How to manage a team for the first time without making mistakes?
5 February 2009
Read by 2223 persons
When you are appointed manager for the first time, I like to say that it's like becoming an emergency doctor: you have to learn life-saving techniques.
In this learning period, the young manager is vulnerable and will pay dearly for the slightest mistake. He must therefore be extra cautious. The first necessity is to respect an observation period, a period of silence during the first hundred days, without making untimely statements. You must watch and listen. Everything has meaning. Why, for example, don't the secretaries say hello to each other.
For you, this should also be a time for reflection to understand the values and culture of the company, but also the communication processes used in the company. To do this, you must be humble towards your colleagues: they know a lot of things, they have a lot to teach you.
All this information collected must be used. Management is navigation by sight, it is built with instruments. It is therefore essential to build a personalized dashboard to diagnose what is working or not working in your department. The criteria selected may be the progress of ongoing projects, the turnover rate, absenteeism rate, etc. Everything that is measurable and can be improved. This table should be evolutionary: simple at first, then gradually adding new indicators. This table will be used to write a regular summary report to your superior on the functioning of your department. Furthermore, to assert oneself as a manager, one must give the image of someone who understands the challenges ahead and who gives meaning to their department, like a shepherd guiding his flock. The young manager must also understand that he is in a system of interactions; it is difficult in this context to appear shy or reserved; the adage "happy is he who communicates" therefore takes on its full meaning. The limit: you must not force yourself to play a game that you cannot maintain in the long run. In other words, you must remain yourself!
Other tools can help the manager succeed in taking up their position. Thus, they can build a sociogram; this is a graph that makes it possible to lay out the state of relationships in their department (a small circle symbolizes each person with arrows and a + or a - depending on the state of relationships between people). This allows them to be more vigilant and to anticipate conflicts. After a few months of management practice, do not hesitate to self-diagnose. The Chinese portrait method is quite effective for this: "If I were a manager, I would be", "If I were CEO, I would be", etc.
Finally, loneliness is the main trap that awaits young managers. They should not hesitate to meet executives of the same level, a good way to exchange and gain experience.
Posted on February 5, 2009
capital.fr
In this learning period, the young manager is vulnerable and will pay dearly for the slightest mistake. He must therefore be extra cautious. The first necessity is to respect an observation period, a period of silence during the first hundred days, without making untimely statements. You must watch and listen. Everything has meaning. Why, for example, don't the secretaries say hello to each other.
For you, this should also be a time for reflection to understand the values and culture of the company, but also the communication processes used in the company. To do this, you must be humble towards your colleagues: they know a lot of things, they have a lot to teach you.
All this information collected must be used. Management is navigation by sight, it is built with instruments. It is therefore essential to build a personalized dashboard to diagnose what is working or not working in your department. The criteria selected may be the progress of ongoing projects, the turnover rate, absenteeism rate, etc. Everything that is measurable and can be improved. This table should be evolutionary: simple at first, then gradually adding new indicators. This table will be used to write a regular summary report to your superior on the functioning of your department. Furthermore, to assert oneself as a manager, one must give the image of someone who understands the challenges ahead and who gives meaning to their department, like a shepherd guiding his flock. The young manager must also understand that he is in a system of interactions; it is difficult in this context to appear shy or reserved; the adage "happy is he who communicates" therefore takes on its full meaning. The limit: you must not force yourself to play a game that you cannot maintain in the long run. In other words, you must remain yourself!
Other tools can help the manager succeed in taking up their position. Thus, they can build a sociogram; this is a graph that makes it possible to lay out the state of relationships in their department (a small circle symbolizes each person with arrows and a + or a - depending on the state of relationships between people). This allows them to be more vigilant and to anticipate conflicts. After a few months of management practice, do not hesitate to self-diagnose. The Chinese portrait method is quite effective for this: "If I were a manager, I would be", "If I were CEO, I would be", etc.
Finally, loneliness is the main trap that awaits young managers. They should not hesitate to meet executives of the same level, a good way to exchange and gain experience.
Posted on February 5, 2009
capital.fr
