STEP 1 – Understand How Your Role Has Changed
No matter how close your friendships with your officemates have been, it’s time to put up some walls. “If I were managing a colleague I once hung out with, I’d stop doing it,” says Caroline Ceniza-Levine, co-founder of Six Figure Start, a career coaching and consulting firm in New York City. Harsh as this may seem, if you don’t establish professional boundaries, you won’t have the objectivity to supervise effectively.
Patrice Williams, 39, a management consultant from Vallejo, Calif. learned this the hard way. In her twenties, she moved up to team supervisor at IBM, where she found herself managing a salesperson with whom she socialized on weekends. Soon after, her pal began coming to work late, skipping meetings, and neglecting clients, dragging down her sales in the process. Williams soon realized she needed to fire her friend, but she just couldn’t. Ultimately, her boss had to step in. “I lost points,” explains Williams, who says it was hard for her to recover professionally. From that point on, she changed her relationship with direct reports — “I’m personable, but not personal” — and learned to talk to them immediately about performance problems.
A few tips on how to head off awkwardness with former peers:
- From the outset, tell everyone on your team how you will evaluate performance. If anyone in the group slacks off or breaks the rules, it will be easier to raise the issue in an objective way. “If it is very clear what you are measuring, you can say, ‘This job requires x, y, and z. I’m not seeing z,’” says Ceniza-Levine.
STEP 2 – Know What You Don’t Know
Many companies fall short when it comes to training new managers, says Shultz. Your bosses won’t expect you to know how to tackle every aspect of your new job from the outset, but they will assume that you will ask for the help you need. So, if your company wants you to take on a legally sensitive task such as giving performance reviews, and you’ve never done it before, don’t try to wing it. Ask for coaching from HR or higher-ups. “Without training, it’s easy for a new manager to overlook the implications of what one wrong thing said can do,” says Shultz. If you can’t get the level of help you need internally, sign up for one of the educational programs at the Society for Human Resource Management, which runs educational programs in many cities, he advises.
STEP 3 Master the Unwritten Rules
If you’re new to a company, understand that no matter how similar the culture seems to others you’ve experienced, it is going to have its own unique and sometimes bizarre quirks. “Learn how things get done — both the rational and irrational aspects of it,” advises Nat Stoddard, chairman of Crenshaw Associates, an executive coaching firm in New York City, and author of “The Right Leader: Selecting Executives Who Fit.” Listen carefully when colleagues volunteer tips on, say, the best time of day to approach a senior manager, and pay attention when they tell stories about the office. At the same time, says Stoddard, don’t get too inquisitive. “If you are overly interested in learning something, they will wonder, ‘Why? What’s your motive?’” As you build your new colleagues’ trust, they’ll volunteer more details.
It’s easy to cut yourself off from a vital pipeline if you always eat lunch alone, a common rookie mistake. Curt Braverman, a veteran manager who worked for 25 years at Pitney Bowes, realized this early in his career, when a colleague finally pushed him to grab a bite and proved to be a font of useful information. “If they’ve been around a while, they’ll give you a hint of what’s coming up and can give you some tips that will make your job easier,” says Braverman.
STEP 4 – Be Loyal, to a Point
Be careful about seeming too closely aligned with any one person — even your direct boss, says Stephen Viscusi, CEO of the New York-based executive search firm Viscusi Group and author of “Bulletproof Your Job.” The best job-protection insurance, especially as a newbie, is to remain as neutral as possible on controversial issues, he says. If your boss asks for a point of view, run through the pros and cons of a decision rather than answer directly.
Should your manager ask for your support at a meeting, offer it, but remain as neutral as possible when you’re at the conference room table. If the boss buttonholes you later to ask why you didn’t speak up more, you can say something diplomatic, like “Maybe I wasn’t emphatic enough,” Viscusi suggests. Remember that your boss could be gone tomorrow — and you could be working for the person whose point of view he opposed. “You have to be a little Machiavellian,” he says.
STEP -5 Build the Support You Need to Get Things Done
Showing your bosses that you’re ready to take on new projects isn’t just a matter of stellar performance or demonstrating initiative — though these things certainly help. You also need to prove to the top brass that they can trust you in subtler ways. Many new managers over-explain to direct reports why they must take on a particular task and in doing so, pass along information from their bosses that was better kept confidential. To establish trust with your supervisor, err on the side of keeping your conversations quiet and, when in doubt, ask if the content is for general consumption. “You’ll be on the hook for sharing that information,” says Ceniza-Levine.
You’ll also gain points by acknowledging that your bosses are privy to certain information that you don’t have. Say, for instance, that you ask your boss if you can hire two more people but she says “no.” Rather than step up your lobbying, ask if there is a reason for her opposition that she can share, or, perhaps, one that she can’t disclose to you right now, suggests Stefanie Smith, principal of Stratex Consulting, an executive coaching firm in New York City. You never know — the company could be considering an acquisition that will fulfill that requirement, says Smith.
Even with solid backing from the top, you won’t be able to get anything done if your team isn’t behind you. This often means building support among longtime or more senior workers — including some who wanted your job and didn’t get it. You won’t win any allegiance by reminding them that you have an MBA or that your last gig was at an even bigger company. Meet with each member of your team individually to learn about his background and ask for advice on upcoming projects. “Let them know you’ll be relying on their expertise,” says Andrea Nierenberg, principal of The Nierenberg Group, an executive training and consulting firm in New York City. You don’t have to act on the advice they give you, but listening carefully will go a long way toward building the good relationships you will need to succeed.
