Definitely YES and a lot! Just imagine situation when you get a new manager. You may have as many as possible facts about their great experience or how much they bring amazing things into your organization… but the first question you have in your mind… how many changes they are going to do? Whatever who is staying in front of you it’s all about what kind of changes they have in mind. You never know if they decide to run optimization or review organizational priorities and which projects go away after that. So you worry about your future and your role after all. Now you are in a position to deliver some message in your first meeting with the team. The problem here is that you also understand that you don’t know if any changes required into this team and how quick you will have to initiate them. So I would avoid promising that everything should stay unchanged. This is not true! And you can’t guarantee that everyone accepts new challenges. I try to be open here. The main word in my vocabulary in this section is BE OPEN with people you are going to manage.
I don’t have universal recipe for this situation as I said before but I have two examples from my experience. Both of them were about a situation when I was in the room with my colleagues listening our new manager’s introduction.
First speech: “Team, I have broad experience in managing such team in many other organizations. I see a lot of opportunities in developing your team and building alignment with your key stakeholders and business trends. Business is changing and we have to be aligned with that. It may require tough changes. We will have to adopt to these changes. Even more we will have to change ourselves to make sure we are successful organization. Over the next 2–3 weeks I will spend time by learning different aspects of business around this team and come out with strategic objectives and action plan what we are going to implement as a course of actions for the team”.
Second speech: “Team, I see interesting and challenging opportunity for me to work with you and try to be the driver of your success. I don’t know you but I’ll try to learn and understand your capabilities to make sure I will utilize them in right way. I will need to spend some time by learning who you are and what business challenges we face. I will rely on your help and support here. You know much better than I about processes within this team and I would appreciate if you could help me to understand more. At the same time I will bring skillset that I have got by working in different business environments and I strongly believe it should help us to build great synergy in the team. Next 2–3 weeks I will spend learning from you. I can’t say if it requires any changes into the team but I believe we will work together to make sure we manage these challenge in successful way”.
Tell me, which speech do you like more? In my view first one comes from a person who is more task oriented person. Second one is more about people oriented. Second manager is trying to build some trust or at least give some sense of taking care about people in the team. The funny thing is that when I show these speeches to my colleagues there are some people who like first one and some who like the second speech. Pessimists are saying: “I don’t believe both, this is bull shit anyway!” And in my opinion this split clearly shows real picture. You will be treated by some team members as promising person, others will strongly believe you are not a good fit and the rest will be saying they don’t care. This is the real environment you have to work with. Not a promising expectation…
4. First weeks with a new team
So, finally we have the team that expects you to help them to succeed into organization. At the same time they have no idea what you are going to do next. To address these concerns you need to learn more about each person and overall of the team. Before we start talking about the process I recall one of the best examples that I have seen into my practice that clearly illustrates the gap between what we are as managers see vs. what others see.
Exercise:
Let’s imagine a situation when you play the role of top manager of the organization. You have a team and you have to deliver tough message to them by saying that because of developing new market you need to move the whole team from one region to another. The process itself is very challenging as you need to deliver it and make sure you have commitment from your team to support this change. This is the first time when you share this news with your team. Try to capture 4–5 key messages that you are going to deliver to your team, i.e. what you are going to address while talking to the team.
Another person plays the role of individual contributor who is impacted by this change. You are more or less aware what is going to be delivered. Try to summarize 4–5 key topics you would like your manager to talk to you during this meeting.
Now we uncover these two lists and compare them. I have seen several examples of this exercise and this is what usually managers start to write down:
1. Business environment overview;
2. Organizational changes and strategy overview for next 2–3 years;
3. New market opportunities and how critical it is to explore them to be successful;
4. New region overview and market demand and how it fits into the company and team’s strategy;
5. How team is being impacted.
This is pretty logical, isn’t it? Now let’s see what people in the team put together (not always for sure but more likely you will see the following list):
1. Who is going to be impacted and how;
2. If there is any relocation package to support these changes;
3. If my family had opportunity to move with me and how;
4. What’s the life standards in new region and how they looks like vs. current region;
5. How these changes correlate with long term strategy of the company.
Now take a look at these lists, the problem is that if you compare them you find that managers start with messages that are less relevant to many people into the team. Even more, priorities in the first list completely contradict with team members” expectations. There is no surprise here. Put yourself into the shoes of your team members. What would you ask your manager if they ask you to move to another region? People take care about their life standards, their security etc. This is the fundamental part of their life (just recall classic Maslow hierarchy of needs). At the same time as soon as you become a manager you start shifting your vision by completely ignoring that your team can see your steps in completely different way. It doesn’t mean actually that you should change the way of what you are saying. The key point is:
This is not what you want to deliver but rather HOW you deliver it!
“HOW” doesn’t mean that you simply rephrase the message but how well you understand team’s expectations and utilize them in the right way to get the maximum outcome for the organization. I strongly believe that when you are able to find the right balance between what people want from one side and what they have to do to make them successful into organization the better outcome you get for the organization and you team. This is not an easy task as you need to be aware of many details and actually keep very close link with team members, i.e. to understand crisp and clear their concerns, their expectations, their desires and what drives your team members.
4.1 Understanding of your team
This is critical part. I believe this stage is even more important than the first meeting with the team. When you first time faces your team members and introduce yourself you have just little time to demonstrate who you are. When you spend time talking to team members you have much more opportunities to show both positive and negative sides of your character and your management style. So, take time to be prepared for this stage.
