In this video, the challenges that we have
in trying to find the right people
to promote into our team lead, leadership
and management roles in our organizations
and a tale of woe that might help surface
some understanding or visibility
of why it can be such a challenge
to get it right and how we might
look at changing the processes
and the decision process that we use
to get a better outcome for ourselves
for our teams and for our organizations
Hi, I'm Campbell Such
This is Mind Bite Thursday
Your weekly dose of
The Human Edge in Technology
This week a tale of woe that came out of
a recent meeting with a colleague
that I've found to be amazingly similar
across organizations that I've worked in
and people that I've spoken to
that have moved into management
and being challenged by that whole process
At that meeting with my colleague
one of the ideas or one of
the challenges that came up was
How do we promote …
How do we find the right people
to promote into management
and leadership roles
And I was explaining
how my observation had been
that we tend to promote the people
who are technically
the best technically
If you use a sports analogy
the best fullback
the best quarterback
the best striker
if you're talking football
into the role
and then all the challenges around that
we've taken the best person out of the team
and we put them into a role
typically with no (or little) training, no (or little) support
we expect them to perform
and they've got to deal
with a whole bunch of stuff
and not the least of which is have moved
from the group of their peers
into a leadership role
and their peers are going
“Why did you get promoted?”
“How come I missed out?”
And so that opened the
the floodgates to this tale of woe
and her partner
had been through a scenario
where they were technically
one of the best in their team
They were outstanding technically
The company had come to them and said
“Would you like to take over
the running of the team?”
Because we've just had someone
who's moving into another role
and they hadn't had any experience
with leadership or management?”
But they said, “Yes.”
Because that's one of those things that
they thought that might be
a great way to move forward
and to grow their career
One of the things that Daniel Gilbert
tells us in his book
‘Stumbling on Happiness’
It is very difficult
almost impossible to know
how you're going to feel about something
until you try it
So, he'd never been given
any exposure to leadership
moved into the role
found that he had to deal with
all of the politics of moving
to a leadership role
from being in a team
and all the what his peers
now that he was leading
asking: “How come you got that role?”
He found that he hadn't been exposed to it
He hadn't been trained
and he didn't really have those
leadership and management skills
to be able to manage the team
to be able to get the performance from the team
and the team performance went down
first of all, because he wasn't there
He was the star player
Secondly, because the team was now unsettled
and not necessarily happy
with where he was
He didn't have the skills to be able to
bring them along and motivate them
So, the performance went down
His boss was on his case
and he needed to perform
his boss wasn't giving him the support
and that's not untypical either
and he was getting no ongoing training
What happened was
he found that with
he went back to his process of
what I used to do as a technical role
In his technical role
to be technically really good
which is to do everything yourself
So, he took on all of the stuff from the team
that built the pressure over time
He was working longer and longer and longer hours
and in the end it just overwhelmed him
and he longed for the days
to get back on the tools
So what happened was
in the end he left
Now he's happily in a stepped-up technical role
that he's happily moved on to that new role
So for the organization that he left
what was the fallout?
First of all they lost their best technical person
Secondly, the team was unsettled
Thirdly, they had all the costs of then
having to decide who and how
they're going to replace him
Another person from the team?
Well that didn't work last time
To go out and get all the recruitment costs
Loss of productivity
over a long period of time
Wow.
So how do you change this?
Couple of suggestions
First of all, if you're looking to promote
someone from the team
the chances of them succeeding are low
So give them a chance to do that
Put them into the role for a month or week
two weeks or two months or three months
and then let them come back
because this guy had no way
of getting back to the team
back to where he wanted
without losing face
without losing status
and without losing income
So expose them first
and potential managers
and see how they perform
And perhaps give that to everyone on the team
because you never know
Someone on the team
who you don't even recognize
as a key manager
may actually be one of the
best managers that you've got
Then train them in advance
Give them some training
and then when you get them into the role
support them with a mentor … a coach
ideally a coach from outside
because what that helps is
it eliminates the possibility
that they're going to
say something that might count against them
and internally in the organization
plus it brings some outside objectivity
and so a coach to help the leader grow
And then if it doesn't work out for them
build a path back which doesn't get them
to lose face, lose status
So it was always a trial
It was always a test to see
whether it work out for them
and then build a technical path
that allows them to grow technically
and gives them the economic rewards
that they would typically only get
by going through into a management path
So some things to think about
Some ideas to perhaps consider
if you're a team lead
or an aspiring manager
how that's working for you
and if you're a more senior leader and manager
how you employ people
How do you bring people into your teams
in a way that's better
So some thoughts
Some ideas?
Something to ponder?
Something to consider?
Hopefully something useful