John Hollon asks “What Happens When You Promote and It Doesn’t Work?” Then he offers a savvy analysis of this all-too-common problem. If you’ve got someone you just promoted from individual contributor who’s a disaster as a manager, read John’s post. If you want to think about how we can head off similar problems, read on.
After more than forty years in business, I’m convinced that a big cause of low engagement and low productivity is bad supervision. We get stuck with poor supervision because we “promote” to management based on guesswork. It’s as if we put people into cooking jobs based on their skills as gardeners.
Part of the problem is that two skills that are critical for success in any kind of supervisory role have no analog in individual contributor roles. Managers have to talk to people about behavior and performance and managers have to get work done through the group. To make matters worse, they’re almost impossible to test for.
Add the fact that moving into management is the only way to increased pay and prestige in most organizations and you’ve got a mess. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Give people who are interested in management opportunities to try on the role. They can head up project teams, task forces, and other temporary groups. The experience(s) will give the person an opportunity to figure out if they like the work. It will give you an opportunity to observe how they do. Look for two things.
Look for people who are willing to talk to team members about behavior or performance. If you put someone in management who can’t do this, you’re doomed to awful team performance and low morale. If you put someone in a management job who’s willing to do it, we can teach them how to do it well.
Look for people who enjoy helping the team and team members succeed. That’s really a manager’s job in a nutshell. People who enjoy helping others succeed and are willing to allow the work of others to measure their own performance have the makings of a great boss.
Think of the move to management as a transfer to a different kind of work, not a move up the ladder. Make sure there’s a career track for someone who wants to be an individual contributor. That way they’re less likely to be tempted to take on a job they really don’t want.
Take the guesswork out of manager selection and you’ll wind up with less bad managers and more good ones. And that means and better results and better morale.
