Skip to main content

Why STAR PERFORMING individual contributors become "BAD"managers?


“60% of new managers underperform during the first 2 years of their tenure.” The following are some of the reasons:

1.       When they take up the managerial role, they do the ‘activities’ of a manager, while consciously or unconsciously retaining the mindset of an individual contributor.


2.       They fail to redefine their tasks as conducting meetings, listening to people, organizing resources, etc., In fact, most consider these tasks as waste of time, rather than being effective at doing them.


3.       Experience a significant loss of control, recognition, and authority and are usually unprepared for such a situation.  Paradoxically, as an individual contributor they would have dreamt of getting more control, recognition and authority being a manager. Just too bad!


4.       While they experienced a formal education system, onboarding processes, and informal mentoring opportunities that enabled transition to being an effective individual contributor, they do not experience such systems and processes to enable them acquire the specific skills and mindsets that an effective manager requires.


Effective managerial transition requires holistic, long-term programs & activities inspiring a shift in ‘being’ a manager, and not just ‘doing’ the things a manager is supposed to do.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Observe, Wonder, Experience and Reflect, and only then claim to have understood the world

And the children said unto Halcolm, “We want to understand the world. Tell us, O Sage, what must we do to know the world?” “Have you read the works of our great thinkers?” “Yes, Master, every one of them as we were instructed.” “And have you practiced diligently your meditations so as to become One with the infinity of the universe?” “We have, Master, with devotion and discipline.” “Have you studied the experiments, the survey, and the mathematical models of the Sciences?” “Beyond even the examinations, Master, we have studied in the innermost chambers where the experiments and surveys are analyzed, and where the mathematical models are developed and tested.” “Still you are not satisfied? You would know more?” “Yes, Master. We want to understand the world.” “Then, my children, you must go out into the world. Live among the peoples of the world as they live. Learn their language. Participate in their rituals and routines. Taste the world. Smell it. Watch and liste...

What ‘nose digging’ teaches us about our team engagement

PURPOSE It’s almost always a ‘calling’. A compelling one. An enjoyable one. No matter what you are doing, in meetings, while driving, or on your desktop responding to an important mail, the tendency is to respond to that call readily & immediately. There is an un-explainable nobility to it. Is it true for your team and their work? In what ways can you create that compelling calling? What components of their work gives them energy to get up from their beds? What proportion of their work is aligned to their natural traits, values and beliefs?   It’s a great idea to have conversations with your team members on this note, once in a while, different from performance conversations.   AUTONOMY   The sole decision maker – you! You decide the depth, the stress, the angle and the strokes.   Who decides your team’s work and how it has to be done? The more you let them take a call, and decide their course of action, better engaged they are going to ...

Alexander, the great (psychologist, sociologist & anthropologist)

Strategos is a Greek word meaning “the thinking and action of a general.” What it means to be strategic is epitomized by the greatest of Greek generals, Alexander. He conducted his first independent military operation in northern Macedonia at age 16. He became the rule of Macedonia after his father, Philip, was assassinated in 336 BCE. Two years later, he embarked on an invasion of Persia and conquest of the known world. In the Battle of Arbela, he decisively defeated Darius III, king of kings of the Persian Empire, despite being outnumbered five to one (2,50,000 Persians against Alexander and fewer than 50,000 Greeks). Alexander’s military conquests are legendary. What is less known and little appreciated is that his battlefield victories depended on in-depth knowledge of military leaders in the opposing armies. He included in his military intelligence information about the beliefs, worldviews, motivations, and patterns of behavior of those he faced. Moreover, his conquests an...