Hey Manager — Its okay not to have all answers!
In this blog, I will unravel long standing myth — should managers have all the answers or not.
The moment you take on management role, first thing that comes to your mind is “ I need to have all the answers. If not, I will become an incompetent manager “. Have you ever validated how true is this?
Well, it is definitely not true.
Manager will not have all the answers in the beginning. Gradually the knowledge base should be built.
If so, as a manager, if you don’t have all the answers, then how will you help the team? And how to gradually build the knowledge base?
In this blog, I will provide my view on why managers should not have all the answers and how to build the knowledge base that is missing.
Why managers will not have all answers?
If you are a new manager or joined a new company as a manager, it is okay not to have all the answers early days.
An individual is not promoted or hired as a manager because that person knows everything.
An individual gets promoted or hired for management role because of that individual’s management abilities, which includes,
- bringing clarity to the work
- allocating right team member to the work
- monitoring and communicating about the progress
- understanding the scope and identifying the risks
- planning the work
- helping team members to break down the work
- people management.
While managing a team, there could be so many things that would be needed to get done. One person knowing everything from day 1 is near to impossible.
A manager cannot look into every aspect of the work technically. If this happens then the manager will be acting as a individual contributor. If the manager gets involved deeply in any work then the management aspect will get ignored, thus the team will be headless.
How can a manager help without having all the answers?
A manager should have enough information to take care of management aspects and nothing more.
The reason why everybody feel that manager should have the answers is because of the myth - manager should know everything only then team will be able to do the work.
All team activities, success and failure, team performance is a collaborative effort. And a manager is hired to build a team which works collaboratively.
So in situations where a manager does not have answers, the team members who have enough information, provides their view on the situation and their recommendations.
Based on the information received, and using manager’s problem solving and analytical skills, a final decision will be made on the next steps.
As a manager when you don’t understand or have an answer, use the situation to create an opportunity one of your team member who can help you get those answers. In this way, you are giving more responsibility, which in-turn those team members feel being part of the solution.
How to build knowledge base?
As I mentioned earlier, a manager should gain enough information to guide and make decisions for the team to get the desired results.
So how to gain that enough information? Follow the below mentioned steps.
- request for documentation which you can review.
- discuss with your peer managers who might have some background.
- validate assumptions that are made.
- identify risks and severity of each of them.
- ask the team to create a dirty pilot for showcasing with stakeholders.
The above 5 step process will get you enough information about the situation or module or changes that are to be performed.
When the stakeholders or customer or the peer managers see and hears what you are thinking in terms of assumptions, risks and pilots, they will provide you feedback.
Based on the feedback refine the approach or correct the assumptions. With few iterations of the above 5 steps, you will get the required clarity. Once you have the clarity, guiding the team from now becomes easy.
This iterative model can be applied to any situation; even for known situations. The information you collect every-time should help to build the knowledge base needed.
Conclusion
It’s okay for managers, not having all answers. But always find ways to get to the answers by utilising your team members experience and knowledge.
A manager must build knowledge base over a time. So that the knowledge can be used in the future to make the decisions or to guide the team.
How you apply the knowledge that you gain iteratively will make you a better manager.
Remember, end of the day, a manager responsibility is to bring clarity to the team and supporting the team to reach the desired result.
Deep technical understanding may be required but primary focus should be on management aspects.
So instead of feeling incompetent about not knowing everything or getting pressured of not having clarity, focus on building a collaboratively functioning team, that could help you getting the required answers.
Happy management!
Further reading
