Dear New Manager — An Open Letter

Dear New Manager,

Congratulations! I know you’ve been a great individual performer for quite some time. You may feel like you deserve this promotion (and it might be long overdue) or, you may feel otherwise. Regardless, if managing other people is now part of your new normal, then I hope that you could embrace it.

Leading a team, is never easy, but could potentially be very rewarding if done right. Even if you feel like you’ve got people figured out, suddenly there are these “special cases” that might blow your mind.

In the next few days or weeks, goals and targets will be upon you and your team. Your role as a manager, more or less, will be to drive your team to hit them. If there is one thing I learned in my experience of coaching managers that I feel would help you, it’s this: “different people, use different processes to achieve the same outcome.” (you may read it again, slower this time.)

Look, I know you’ve been successful. In fact, this might not be the first time you’ve seen these goals and targets because you’ve repeatedly reached or exceeded them in the past. Because of this, you probably have a formula in your head — a process that you’ve repeated over and over to make sure success is predictable for you. Great! You are probably excited to share this process to your team along with the success stories you’ve had in the past. Please do. I’m sure this is a great inspiration for them.

But…

If you are expecting all of them to copy your impeccable process — stop. The individual elements in your process, whether it involves telling stories, or creating pivot tables, or utilizing an app, or genuinely befriending a potential client, may be easy and makes perfect sense to you — know that this may not be true for all of your direct reports. Your process in achieving your outcomes have been very uniquely crafted by your mind to suit you almost perfectly — and this is why it works! But your role as a manager is not to dictate the “how” but to clarify the “what”. This means that there would be certain processes that your direct reports would create for themselves, and as long as these processes are technically permitted in your work, you should give them this freedom to do so.

Your role as a manager is to be crystal clear with the goals they need to pursue, and allow them to discover, polish and master their own process in achieving them. Making them understand their own style along the way. This is a powerful method versus just teaching and dictating, because it allows them to have more ownership on their activities to reach their goals.

Will they fail? Of course! You know you did too. But, if you are there processing these failures, and allowing them to learn from it and ensuring they don’t commit the same mistakes repeatedly, then failures become great development opportunities for both of you. I can still personally remember when my leaders would do the same for me. Those instances of failure certainly made the lessons stick all the more. It felt like we were dissecting my fresh wound at the moment, but I sure learned how not to hurt myself again. Allow your people to make mistakes — but process it with them to turn it into lessons.

Lastly, believe in them. They are capable of creatively crafting their own unique process to achieve the most audacious of goals. This is the power of our human minds. You know this more, because you have experienced this for yourself. If you believe this, then you will treat them accordingly, if you don’t then you will spoon feed them and force your own process down their throats. Mind you, some of them may even like that — but that doesn’t come without a price. You will become the chief problem solver of your team. They will run to you always for instructions, and in the end, instead of creating a healthy culture of ownership within your team, they’d end up being “paralyzed” if you’re not around. Oh, and if your process fails them and they don’t reach their goals, guess whose fault is it in their heads? Right! Yours.

I hope this helped you frame your mind around helping your people achieve their outcomes. As their manager, you would play a very big role on the development of the individuals in your team. Years from now, they won’t remember the targets they hit, but they will remember the lessons that made them better personally and professionally through you. Let that be your legacy.