[Build Backlinks Online] Learning How To Be A Manager

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Learning How To Be A Manager'


Posted by caitlin.krumdieck

Introduction from Will Critchlow:

I want to introduce the post that follows for two reasons. First, its a little
different to the majority of posts we write for the SEOmoz blog, and second, its
Caitlins first post here.Caitlin Krumdieck is our Director of Client Development
at Distilled. Until she joined the company (as a sales executive), I had sold
every piece of work that Distilled had done. She (supposedly) joined the company
to assist me in responding to leads and putting together proposals. When she
out-sold me in her third month, it became clear that I should be making way for
her to do her thing and her growth at Distilled has continued from there. Along
the way, shes learned some interesting things about herself and the various
roles shes held in the company. Ihope you enjoy reading about Caitlins growth
and development and take away something useful for your own career and company.


Throwing myself in the deep end (aka learning how to be a manager)

I always thought I wanted to be a manager. Growing up naturally bossy and bit
of a control freak, it just seemed like the natural spot for me to end up. So
when I stepped into my first management position at Distilled, I was surprised
at how hard the transition was. Moving from consultant to manager of a team
required a complete change of mindset and challenged me in ways I never
expected. Today, I'll be sharing the four things I believe are worth thinking
about if you are looking to make the move into management.

Gut check: make sure you actually want to be a manager

About three months after my transition from London Sales Exec into the Head of
Sales role, I had a very frank conversation with Will Critchlow (Distilled's
Co-Founder) about my role. He then asked me point blank if I actually wanted to
be a manager.

For me, this was a career-changing question. At the time, I was having a tough
time letting go of my old responsibilities and moving forward into management
responsibilities. I had been working in sales for over six years. I loved the
buzz of talking to clients and closing deals. I liked the fact that I was
personally responsible for bringing in revenue for Distilled, and I still valued
my contribution to the company by the amount of money I could generate. So
instead of focusing all my time and energy on how to make my team awesome, I was
still spending at least 70% of my time trying to bring in new business. This
meant I was essentially doing two jobs, over working myself, and not giving my
team the management support they needed.

My answer to Will was, Let me think about it. I surprised myself by not going
right back to him with a, Hell yeah, I want to be a manager response. I spent a
few days really thinking about the changes I would need to make if I really
wanted to step into a management position. To help me evaluate both
opportunities, I made a list of the responsibilities for each. I thought about
what it would mean to my day-to-day work, and I asked myself quite frankly, Will
I be happy as a manager?

I think a lot of people make the mistake of skipping this step. They think
that, because management seems like a step up, it is the natural progression
they should strive for. But the truth is that management isnt for everyone. It
is a somewhat thankless job that requires a lot of patience, focus,
determination, and self-motivation. It isnt just a progression from a consulting
role; its a complete job change.

In the end, I decided to challenge myself and devote myself fully to becoming a
great manager. I would love to say that from the moment I made that decision
everything changed, but to be honest, it took about another nine months before I
made the full transition.

So before you eagerly put yourself forward for that management position, ask
yourself, Do I really want to be a manager? If you are currently a consultant
and love working on accounts, would you be happy if your daily responsibilities
shifted from being at the heart of the action to becoming the person setting
team targets, having line manager meetings, and generally solving problems?
Would you miss the thrill of the discovery that only comes from day-in, day-out
work with clients? These aren't easy questions, and it is well worth taking the
time out to really think about what a move into management means.Rand wrotea
great postcovering the management vs contributor conundrum, highlighting how
management isn't everything and shouldn't be the only growth path within a
company.

Transitioning: re-learning how to be a team player

When I was in high school, I was the goalie for my schools water polo team.
This role requires a lot of the same characteristics of a great manager. While
everyone knows that it is the goalies job to stop the ball from going in the
net, it is also the goalies responsibility to set plays into motion. However,
once the ball is in play, they need to get their ass back to the goal and
provide support. From the vantage point in the goal, you can see the whole pool,
so it is your job to let the other members of the team know what's going on, but
you cant actually get involved. A goalie is the ultimate support position. Sure,
you get credit for any major saves, but you never get credit for the goals your
offense scores.

Management is very similar. At Distilled, we subscribe to the belief that good
management means being the support for the whole rest of the team, not the other
way around. We are avid believers of Joel Spolskys support function approach to
management.



http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/02/the-management-team-guest-post-from-joel-spolsky.html

As a manager, you have to be constantly aware of everything happening and make
yourself available to help, but you need to let your team score their own goals.
A good manager doesnt take all the great leads/clients; they share their
experience and knowledge so their team is able to step up and perform on their
own.

Another big mind shift for me in going from a consultant to a manager, was
learning to see my teams success as my success. While I wasnt out there directly
making clients happy, I was supporting a team that was getting results. That is
the management win.

