I'd Like to Speak to the Manager
I'd Like to Speak to the Manager
(Surprise! You're the Manager Now)
Happy Wednesday, friends!
Some of you may have only recently found your way here through Substack, and if that’s the case, more info on me and the newsletter here, and on Instagram here!
(TLDR: I’m the Woo in the “To-Woo” List, Janice Woo! I’ve had all sorts of roles in finance and I’ve thought a lot about career satisfaction. This is a weekly newsletter with musings, tips and insights based on my own experiences and my conversations with great people in my network.)
Really, the best part of writing this newsletter (besides the gifs) has been having great conversations with people about their careers. If you have a specific topic you want to chat about, email me, or leave a comment below.
I received a few questions on my Instagram asking for tips for first time managers, which is what we’ll dive into this week and next. First, I talk about the transition from Individual Contributor to Manager, and next week, I’ll share a few more tips/tactics.
(Hopefully the thoughts and resources below also serve as helpful refresher for seasoned managers too)!
Musings
I should caveat this week’s topic by first saying, that I’m by no means an expert on being a manager. I’ve had the fortune of managing small teams of really great people a few times in my career, but I’ve more often been an individual contributor, or in the case of a Chief of Staff role - managed a lot of people and processes in an indirect way.
Structurally, the culture in finance tends to be meritocratic, and teams tend to be lean. The management of human resources in the industry also isn’t a huge focus. Asset manager TPG (a firm that manages $100B+ of capital) announced a “newly created Chief Human Resources Officer role” in 2018, despite being founded in 1992.
In these types of companies, career paths are determined largely by metrics, (i.e. trading book, deal experience or investment track record). Staffing and time management is often handled not by a senior member of the investment team, instead it’s delegated to a ‘staffer’ or in the group that was often a mid-level investment team member that was taking a year off to focus on optimizing resource management.
There aren’t many opportunities to manage large teams, and managing teams is a small portion of what you’re evaluated on.
Structure aside, on an emotional level, managing people has seemed daunting to me for two reasons, one of which I’ll talk about here and next week, and the other we’ll delve into in the ‘Conversations’ section below.
Managing people is not about being super likeable.
In my career, I’ve often received feedback that I’m a ‘team player’, ‘good with people’, and ‘easy to work with’. Yet, while all of these things are nice-to-haves, being a manager isn’t predicated on likeability. In fact, solving only for likeability can actually work against you. Being close friends with your direct reports may actually prevent the ability to drive outcomes, or to have hard conversations about underperformance.
So what else does a good manager do?
Managers illuminate goals, vision and for their reports
Managers translate these goals into actionable projects and tasks for their reports
Managers align people, and their strengths to drive outcomes
Managers develop talent and manage weaknesses in their reports to optimize performance
We’ll talk more next week about tips on where managing like a friend works, and where it doesn’t.
Conversations
The other challenge of being a manager came up in this week’s conversation with a friend who was changing roles and companies.
She was previously a top-performing salesperson, and compensated for individual performance. She was considering joining a firm to lead a regional sales division. It would be a promotion, but she would be tasked with hiring and developing a team beneath her, and she had some hesitations.
Being a manager would entail more than just being a senior version of what she was doing before - in her case, it wasn’t just about ‘selling more’. It was a whole new skillset, of not just doing, but teaching. It wasn’t just a matter of being good at her job, she’d be measured on how well she was enabling others to be good at their job.
Fundamentally it’s a huge mindset shift:
Managing means you aren’t in direct control of how your performance is measured anymore.
For type-A people who are into self-advancement (like… oh I dunno, maybe the type of people who subscribe to a newsletter about career advancement? 😏)… managing can feel scary because of that lack of control.
I mentioned earlier in the newsletter how in certain finance jobs, teams are lean, and there isn’t a ton of focus on developing people. It’s infinitely less complicated to point to the profit/loss you personally generated to make a case for how well you’re doing, vs. measuring the satisfaction and productivity of a myriad of people that work with and for you.
It can be rewarding to manage a team, but also initially feels riskier than solely managing your own performance.
Since this would be her first-time in a management role, we explored this loss of control, and uncertainties she had about potential types of people on her team. Curiously, the situations she was worried about are the exact opposite of each other, but stem from the same core dynamic.
Fear #1. Your direct report is phenomenal.
“She’s coming for my crown!”
When you manage a team at first, you’re likely not that much more senior than your reports, which can lead to all kinds of imposter syndrome (“I’m not capable of managing these people”). This is especially magnified when there are members of your team that are really great at what they do.
The truth is, having people on your team that are better than you is optimal. (I wrote about knowing and owning your weaknesses a few weeks ago, and managing a team of resources that offsets your own weaknesses is one of the best applications I can think of that framework).
Step one is admitting what you don’t know… insecurity doesn’t lend itself well to great management or leadership. Great managers recognize what they are not good at, make opportunities to divide and conquer, and let their reports shine where they have more detail, or more knowledge.
As businesses grow, you can and should hire people that know way more than you. Generalists make great managers, and can rely on their reports to know more about any individual area than they do. By that logic, a great team will ultimately be comprised of you as the manager, and everyone that reports into you will be better than you at something. The sooner you embrace that, the better.
Fear #2. Your direct report is terrible.
Time to shift to a “No Blame Game” mindset
If someone on your team is not performing well, and you’re merely a peer of theirs, you have the luxury to be all like:
But as a manager, if your report is terrible (yes, even if you did not originally hire this person), this person and their performance is, in fact, your problem.
It’s natural to assume that if someone isn’t performing that it’s their lack of acumen (which might eventually prove to be true), but as a manager, you’re best served to look inward first:
You are the conduit for the company’s mission, vision, goals and objectives. Definitionally, you have more information and context than the people that report into you.
Are you communicating well? Are you aware of what their problems are? Are you helping them get unstuck?
Sometimes your reports aren’t performing or understanding one part of the job, but are accomplished or have deep expertise in other parts. Maybe what they really need is help understanding which parts should be prioritized, or where they need to be experts/owners and where they need to be in learning mode.
Of course, it may truly be that this person is not a fit for the role, or they may never improve, but to start, it benefits managers to believe in the potential of their reports, and to fully examine how they can help:
Assume: This report is doing their best, wants to do well, and is here for a reason.
Ask: Do they understand the goal and how their roles/responsibilities fit into those?
Enable: What do they need - better communication? Resources? Help prioritizing?
While being an individual contributor felt ‘safer’ in some ways, she ultimately felt this would be a great experience for her. Learning to understand and work with people’s strengths and weaknesses would be a valuable skillset whether she decided to continue down the path of managing, or if she returned to being an individual salesperson. And, psychologically, she knew that letting go of controlling outcomes so tightly would be a valuable self-growth skill.
Resources/Links
First time manager coaching - (Lara Hogan) Lara Hogan is a coach for leaders and managers in tech, and has a great blog with advice on managing, especially for newer managers
Insightful takeaways from Julie Zhou (a VP of Product Design)’s book, Making of a Manager, (Fellow.app)
Individual contributor vs manager this is geared toward engineers, but there are some great thoughts in here (Medium, the Walmart Global Tech Blog)
Cool ladies doing cool things: Neelika Malavige is an immunologist at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka, one of India’s neighbouring countries racing to sequence genomes and figure out which variants of the COVID-19 virus are causing outbreaks(Nature)
Tell Me About You
What else do you worry about as a first time manager?
For more experienced managers, what helped you transition from “doing” into “managing”?