Or the Three First Steps Being a New Manager
At a recent meeting, we had a new person take charge. He knew he was going to be in charge a few weeks before the meeting, as well as everyone else who was to attend. But just a couple of minutes before the meeting was about to start he decided to make some changes to some entrenched traditional seating arrangements. Doesn’t sound like much, where a person sits, but in this case it turned into something more. When the person who was asked to move griped about it and the manager had to cajole him to sit in the new seat, the manager turned to me and said ”Why won’t he do what I told him to do? How do I make him do it?” After composing myself from the questions, my first comment was “not now in front of everyone” as this would have further embarrassed the person moving and made the manager look childish in front of everyone. In reality both things happened and the manager was the one who took the hit in credibility. Power struggles are pervasive in all industries and especially in volunteer and service organizations, even when the issue is as minor as seating arrangements, the manner in which the situation is handled can be the bellwether of future success for the manager in the organization.
Managers new to the position, can on occasion, make the assumption that because they are the manager that people have to do what the manager asks them to do. This is what John Maxwell refers to as a Level 1 or Positional Leader. For some employee/manager relationships, the employee is expected to follow the orders of the manager or face consequences. But in the broader working environment of today and especially in volunteer task groups, volunteer organizations and others, some people will take umbrage to this type of demand for action even though the manager may be right.
Connection and Influence
The issue at hand was that the manager had not done his work in advance of the meeting so that when the meeting was to start, everyone knew what was expected and in a fashion acceptable to the new manager. The manager did not understand the amount of influence, or in reality the lack of influence, he had with the other parties in the meeting. The manager had not connected in a way that the others will at least listen. His overall level of influence was extremely low.
Communicating your Vision
Another element of the situation was the lack of vision communicated to everyone. Whether it is how you would like a meeting to be conducted, or developing programs and activities for the next month, quarter or year, or the overall vision of the company, communication of the vision is essential. In March 1995 John Kotter wrote an article in Harvard Business Review described the eight errors why organizations fail to have sustainable change. Practically the dark ages I know but still of essential value today. Of the eight errors, one was lacking a vision — “Without a sensible vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing and incompatible projects that can take the organization in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.” To help people accept change, providing the context behind the vision or change lays the groundwork that your vision is not arbitrary or capricious when on the surface it may appear that way. In the same HBR article John Kotter also wrote that another of the eight errors was undercommunicating the vision by a factor of 10 — “Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of the troops are never captured.”
Buy-in
The last element is that once you have established influence and communicated your vision, you must still get the other members to buy-in. Without buy-in there is no commitment to the vision or change. More connecting and communicating may be needed so that followers or members trust what you are saying, are able to buy-in to that vision, understand their part as well as the greater good, and then executing their part.
It would be extremely rare that all three of these key elements be developed and embraced in a matter of minutes just before a meeting. It takes time. Influence is not gained in seconds or minutes. A vision can be communicated in a matter of minutes but the processing time by the receiver can be lengthy. Buy-in is when the receiver gets the message, understands the message and says to themselves, “yes, I can do that, be part of that or help with that.” Sometimes it can be handled in the meeting before the meeting but time may still be of the essence and all three steps may not get processed. For most of us time is required. It could be hours, days, weeks or even months.
Three Steps
So three steps are needed — 1) time to understand the individuals in your company, on your team, or in your organization, and figure out how you can connect and influence them, 2) communicate as clearly as possible what you would like to see, why and communicate the message all the time, 3) work with individuals and groups to get buy-in. The steps can be easy but it takes time to build a relationship of trust and influence.
Originally published in Medium - June 17, 2018