Learning to lead: dont dictate, start a flywheel

We talk about the power of flywheels a lot at Distilled. Building a great team
should be approached with the same ideology and methodology as starting a
flywheel. The goal is the same: ideally, when you push hard in a consistent
direction for a length of time, it seems to get easier and easier to build
momentum. With a small team and big targets, it was essential for me to think
about how, as the manager, I could push my team to get the best possible results
and continued growth for Distilled.

Its easy to assume that you know what all the right answers are and that your
team should do things your way. This was a mistake I made when I first started
managing my team. As the first sales person at Distilled, I created a lot of our
original sales material. I thought the most successful approach would be to get
my team to just use what I built and go out and sell the way I would sell
things. That approach worked OK for a while, but it was short-sighted and didnt
allow us to leverage the talent within our team. It also meant I had to be
involved with every major deal we did, which limited our ability to speak with a
larger number of clients.

So I took a step back. I stopped telling people how I thought they should
approach working with a new client, and I started asking them what they thought
they should do. I forced myself to stop getting involved in every conversation,
and gave my team the space and responsibility to own all the client
relationships, only bringing me in when they really need me. Instead of
bulldozing in when trying to solve problems, I started to refuse to give my team
advice until they told me what they thought a solution looked like.

The results have been amazing. My team has grown in confidence and the work
they are doing now is more than twice as good as it was when I was forcing my
approach on them. We are talking to more clients than ever before, and were able
to double business last year without growing the size of our team.

Getting results: make sure your team knows what is expected of them

As a sales team, it was easy to focus target setting on revenue, but that only
looks at part of the picture. If you only focus on the money coming in, you
might miss some crucial areas of personal development that need to also be
addressed as a manager. While I could use our sales reporting system to see how
my team was performing, I couldnt see if they were happy or achieving what they
wanted to in their roles.

The first step I took was to redefine the roles within our team and to set out
clear responsibilities of the roles my team currently filled and what
progression into more senior roles would look like. I made sure to focus not
just on their sales targets, but also team development responsibilities within
the role. I put in more ownership-based responsibilities so the team could see
how they were a part of the big picture and not just a cog. This helped my team
to see exactly what is expected of them and what they can start working on to
progress to the next level within the team. It also allowed me to open up
conversations with my team on what sideways steps might look like, should
someone on the team choose to move in a new direction.

Once I had the roles clearly defined, I sent out a happiness survey to each
member of my team. Here are the questions I asked my team.


On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best, how happy are you in your roll at the
moment? On a scale from 1-5 with 5 being the best, how do you feel you are
performing in your role?

Do you feel like you know what is expected of you in your role?

On a scale from 1-5 with 5 being the best, do you feel that you are well
supported in your roll?

On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best, do you feel you get the support you
need from Caitlin?

What do you feel is your biggest accomplishment in the past 12 months?

Where do you think you have failed or would like to improve?

What do you think of the targets set for 2012/2013 (this past year)?

What are areas you feel like you could use more support in?

What is one thing Caitlin can do for you to support you in your role?

Do you understand what Caitlin's role is?

What is one thing you would like to see improve/change/grow for the Client
Development team for the New Year?

How would you rank the general quality of leads you have received in the past
3 months?


My line manager Duncan Morris (Distilled CEO) had used a similar tactic with me
in our line manager meetings and I found it was a great way to open up
conversations about happiness and personal development. In the past when asking
my team, How are you doing? I tended to get half thought-out answers. Giving
them the space to write at length about it and asking them to assign a number to
how they felt about how things were going, meant I got much more critical
responses. It also allowed me to ask them what I needed to do as their manager
to get them to the next level, which forced them to give me critical feedback.
This really opened up conversations and has led to better personal development,
increased team happiness, and improvements in openness across the team.

Wrapping up

Every company is going to demand different things from its management team, but
I found getting the team management side of things right is one of the most
important steps I took. It wasnt until I got that right that I really started to
feel like a manager. There have been a lot of lessons along the way and I could
probably write another whole post on the challenges of setting targets, managing
difficult consultants and clients, and the importance of communication. However,
I felt these three things really sum up the major lessons I learned as a person
when moving into a management role and are the most transferable, regardless of
the type of manager you are looking to be.

If you would like some more references, I found these resources very helpful:


Good to Great


Anything from Dale Carnegie especially How To Enjoy Your Life and Your Job


Bob Nelsons 1001 Ways to Energize and Empower Employees



One of the great things about being a manager is that you are always learning
and there is always more to think about when trying to help your team grow. I
hope sharing my own learning experinces has helped and I would love to hear from
others who have advice on how to manage a team effectively.

I'll leave you with an aswer I had to give recently, when someone I was
interviewing asked me what I love about my job:For the past four years, I have
found my self doing something brand new and challanging every day. No week is
the same. Finally, while a manager may not get a lot of credit for all the
behind the scenes work you do supporting the team, seeing your team be
successful can be supremely rewarding and fulfilling.

Good luck!
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!






You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Fdn3fy4ECik/learning-how-to-be-a-manager

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com