One of the most difficult transitions in business is from front-line employee to front-line manager. There are other difficult transitions, like going from manager of people to manager of ideas — think vice president to CEO — but fundamentally, the move from “individual contributor” to “manager of individual contributor” is the most challenging. Why?
Not only is there a shift in skills needed to be effective, but also a shift in perspective in how a person sees themselves in the world. A first-time manager who gets the attention of leadership is usually promoted because of all the personal achievements they have made — most sales, most spiffs, highest this or that, etc.
And if you look at the statistics of why there is so much turnover for store managers and even service managers, it’s because they are applying their worldview to their new job.
When presented with a manager-level problem, their instincts are to tackle every job by themselves. That’s what got them here, after all: pure self-determination and drive (or stubbornness).
That creates extreme burnout opportunities. The job of managing a store can’t be done if the manager thinks he has to sell everything, make every call, make every decision and control every movement of every employee. It just can’t be done.
So how do you manage a manager?
First, it’s your mindset. Without the mental commitment to doing things a different way, any manager will ultimately rely on their old skill set to get things done. And they will be successful initially doing it themselves. It’s what got them promoted.
But eventually, the weight of seven people’s jobs will crush an uninitiated manager. A new manager — or even a manager who hasn’t learned this yet — must realize they are in charge of the people who do the things that make a store successful.
They can hold onto one or two things that identify strongly with their persona — some tire sales, alignments or whatever their “thing” may be. But it can’t be multiple things.
One of the most challenging skills to learn as a new manager is to go from being the best at something to teaching someone else how to be the best. Why is that challenging? Because for the first time, a new manager must give up instant gratification. You’ll hear it in their frustration. A common refrain is, “It’s just easier if I do it myself.” Easier, in this case, probably means faster. And to make matters worse, they’re right! It will be faster — this time. But faster isn’t the goal of a manager. Consistency is.
Being a manager means balancing speed with accuracy. The right amount of speed with the right amount of accuracy creates consistency. Consistency means sometimes sacrificing short-term gains for long-term improvement. Individual contributors are all about short-term success. All of their bonuses and pay are built around the notion of “only today matters.” A manager must balance short-term success with building a team for sustainability. Initially, it’s a trade-off. After a few months of focusing on how good the team can be, it’s a no-brainer.
Once a new manager fully grasps how decisions have to be leveraged against multiple interests, prioritized, aligned with goals and executed, he will change his thinking — letting individual contributors focus on the daily “stuff” and instead focusing on providing the tools and training to support his team.
Let’s talk about the second most important thing a new manager must learn: hat swapping. A manager in a tire dealership is constantly switching hats. Sometimes he’s the salesperson. Sometimes it’s a delicate enough situation where the manager needs to take over and prevent a catastrophe from happening. And sometimes you have to let an employee fall face first into a mistake. Mistakes are the best teacher because they leave a feeling. You can go to a class and listen to an expert. You can go to another class and learn how to pay bills on certain software. Both are learning constructs. But nothing is a better teacher than failing. That red-faced embarrassment will sear the words “I’ll never do that again” into a person’s psyche.
And when it comes to letting an employee fail, here’s a litmus test. If an employee panics when asked or told to do something, that’s a predetermined failure. In a situation like this, the store manager should do everything in their power to remove the employee from the scenario and figure out what tools or training need to be in place.
If you’re a manager and you think that your employees have the tools and training they need, let them try and if necessary, let them fail. Then discuss what happened, modify and move on.
Clearly, this isn’t an all-encompassing list of things managers need training on. But until you tackle the mindset of a new manager and how to switch hats, the other training won’t produce a return on investment.
