Tips for Developing New Managers

By Howie Jacobson

Director of Voice, Bregman Partners

Many companies are growing quickly, and promote large groups of skilled employees to management positions. These new managers have no idea how to manage. They've never been taught. They've never tried it. Some don't even want to. How do you get them up to speed as painlessly and effectively as possible? Here are seven tips for quickly creating a cadre of effective young managers in your company.

1. Encourage them to ask for help

A client of ours, a Wall Street financial services firm, recently assessed this year's class of new managers entering the firm with MBA degrees. They asked, "What differentiates successful new managers from unsuccessful ones?" Of all the qualities and behaviors, the most important one exhibited by the managers deemed most effective: asking for help from their employees.

Most didn't ask. It was too hard, too threatening. The recently minted MBAs didn't want to appear incompetent to junior people. They felt they had been hired for their expertise, not their inquisitiveness. They muddled through, pretending to know the answers, covering their incompetence, achieving little.

If you want your new managers to succeed, make sure they understand that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. They are learning what they need to know. They are demonstrating that they are confident enough in their abilities to appear vulnerable. They are enlisting their employees as committed partners to their success.

The best way to convince new managers to seek help from their employees is for senior managers to seek their help. In everything, modeling is so much more effective than telling.

2. Instead of training, coach and mentor them on the job

You're tempted to send your new managers to some week-long manager boot camp. They get energized, they learn and role-play all sorts of useful skills, and they come back ready to manage the world.

Don't do it. Research shows that 90% of people do nothing differently after managerial training. Training just doesn't stick. The behaviors don't get applied. They are too difficult, too context-dependent. New managers just get frustrated when their new skills don't work.

Instead, figure out the one or two skills that each new manager needs most and fastest. Train them on each skill for a couple of hours, just enough to understand it, see it, practice it, and plan for using it. Then coach and mentor them on the job as they use the new skill or behavior to do their job.

For example: leading a meeting. Have a coach or mentor sit with the new manager for half an hour as they prepare to lead a meeting. Ask them what they want to achieve, how they plan to do it. Brainstorm potential pitfalls and plan for them. After the meeting, debrief: What went well, what didn't? What do you want to try next time? What skill do you want to practice in advance? Who can give you feedback as you work on it?

This sort of development is much more effective and cost-effective. It helps them learn how to do their work while they do their work. They don't spend days out of the office while their tasks pile up.

3. Don't assume you understand their problems: Find out what's getting in their way, and fix it

Each new manager is unique. They have unique strengths and weaknesses, and what works for one may not work for another. That's another reason to coach, rather than train. Don't assume that one manager's difficulty is the same as another's. At the same time, there are things about every organization that affect everyone in it. Gather information from new managers about structures and systems that are holding them back. You are likely to find some trends that point to a development need for the whole organization. Use that information to fix the problems. You'll have created a stronger organization, as well as helping the new managers succeed.

4. Model good management: frequent conversations

People manage others through conversations. Some are easy, and a pleasure: "Great job at the briefing, Fran. What would you like to work on next month?" Some are difficult: "Fran, you have to shower in the morning before coming to work." We're not born knowing how to have the difficult conversations. They take practice, confidence, and commitment. New managers are not going to attempt hard things unless they see their own managers doing them effectively.

Senior managers must talk with new managers on a regular basis. What's working? What isn't? What errors do we need to talk about? What can we learn from them. Get away from the annual review mentality. Any performance appraisal system that doesn't encourage regular conversation isn't going to work.

5. Implement clear and simple career development

New managers are generally overwhelmed. By the new things they have to learn, the number of new variables they have to juggle, and the increased responsibility they shoulder. It's common for them to lose sight of the big picture; of where they're going in the organization, what their goals are, what they need and want to develop.

Make it clear to new managers what is expected of them. Enlist them in describing their strengths and weaknesses, and help them create realistic plans and smart goals. Force them to come up for air and perspective on a regular basis. Don't bog them down with complicated forms and multi-tiered competency models. Make career development a simple process, a pleasure, and a chance to get to know themselves better.

6. Let them help each other

Let new managers know that they're not alone. While senior managers often have expertise and experience that can help, as a group the new managers should be given the chance to collectively deal with their own problems. Convene new manager forums, lunches, offsites, facilitated conference calls. Let them share experiences, offer feedback and advice, and build both their confidence and their ability to learn from others.

As they grow in the organization, they will be more likely to work collaboratively with peers, and share information and learning. The company will become more open. Information will be shared, rather than hoarded.

7. Create non-managerial tracks to retain technical experts

Not everyone wants to be a manager. Often, supervising others is the only way to rise within an organization. So you either get unmotivated, lousy managers, or budding stars out the door when it's promotion time.

Does your organization have high-level, respected, highly paid people who don't manage anyone? Expert partners? IT gurus? If not, look closely at exit interview data. Find out who's leaving because they don't want to manage, and who's complaining about lousy managers. Certain departments, such as IT, have a larger percentage of people who don't want to manage than others. Make sure you create opportunities for these people to grow and contribute to your company.