To ask how to be a manager?

[Newmanagerpanic]

I’m about to become a manager of a team of two, so there will be three of us. I’m the subject matter expert within the business, have always handled this particular area by myself. My ‘Head of’ just quit, has already gone and I’ve transitioned to someone who professionally and personally love (she’s a fantastic human being) but she has suddenly found herself the manager of a team of 5, she’s also used to being a lone wolf.

I’ve recruited one individual internally, we were friendly before and now I’m her manager. We’re a similar age. I’m currently recruiting externally and I could find myself with someone ten years younger or ten years older etc.

I have never managed someone ever. I manage projects cross-department, but I’m usually the person who people will ask “can we do this”.

Can anyone point me to some resources, books, ways of working or whatever. I already know that I will be a flexible manager - my first recruit has autism and dyslexia, we’ve had a discussion on what she needs to be able to work well. For example she needs time to digest information, we’ve signed her up to a service where she can get it to read stuff (like the 30 page documents she needs to get to grips with). If she wants to start a bit later, that’s fine - I want the results not necessarily the hours etc.

BUT how do I actually manage someone. I am disorganised, I need to make sure my team know what they’re doing each week. How do you make that happen? What tools do you use? Do people use things like Asana? Microsoft Planner?
I am panicking that I will let them down.

Ok, what do you like in a manager yourself?

Sit and calmly think through what the objectives/goals/KPI are for each role and how they can be measured.

In terms of tools, use what you're comfortable using, don't try to overcomplicate it. I use MS office suite at work so have a OneNote for each person I manage with a simple table on it with the date in one column and notes of our 1:1s in the next column. I highlight actions in yellow and have shared the book for each person with them so we can both refer back to the notes and actions.

People like different management styles so ask them how they like to be communicated with and how frequently. Check in on their objectives regularly to make sure they are achieving, and check in on quality of work too. As you identify gaps, address them immediately so everyone knows how they are doing and has the opportunity to improve.

The most important lesson I learnt was tou can't be a manager and a friend. You can be friendly of course, but not a friend.

@FlabMonsterIsDietingAgain

I like to be left alone! But that might be because the previous ‘Head of’ would spend 45 minutes quizzing when it could have been a 5 minute conversation. At first it was fine, but after two years I wondered why he didn’t understand yet. It’s not a particularly difficult area of law I work in but perhaps you just need to have the right sort of skillset/brain to grasp it.

I’m also struggling with the KPI aspect as I’ve always managed my own end of year reviews - deadly serious, I write my KPIs I decide if I’ve met them and then the ‘head of’ reviews it (not understanding what on earth I’m on about) and submits it….

I want my team to enjoy their job, feel like they have autonomy, own certain responsibilities and facilitate career development.

I’ll have a look at OneNote, I’ve sort of dabbled but not really looked in to it properly. Do you have to manage due dates etc? How would you make sure you knew when something was due - just outlook calendar or something like planner/project

Well I suppose this might the difficulty with my first recruit, I’m not her friend on a deeper level as I’ve only known her a short while but we do interact like friends or colleagues rather than line manager and employee

Think about a time you felt you had a good manager and a time when you didn't - what was it that differed?

There are different roles within management
Project management - eg planning and overseeing a project, allocating work, staying in timetable/budget. You could use things like Asana to help if you want. Depends on how you and your team work.

People management - eg reviews, structured feedback, areas for development, assessing for promotion. This sounds like the area you are most new to?

Strategic management - eg what areas should your team be working on, new product ideas/new areas or markets or technology to adopt/move into, setting budgets eg

Your role may involve all of those parts or just some of them.

Which parts do you think the role involves the most?

Your job is to make sure people know what their job is, what's expected of them and when, and do they have what they need to do it. The doing of it is their job.

If you can give them clarity and trust, it goes a long way

The best managers I've had are the ones that treat you like adults. My current ones let everyone get on with their jobs and have an open door policy. They are also aware that life takes priority and as long as the work is done they leave you to get on with it. The worst are the ones that micro manage you and treat you like they are on a pedestal to you.

