The New Manager

· Take these steps within your first 90 days. The sooner you establish your authority with your team and prove your competence to your boss, the easier your job will be.
· Boundaries: If you’re managing former peers, now’s the time to put up some walls and keep the socializing to a minimum.
· Support from your new team: Set aside time during your first week to meet with all of your direct reports individually and ask for their advice on their current projects. You won’t build trust overnight, but this will help.
Understand Your Role
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.’
· Confront poor performance head on. If someone — friend or not — is failing, act decisively. Give formal warnings, recommend how to remedy the problem, and keep a written record of your conversations. If the situation reaches a point where you have to let him go, you don’t want him to be surprised.
Harsh as it may seem, if you don’t establish professional boundaries, you won’t have the objectivity to supervise effectively. Your relationship with direct reports should be “I’m personable, but not personal” — and learn to talk to them immediately about performance problems.
Know What You Don’t Know
Many companies fall short when it comes to training new managers. 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 improvise 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. If you can’t get the level of help you need internally, sign up for a relevant training program.
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. 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 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. If your peers have 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.
Be Loyal, to a Point
Be careful about seeming too closely aligned with any one person — even your direct boss. The best job-protection insurance, especially as a newbie, is to remain as neutral as possible on controversial issues. If your boss asks for a point of view, run through the pros and cons of a decision rather than answer directly. Remember that your boss could be gone tomorrow — and you could be working for the person whose point of view he opposed.
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.
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. 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.
- Extracted from “The Rookie Manager’s Guide to Office Politics” by Elaine Pofeldt and Adriana Gardella in http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-401835.html?promo=713&tag=nl.e713