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What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

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Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#61

Post by kevingadd »

rpwilcox wrote: post #47
bane wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

welcome to low/mid-level management. You get squeezed from the top and bottom. Everybody will hate you, so you just try and hit deadlines. It also sounds like a typical story where the larger organization was trying to keep management lean, without realizing that it really did take multiple people to do the job. One place I worked at ground through three managers in 6 months (with 120 people under them) before finall…

How common is 600% turnover in management? I know turnover in engineering is usually high (if people are moving around every 18 months to 2 years)... but 600%?

I've seen turnover that bad at past employers. In some cases it continued for years after I left. I think it depends on the company, not necessarily averages.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#62

Post by balls187 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…

> I do miss leading a team though; not managing but really leading.

Your title doesn't impact your role on the team. You can easily make a big impact as a leader, without the people management aspect.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#63

Post by ianmcall »

sheepmullet wrote: post #10

Problems I found with the top answer: Performance management: It is highly unlikely as somebody new to the team, and brand new to management, that you can work out who the high performers are and who the under performers are within the first few weeks. If you get it wrong then by making it official and documenting by email you will get the entire teams backs up. Not explicitly managing resources: Really bad advice. H…

When I wrote the answer (that is currently top answer) I was thinking about a longer time window for the "new manager" period, perhaps a year instead of a few weeks. You're right that someone new to the team and new to management won't be able to accurately assess who the top and bottom performers are in their first few weeks. Same for how to allocate resources.

If the "new manager" period is the first year of management then I stick by my answer on those points.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#64

Post by Kaizyn »

IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…

I don't think you have enough data points to draw a meaningful conclusion about whether the problem was with you or if it was with the environment you were working in. The best you can do is look at the individual situations and circumstances you were in and think of what (if anything) you will do differently next time when faced with the same scenario. However with that said, it has been my experience that when there is a lack of leadership above in a company, the knock on effect is generally a bad working environment for everyone working in the organization below the bad management.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#66

Post by IgorPartola »

pjungwir wrote: post #52
IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…

> the dev team was the fallback for doing data entry for weeks on end Wow, what? It sounds like you were doing the right things, but this is hard to comprehend. Wouldn't temps cost $12/hour for this? No wonder they were angry.

That's the route we went eventually, but inputting geographic data directly into MySQL is not something that temps could handle. We needed the time to create the tools to be able to hire temps. In the meantime cash flow depended on the data being there.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#67

Post by JoeAltmaier »

OP lists all the issues from the point of view of management.

From the employee point of view, here are some common manager problems:

Employee comes in earlier, leaves earlier than manager: manager assumes employee is only working the hours they see; they act on this and insult/piss off the employee with their assumption of slacking.

Manager optimizes group for his own metrics e.g. maximize resources/minimize commitments to increase likelihood of meeting all objectives. Company loses (spending way too much for the minimal accomplishments); employee loses when manager won't permit taking on anything but the most mundane projects.

Manager cherry-picks opinions in group to justify the approach manager Wants to take, instead of letting the experienced employees make their own plan. Managers don't 'get to' make decisions; they are supposed to gather information to make the Right decision.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#68

Post by jontas »

ulms wrote: post #43
scottm01 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go a step further and answer the question "What are some common mistakes new managers make?" with "Accepting a promotion to management". If you're coming from a technical role, understand that your new job is not to be an engineer. If you're lucky and are good enough at your new job that you have some spare cycles, you might get to guide some architectural discussions It can be rewarding to help guide a team towa…

> I moved on to an "individual contributor" role with a company that provides higher level career opportunities that don't involve having direct reports. Well, that sounds pretty slick. How's it working out? As someone who was just approached by management about a director position, and this being somewhat familiar ground, I'm concerned about the lack of expansion and technical progression as well. Haven't really see…

The company I work for (based in NYC) offers exactly this kind of career track. Individual contributors are comparable with management in every way (salary, seniority, title, etc) but are not forced into management in order to continue advancing. I don't want to hijack this thread with an advertisement, but if anyone is interested in more information feel free to get in touch.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#69

Post by bane »

rpwilcox wrote: post #47
bane wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

welcome to low/mid-level management. You get squeezed from the top and bottom. Everybody will hate you, so you just try and hit deadlines. It also sounds like a typical story where the larger organization was trying to keep management lean, without realizing that it really did take multiple people to do the job. One place I worked at ground through three managers in 6 months (with 120 people under them) before finall…

How common is 600% turnover in management? I know turnover in engineering is usually high (if people are moving around every 18 months to 2 years)... but 600%?

I think more common than you can believe. low/mid level management is incredibly stressful and hard to build a proper support framework around and hard to do if that framework isn't there.

After you asked, I spent a bit of time thinking of similar situations (high low/mid turnover) and I can think of 2 or 3 other instances I know of personally. Anecdotal I know, but there it is.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#70

Post by IgorPartola »

hluska wrote: post #46
IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…

I only know your side of the story, so I know this assessment won't be entirely accurate. However, based on what you have written, it sounds like you were a pretty good manager who just got caught between your employees and your bosses. I especially like how you recognize your team members' intelligence, and tried to advocate for them with senior management. You likely made some mistakes along the way, but every mana…

One thing I realized later that I did wrong was pushing back on the upper management too much. For example I said I did not want my team working weekends on regular basis as had been the practice up to that point. We ended up not having to anyways but it painted the team in a bad light.

Really this translated into me taking a long time to understand what the priorities of the business were vs the development priorities. Definitely let's of stuff I would consider typical first time manager mistakes.

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