Would your employer pay for management training? It would be odd for them to refuse, because they are leaving themselves open to liability.

Take management courses if you can. Doesn’t have to be big heavy stuff, just short courses if you can access them. Managing people isn’t intuitive or obvious, some people are naturally good at it and some aren’t, and some make mistakes.
The fact that you’re asking for advice means you’ll be a good manager imo!

I'd keep it very simple at first. Be very clear what the purpose of your team is and what needs to be achieved. Then delegate clearly to each of them the tasks they need to complete for the team to achieve their goal, with some specific qualitative and quantities measures such as targets, if appropriate to your work. You need to be familiar with their job descriptions to ensure what you're asking of them is appropriate. Then make sure you review regularly to make sure they're on track and you identify issues early. Give encouragement and specific constructive feedback. And that will do for starters. As you work with them you will learn their strengths and can start to bear these in mind when allocating work. You will also identify areas for development and can support them with these. Any unexpected issues, particularly arising from your colleague with a protected characteristic, don't guess, get advice!

As a manager, your role is to lead, inspire, coach and encourage those reporting to you to deliver your company objectives.

Look at what your annual goals are, and how they should be delivered across your year team.

I'd meet one-to-one with each team member to go through the objectives which you derive from the goals, and so they can ask any questions. Once agreed, I'd formalise this in a Word document that you both sign.

I run a team of 30, with 2 direct reports, and teams below them. I generally have a weekly half hour in the calendar for both, monthly 1 hour each to run through objectives formally, and a monthly department meeting with all 30 staff to help build team cohesion and keep everyone connected. I encourage my managers to meet weekly with their teams so everyone is on the same page, and issues can be identified early.

I also have annual reviews with my 2 direct reports, where we consider performance against objectives/KPI's and bonus/salary increase.

Do you know the jobs of the people you will be managing, or are there some aspects that will be new to you?
I'd start by booking a 1:1/appraisal with each team member to see where they are up to, get a sense of their workload and where there development need are. You can also lay out your expectations of them as well

Does your workplace offer any management type training? If not, ACAS offer some people management training courses that may be worth a look at (I've not used them personally, but they seem a reputable place to start looking- other posters might be able to make recommendations here)

It's great that you are considering being flexible, but make sure you are reasonable and consistent in your approach

I echo the poster above- being a good manage is not being someone's mate- but you should be approachable and friendly

Learn how to handle negativity without taking it as a personal slight- you can rarely make everyone 100% happy all the time

Never only listen to 1 side of the story, and never send an email whilst you are angry (advice from a previous manager of mine)

Highly recommend the Ask A Manager website! Really interesting and sensible advice on all different topics, about employment generally but loads on management. If you look at topics for new managers on there you should find some really valuable stuff.

I once had a manager who was keen to develop you but when she got stressed she was really horrible. She’s a lovely person outside of work but she once said something along the lines of “wiping that smile off my face”. I’ve want to emulate the supportive side of her but not the abusive!!

I will need to think about your question, as I see aspects of all of it. I think potentially the people side might be the most important aspect initially as these people are entirely new to my field of work. The strategic side is likely to sit with me for the most part, one of the reason I’m employing is to free up my time to cover strategy. For example, I’ve been asked to cover best practice audits across a couple of organisations but I can’t do it because I’m tied up doing the daily stuff.

Possibly, I’ll have a look at what we already have on our portal. You’d have thought we would have internal training as we have a lot of managers

I was going to recommend this, too!

I'm not a manager, but manage a lot of tasks & events. I use a mixture of outlook calendar reminders, Trello (app / software) and bits of paper. Start at the end date - when is the project due / event happening, and work backwards.
Do invites / tasks need to be sent to people? When? When do you need replies by / people's tasks completed in order for the whole project to be completed? Will they need a reminder at some point? Do you need to build some slack into the timescale in case things go wrong / holidays / someone goes off sick? If you are on holiday / go off sick, will your team know what they need to do and by when?

