Sponsored by: Lots of geeks consider going into management. There are plenty of incentives: higher salary, greater influence, more status. It s a great move that s exciting but difficult. The problem I see for many geeks making the transition is that their expectations are unrealistic. Before taking that leap, there are a few things you need to accept: New managers have no idea what they re getting into. Being a great engineer has little to do with being a great manager of engineers. New managers are never prepared for the transition. New managers don t get much support during the transition. New managers have to deal with new types of people. This is not meant as an insult. It s perfectly natural. It s not that people are ill prepared for management because of some failure. It s just not possible to really know about management before trying it out. Paul Glen is the CEO of Leading Geeks, an education and consulting firm devoted to unlocking the value of technical people. You can contact him at paul@leadinggeeks.com. Whenever someone comes into the job of manager, they have some idea of what it s about. They ve had bosses before and have watched closely. This is the problem. The subordinate s view of her boss job is inherently limited. Usually people come to the job of management with a sense of their previous boss failures. They know what they personally wanted from a boss and what they hated about their previous boss approach.
This translates into a view that is focused on what subordinates think their old boss job was. It takes a long time to realize that dealing with subordinates is only one part of the job. Managers have bigger challenges. They need to manage up to their own boss and sideways to new peers. These relationships are much more subtle and difficult to navigate. It usually takes a few years for a new manager to really understand the full nature of the job Promotions are usually handed out for all the wrong reasons. For geeks, they usually get promoted into management because: They did a great job as an engineer. They did a great job on their last project. Their boss quit and someone needed to step into the job. They volunteered. Sadly, none of these are good reasons to get a managerial assignment. The primary reason to give someone a management job is that they are ready to do the new job, not that they did well at the last job. It s like saying, Someone is such a good driver that we should just give them a pilot s license and see how they do. Sure, knowing about the work that your people are doing can be helpful, but it can also be a problem. New managers face the difficult job of supervising others who are developing and using the skills that the manager has spent a lifetime applying. Since new managers are often among the most capable people with those skills, they feel frustrated by trying to work with others who are not yet as capable as they are.
Their first impulse is to think, Get out of my way and let me do it. It ll take longer for me to explain it to you than to do it myself. Of course, doing this will not only alienate their staff, but will also prevent them from growing into the new role. New managers need to diminish their dependence on old skills in favor of developing new, higher-level ones. Transforming from a geek into a manager is much more challenging than just learning about what the job is. It s really a transformation of identity. Geeks spend their early lives being measured by personal productivity. In school, they are measured by the quality of papers and scores on tests. As a technical contributor, they are largely judged by the quality and quantity of technical output. How many modules were coded? How many user tickets got closed? How fast did the servers get installed? We incorporate all that measurement into how we view and measure ourselves. Over time, we absorb those ideas and our self-esteem is driven in large measure by how we view our own productivity. I met my major milestone of coding that module today. So, I deserve an ice cream tonight. I m a good person. However, managers need to abandon that lifetime of measurement. They are no longer judged by personal productivity, by the code they produce or even the PowerPoint presentations they create. They are measured by how productive they make everyone else. Managers leverage their own talents rather than apply them to the work at hand. As an individual contributor, if you make yourself 10% more productive, that s great. But as a manager, if you can make 15 people 10% more productive, that has a much bigger impact on the organization. Becoming a manager is about mastering a new identity, about changing how one measures oneself. And that s hard.
Bookstores overflow with books on being a manager, but rarely do they discuss the difficult transition of becoming a manager. It typically takes a new manager a year or more to begin to appreciate all the things that they don t know about the new role. But unfortunately, new managers don t get a lot of sympathy. Can you imagine a subordinate lending a compassionate ear to their newly promoted supervisor? Imagine it. Well boss, I see that you re having a difficult time adjusting to all that new power. I imagine that that s tough. I can really empathize with your difficulties. How can I help? Not going to happen. New managers never get this sort of support. It s much more common that they get grudging compliance and whispered resentments. Yet, it s a time during which they need help more than ever. So you don t get much sympathy or support from subordinates. What about bosses? You d think that managers of new managers would be more sympathetic since they ve been through the process themselves. Unfortunately, it doesn t happen much. Too often, managers have forgotten how hard it was and are too busy to think about it. They put new managers in place so that they can delegate work, not take more on. In effect, new managers lose their old support networks and don t get new ones. Old colleagues become subordinates and don t understand the new manager s challenges. And managers rarely think about new peers as advisors. New managers require patient supervisors and mentors to survive the trial of the first months in the new role. They need to be monitored and supported during what is inevitably an emotionally trying experience, and they must realize that it is normal to feel stressed, confused and exhausted during the transition.
Although individual contributors have to deal with people in other departments, the bulk of their time is devoted to working with others in their own discipline. They get used to the language and habits of thought in their own world. They live in an echo chamber. For the most part, geeks talk to geeks and business people talk to other business people. When you become a manager, you are suddenly thrust into much more communication with people who are used to distinctly different language and thought patterns. They are used to the tools of their own world just as you are used to yours. Marketers speak marketing and logistics people think in logistics. You need to learn to see things from many different perspectives. And it doesn t stop there. You not only need to understand the myriad cultures, but you need to learn to bridge the culture of geeks and non-geeks. This may be the most difficult of all. A big part of your new responsibilities is to keep these different groups collaborating when they don t really understand one another. Despite the challenges, by all means, go for that new management job. But, approach it with some humility and an open mind. Much of the pain new managers experience isn t because the job is bad, but that they expect it to be different than it really is. Letting go of preconceptions is a good place to start in the transition from geek to manager. Paul Glen is the CEO of Leading Geeks, an education and consulting firm dedicated to unlocking the value of technical people. Leading Geeks taps this value by transforming the tricky relationships between technical and non-technical groups, at the executive, management and project level. You can contact him at paul@leadinggeeks.com.