitimate ways to seek power and control, such as corporate politics... Of course, only those who are willing to face the inability to Those who gain enough control over the situation and struggle to balance it will ultimately succeed. Oddly enough, although many top managers have gone through this stage, they often stand by when the next generation of managers they hope to produce encounter such problems, and they don't care about the new managers who go the wrong way. Regardless, they seem to be just waiting for the last survivors.Perhaps they have a reason for doing so. If the new manager can't even face such a challenge, how can he face the much more difficult situation in his future management career? The second mistake new managers often make is that they completely forget about the fact that they cannot control it and act as if they are in control.There have always been many managers in the company who are extremely confident to the point of arrogance, and they act like they have all the factors in their hands and have unlimited power. Senior managers often mistakenly believe that such people are often the most reassuring: they have no demands, no complaints, and disdain for company politics. Their self-confidence and bravery can often solve some problems. Build confidence in them.However, new managers who adopt this attitude can be the most dangerous. Their "everything is under control" attitude can withstand many small uncontrollable things, many problems are covered up, and sometimes it may actually be possible. It is to cover up another mistake with one mistake, and finally at a critical moment, an important factor that cannot be controlled will appear, and what appears at this time is often a big problem that is difficult to make up.For managers personally, they will also experience the sudden discovery that what they believed in in the past has been completely subverted.After a fiasco, these managers usually lose their chance to move up the company, and they're out. Those new managers who ultimately succeed usually choose a more practical attitude: they admit that they cannot control everything, they face this anxiety of losing control, and they are willing to accept their own responsibility.They don't think that they have complete control to take responsibility, but look for a balance between control and uncontrollability; they don't imagine themselves in a certain world, they know that there will be unforeseen difficulties, They know that they must live in this anxiety and anxiety, and they know that their mission is to find a way to accomplish their tasks in this anxiety. While the new manager himself had to grapple with the anxiety of being out of control, his success depended on providing others with a sense of control. We might as well think about it in another way. Senior managers are actually in the same anxiety. Certainty; the more matters they have to govern, the greater the potential for problems to arise.The new manager needs to understand that he needs to provide certainty to his upper management.Helping reduce their anxiety is one of your most important jobs. At this time, the new manager's experience as a subordinate in the past needs to be reused, that is, "remember when you were a subordinate." In order to help relieve the anxiety of the superior manager, what the new manager needs to do is: first, manage the superior's work reasonably expect.Don't let upper management expect a result that you and your team can't achieve, be brave enough to say "no"; and don't deliberately set low expectations, and then let them get "surprise". Second, provide them with key progress information.For managers, all they care about is results, and what causes them anxiety is the worry that they will not get the results they want.But assurances that they will deliver the results they want don’t ease their anxiety; what really works is providing enough real progress that they know things are on track.There is an example that can well illustrate the anxiety of upper management: the China CEO of a large multinational company requires front-line employees to submit reports directly to him every week. In the end, there are usually only two kinds: the good news and the bomb that is about to go off. Third, the new manager must also allow the upper management to understand you as a person, including personality, ideas, ways of doing things and even life.We all know that only people who we feel understand all aspects can give us a sense of peace of mind.Although upper management has the responsibility to know you as a person, it is also your responsibility for new managers to help them understand all aspects of you better. For subordinates, the new manager also needs to provide them with a sense of peace of mind: you need to create a working environment that excludes external interference and let them do what they are good at; you need to be able to simplify complex information into actionable tasks, and these tasks require Adapt to the situation and give team members a sense of control over what they are doing; you need to give them confidence in what they are doing, but at the same time they know that you are there to help if they encounter a problem that they cannot solve themselves ;Finally, you need to have smooth communication with all team members and directly help them eliminate work (and sometimes life) anxiety. In general, being part of a management system, you find yourself in a dilemma where you yourself are in a world of uncontrollability, while on the other hand you have to provide others with a sense of control.This is the most important lesson for new managers. Only by learning the art of balancing uncontrollable anxiety can you grow into a seasoned manager.