I think a good manager will manage people in different ways, according to what they need. I work best when I'm told what to do and am then left alone to get on with it, without someone checking up on me every five minutes. As long as I can ask questions if I need to, I'm best left alone to crack on.
Other people might need more hand-holding, or prodded to stay focussed / motivated / whatever. I guess you'll get to know people and how they work best. But all the best managers I've had have been ones that treat people differently, and that also aren't threatened by people in their team - who are afraid to encourage potential and let people get on if they're good enough to. It shouldn't be about personality; it's about potential.

I'm a newish manager in a different sector so I did loads of research. I agree with similar comments, set boundaries, being friendly but not friends, be thr manager you've enjoyed working under.

Are you on tiktok? There's loads of accounts on there that provide advice on how to handle different situations, giving feedback, handling conflict, managing priorities, what not to do.

It's worth considering that everyone may like to be managed differently and how you like things may not work for other people.

Id recommend a book called Surrounded By Idiots - Thomas Erikson. Which looks at how to handle and work with different personalities, their strengths and weaknesses. There is a book, but if you're on Spotify there is a podcast version. Really enjoyable.

I've heard the book "one minute manager" recommended.

But it might be dated now.

Essentially I do the job of 3 people and work impossibly long days. I'm paid a senior managers salary but I spend my time doing the sort of work that should be delegated. So I will be intimately familiar with all the tasks they will be doing. Having said that, there are tasks or projects I have wanted to start but haven't been able to so I will be directing them to go off and do those themselves. I've just had a look at our intranet which has loads of stuff about this managers couse you can do, well - looks like we stopped doing it as the link doesn't work! I think I'll probably have to find something myself.

Speak to the guys you manage

Ask them their preferred learning style and management style

Do they prefer deadlines and then to be left alone? Or do they need a reminder when deadline approaching? Do they learn via written guides or watching another work

With 2 staff you can tailor make it a little to suit and enhance the staffs experience - and provided they perform be hands off and rewarding in approach. Generally that gets the best results, if you treat people like adults most (not all unfortunately) tend to act like adults

I have just got my first management role as well. Although not started it yet so not much advice.

I have started using one note as I was conscious I didn't keep enough meeting notes. I find it quite good as you can have a page for each topic and then sub pages within it for meetings.

I want my team to know I will back them up. I would also say I need to find the balance of knowing what they are up to but leaving them to work. I am not sure my last manager had any idea what I was doing! We are all quite independent though and only ask when we have problems.

We already have a weekly team meeting where we talk about what we are working on - that is good as it keeps the rest of the team involved.

We have a learning portal and I have started a management course on there - it's quite good.

HR are also going to provide support in training materials for me.

That's helpful if you already understand their workload and how long the tasks should take

A lot of management theory fits in the compassionate leadership arena at the moment (sounds from your comments that this fits in with your intended approach OP)

Agree with the poster above who said about discussing the preferred approach with each team member and treating them like rational adults

Think about how best to keep everyone up to speed and informed on relevant things- will this work best with a team meeting, weekly email, individual emails? Are they collaborating on projects or working individually? * ime, this is an area that can be difficult. Nobody wants to be stuck in a pointless meeting about topics that are irrelevant to them every day, but I've also worked in a team with minimal communication from the team manager and we were frustrated not knowing what was happening, who was allocated what task etc

With regards to your company management training link not working, can you raise this with HR or your boss to clarify that the training hasn't moved/it's not a temp glitch etc?

Best of luck, you are already starting with a conscientious and thoughtful approach which is a good start

I think it still holds up well.

There are loads of management books - Managed By Morons is a pretty funny, dry book but very practical too.

LinkedIn Learning has a lot of courses too and you can search by scenario.

Also have a look for Mark Eddleston's New Ways Of Working playbook on LinkedIn.