Building a Great Manager: What Does It Take to Succeed As a New Manager?
Managers play a critical role in any business. They are the connecting tissue between ownership and employees. Through managers, owners can delegate tactical responsibility for specific areas of the business to others so they can focus more on the strategic vision for the company. Managers help an owner leverage their own time, but only if proper planning and structure are in place.
Management expert Peter Drucker outlined five things that managers do:
- Set objectives
- Organize
- Motivate and communicate
- Measure
- Develop people
Setting Up a New Manager for Success
How do you find a great manager? For many in our industry, it involves taking their best technician or installer and changing their title to service manager or installation manager. Presto: new manager in place. However, the skills needed to succeed in a management role are much different from those needed to succeed as an employee. Just giving someone a new title and expecting them to do well is a recipe for failure. In fact, up to 60 percent of new managers fail within their first 24 months (source: cebglobal.com).
How can you set up a new manager to succeed?
The Best Workers Can Make Poor Managers
Here’s how a chemist who was promoted to a manager described her transition:
“Before my promotion, I was a good-to-excellent chemist. Now, I’m an okay chemist and an okay manager.”
Source: Center for Creative Leadership
That’s typically what happens in the home services industry as well. A company takes its best technician or installer and makes them a service or install manager. After all, they’ve been successful technicians or installers; shouldn’t they be able to manage these folks? Unfortunately, what usually happens is the company loses one of its top revenue producers and gains, at best, an okay manager.
Why doesn’t a great worker make a great manager? A great worker usually has a plan – for themselves. They may be your most efficient and productive team member. Typically, they enjoy the control they have over their personal success. However, a manager must have a plan for their team and understand how to get work done through others instead of doing it all themselves. Managers must also understand that everyone may work differently and be able to develop a personalized approach for each team member. This is a completely different skill set from what it takes to be a great individual worker. These skills must be developed for a team member to successfully make the transition from employee to manager.
Why Do We Need Managers?
One of the battle cries for every growing business should be: free the owner up! While you may think this statement is directed at smaller companies, it’s astonishing how many owners of larger companies can’t relinquish control of parts of their business, whether out of fear, not knowing how, or feeling that they are the only ones who can do it correctly.
Ultimately, this limits the company’s growth and creates an unending burden for the owner. If you don’t have managers in place that you trust, how can you take a vacation or spend time away from the business? It’s all on your shoulders. That stress adds up. But here’s a thought to consider: a great manager, with the right training and guidance, can make your life easier. They may even be able to do some aspects of their job better than you could!
Free Up the Owner!
Freeing up the owner allows you to work on your company rather than in it. This gives the company the capacity to grow and creates opportunities for team members to develop and excel. With a deeper team and a strategic focus, your company can deliver more and better services to your clients. Your clients will benefit from having employees who are motivated and engaged, creating loyalty, repeat sales, and referrals.
Managers are the linchpin in the company’s structure. They help communicate ownership’s vision to the rest of the company. They develop the tactical steps to implement the goals created in your company’s business plan with the team. They measure and report on their department’s progress and success. They play an important part in developing your company’s culture and in developing your employees. Develop a great manager, and you’ll improve your employee retention. Often, employees don’t leave the company; they leave the manager. Great managers inspire loyalty and get the best from their team members.
Want to grow your company, get more time to focus on your strategic vision, and improve your lifestyle? Make the investment – and commitment – to develop your new generation of company managers.
About the Author
Chris Koch has nearly three decades of HVAC experience, starting at the ground floor and working his way up to VP of Service. His expertise ranges from a start-up to $60 million in sales. Chris has gained rich, diverse exposure to many forms of doing business. He is a team-building leader and possesses the necessary hands-on experience.
During his career, he has been hired into managerial positions and promoted multiple times. Each experience came with exciting opportunities and terrifying realities. However, as time went by, he identified the things he needed to change in his approach to transition from an employee to a successful manager. But he could have done it a lot faster with some training!
The desire to help new managers and their owners led him to develop the BDR University workshop Creating the New Generation of Company Managers.
Interested in building a great manager by identifying the right candidate?
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