How to avoid the first-time manager predicament

How to avoid the first-time manager predicament

Last week I wrote about the predicament of the first time manager. For some of you I'm sure it seemed a little bleak. The truth of the matter is that even those of us, who may not have all the innate skills necessary to be perfect first-time managers, can be successful by doing 6 things well as I outline in “How to keep your Rockstar status as First-time Manager.” I’ll share a couple of those things here.

The Predicament of the First-Time Manager

The Predicament of the First-Time Manager

The research

People moving into management for the first time should be the rarest breed of people ever. If the stats are to be believed and there are multiple pieces of research to show this, 50% to 60% of first-time managers fail. How and why would you ever want to take on the role as a first-time manager if you knew that 50% to 60% of those people failed in their new roles. This is especially troubling when most likely, as an individual contributor, you are already a Rockstar.

Creating a Powerful Team: Step 1

Setting the stage

At Bearing we work with our clients to create strong, connected teams.  More and more work is being done in teams and through work groups (1).  Teams work face-to-face and remotely, and each modality has its own challenges – in this post I consider face-to-face settings.  Team performance, in this case, is strongly tied to three components, average social sensitivity of the group, conversational turn taking and the proportion of females in the group.