I know some of you reading this right now are questioning whether you should stay in management.
You were crushing it as an individual contributor. You’re thinking maybe you should go back to an IC role.
Maybe you've been leading a team for the last couple years and everything was going great, until the reorg happened and doubled your team size.
I don't need to guess about this. I have heard this more times than I would like to acknowledge over the last couple of years of working directly with managers who recently inherited new teams.
These conversations weigh heavily on me because in most cases, the person I'm talking to has the potential to become a great manager and a great leader.
So what's happening here?
One second you were excited about the career opportunity. You were celebrating with family and friends. They're so proud of you!
Before you knew it, you were feeling overwhelmed, out of control, and wondering why anybody thought it was a good idea to choose you for this leadership role.
You're in back-to-back meetings.
You're blowing up on Slack.
Any real “work” you need to get done starts at the end of the work day when the meetings finally end.
You've got a couple of people you think may be performance problems. You've never put anybody on a “PIP” before!
Half the team is just looking at you, waiting for you to tell them what to do.
You're pretty sure the other half of the team is wondering how you got this job.
Today, I'm going to give you three essential steps you can put in place immediately to rebuild your confidence, get control over your new role, and set your team up to take ownership.
Step 1: You've got to get aligned with your new boss.
There are five crucial topics you need to discuss:
How do they see the current state of the business and the current state of the team you just inherited?
You need to understand the specific outcomes that you and your team are expected to deliver in the next 90 days and beyond.
Find out how they prefer to communicate with you and make decisions with you.
You need to know what support is available to you and the team and what constraints you should be aware of. You're looking for things like:
Budget
Head count
Executive sponsorship
Political landmines you may need to avoid
Finally, you need to identify what an early win would look like. What could you and the team deliver in the first 30 to 90 days that would really demonstrate that you're pointed in the right direction?
Step 2: You've got to get the team aligned.
You share with them everything you now know about:
the company's objectives
your boss's objectives
what your team is expected to deliver for the business
It's essential that we don't just stop here. Most teams do in fact, just stop here. You identify objectives, you're tracking key metrics, and you're holding people accountable for their progress.
Unfortunately that puts your people on a predictable path to burnout. If you stop here, they will be in a constant state of fight-or-flight.
So the next step in getting your team aligned is to develop a shared vision of what success looks like.
You're going to ask them:
"What will it be like when everything is operating exactly the way we want it to go?"
“What are the values that are most important to us?”
“How do we help and support each other on this team?”
“What is unique about this team? What makes this team so special?”
By doing this you're activating the part of their brain that's responsible for hope and purpose and creativity. This is essential for building trust and lowering fear.
Now you've got a team that's focused on the right targets and has a sense of purpose and belonging that will enable them to keep going, even when things get tough.
Step 3: You've got to build trust with each person on the team.
The single most effective tool for doing this is the weekly one-on-one with each direct report.
The sole purpose of this meeting is to deepen the relationship and build trust.
These meetings are:
Pre-scheduled
Every week
30 minutes
And your direct report owns the agenda.
Protect this time on the calendar. Consistency demonstrates to your team that you respect them, that you care for them, and that their time is valuable to you.
I know you may be thinking that you don't have time for weekly one-on-ones with every direct report. I assure you you don’t have time not to do this.
So many of the interruptions that you're dealing with today will be avoided when your direct knows that they've got a dedicated time with you coming in just a few days. They’ll just hold on to it till you meet.
And this is how you maintain clarity and alignment over time. Tiny little adjustments to get a person back on the right track.
This is what enables your team to take ownership and make daily decisions without you having to be involved in everything.
I know you're feeling a lot of pressure right now but you are here for a reason. You were chosen for this role.
You're learning a new set of skills and you're putting new systems in place.
These three steps are going to get you out of reactive firefighting mode and enable you to build a solid foundation for getting things under control.
You got this! And I’ve got you.
Best,
Jeff
P.S. Let me help you get this under control. Grab my free, 5-day email course: The 5 Mistakes Tech Managers Make When Taking on New Teams. These are mistakes I have made in the past and I see managers making every day.
