New Managers - Stop being paranoid

In this blog, I will talk about why new managers should stop being paranoid and start focusing on being productive.

Are you a manager who feels always paranoid about the performance of the team, completion of work, last minute communication from team members?

The paranoia feeling occurs when manager do not have visibility on the progress of the assigned task.

When there is no visibility of how things are progressing, the “no control” feeling kicks-in, which leads to paranoia.

Instead of finding ways to gain visibility of how assigned tasks are progressing, some managers continue to get paranoid and hope there will be no last minute surprises.

If you continue to get paranoid, then your productivity will not be there. Due to this, higher management may not have confidence on you.

In this blog, I will provide 4-step approach to gain visibility as a manager and come out of the paranoia state. This 4-step approach will show that you are carrying out your duties well and you can always show your productivity to higher management.

4 Step approach

#1 System
Many times a team will be functioning without any system in place. Defining a system help you to structure the way the team works. This in-turn helps in tracking what’s going on.

The system should consist of Process and Tools.

▸ Process:
Structure of design documentation, getting reviews done, code structure, code versioning strategy, creation of tasks and sub-tasks, etc. should be defined.

These should be defined before starting anything. If there is already something in place, schedule a meeting to go over it and remind the team members to use it.

The Process should be built around the tools that will be used by the team. In this way the work assignment and tracking at centralised place.

▸ Tools or softwares:
A manager must decide what tools or softwares will be used by the team. These tools are related to code versioning e.g. Bitbucket or GitHub; project management software e.g. JIRA or Asana; collaborative tools e.g Teams or Slack and anything else that would be needed.

These tools or softwares should be easily adoptable and must be used by every team members. Again reminding the team frequently about using the tools or softwares will help you to get the progress updates without hassle.

#2 Connect
Regular meetings to connect with the team members is important. Many new managers forget to conduct regular connects with the team members.

There must be connect with whole team and connect with each member.

▸ Team connects:
Weekly or bi-weekly connect with whole team will help to bring visibility on what each team member is assigned and how they are progressing. These meetings will help you discuss about any dependencies between the team members.

Team connects can also be used to discuss changes in the system that are needed. Use the team connects to discuss common issues or concerns among the team members.

Team connects also helps in making sure that there is no siloed way of working. Everybody gets to know what each team member is doing and how it is inter-related.

▸ 1on1 connects:
Connecting with each individual team member will help to discuss any specific issues or problems that the individual is facing. These meetings will help you to set the expectation with member.

These 1on1 connect should also be used by the manager to set goals to each team members, follow up on the progress and provide any guidance needed to reach the desired results.

#3 Trust
As a manager, it is important to gain trust with the team members. Trust does not come easily and it takes time.

Not all team members will trust you from the start and they may never do. But it is important to continue gaining trust from every team member.

So how to gain trust?

▸ Maintain your integrity:
Managers first have to show that you will do whatever you say. If you commit to making a decision by discussing with stakeholders, then do it within the agreed timeline.

And always make sure you update the progress on the action items that you have taken. The same way you are expecting your team members to provide updates regularly, the team will also expect the same from you.

So, as a manager, don’t think that the system is only for the team members, it is also for you. Use the system to keep the team up-to-date.

▸ Maintain transparency:
No matter what, you must maintain transparency with the team members. The transparency about when the next work is going to start, what was customer feedback (good or bad or worst), feedback from internal stakeholders and so on.

You also should be transparent how the overall progress is going on, what mistakes are done and how it can be improved. Bring transparency about any inefficiencies that you are observing and request for feedback and improvement ideas.

Don’t make a decision on your own, that impacts the team, without first discussing with team. When you involve the team to bring changes to the system or anything else, then the team members see that you are always transparent about all the things related to team.

Be transparent about each individual performance as well. If someone is not performing as per your expectation, then highlighting to that individual will be important. Don’t wait until annual reviews or mid year feedback.

When you keep up your side of integrity and by being always transparent, the team members will gradually start trusting you.

#4 Proactive
Managers must be always be proactive in their approach.

Instead of waiting for something to happen, taking proactive actions will help you to prepare for unforeseen situations.

Being proactive means,

regularly updating the plan or allocation of resource before somebody asking for an update.
regularly updating the risks and dependencies before something happens.
regularly communicating about delays ahead of time rather waiting until one day before the due date.
regularly updating the goals progress for the team or individual, without waiting for any feedback cycle.
regularly planning or allocating resources for future work, without waiting for the last minute.
regularly identifying inefficiencies in the system.
regularly optimising the process for better output.

And many more…

As a manager, being proactive in your actions, will help identify any problems or issues that might come up.

Once you identify such situations ahead of time, communicating that to the higher management for getting directions, will ease the impact, if any.

Conclusion

Being paranoid about not having control is not going to help any Manager. Instead adopt the 4-step process to gradually gain control and visibility of the situation on the ground.

The 4-step approach is a continuous process, that means you need to keep doing these steps regularly to get full control over the team progress and gain trust with the team members.

The moment you start feeling the control over on going activities and team member starts trusting you and vice versa, the paranoia will go away.

So stop being paranoid, start doing the 4-step approach to become productive.

Happy management!