First management position, any advice?

[eytonxav]

As an employee I felt this was a good way for management to avoid being managers.

Like many things, HR mandated that reviews as well as ratings be handled according to their guidelines. I often times felt HR should be renamed to inhuman resources

 

[kgtest]

Like many things, HR mandated that reviews as well as ratings be handled according to their guidelines. I often times felt HR should be renamed to inhuman resources

My guess is this MegaCorp has the same mandated review guidelines. I read through One Minute Manager. nice little read.

I appreciate all the suggestions. SO far my team is very small and not much actual "managing" that I can see after my first week on the ranch. But that might change as I get deeper into my role. Lots of individual contributor goals which sort of contradicted what I was told during my interviewing process. A job is a job.

Thanks for all the feedback I need to scroll back through and re-read everyone's ideas.

 

[kgtest]

This was SOP in my MC for as long as I can remember. Hated it, both as an employee and a manager. Few employees underrated themselves, most felt the need to write a book - never quite grasping it was meant to be a highlight reel.

Still it was helpful, if the employee didn't have much to write in a given section, it was easy to point to it and go "see maybe work on that".

I also hated it because I knew it was mostly meaningless. If you're a star the review is a waste of time. If you're not, no amount of good writing at year end will elevate you (oh and mid year - we did this exercise twice per year)...

At my last job, when I was just a contributor it was similar. I was clearly the most capable, most productive and the person who contributed the most but I still got subpar reviews. This happened for 5 years straight with one exception...the year they were NOT giving out merit increases I received a stellar review...clearly because it was not going to be tied to a pay increase. I vested and hit the road. I learned quickly in IT the quickest way to a raise is leaving the company for a new one.

I did get some good feedback from some of my managers but had one that was totally incompetent and liked to play games.

I pretty much stopped caring the last year of my tenure, asked to be reassigned managers and was swiftly shown the door.

 

[kgtest]

You say you are a cub scout leader? Take Woodbadge. It is an excellent leadership skills training course. Everything taught will apply to your new position, and as a bonus you'll have a lot of fun.

I am! I was officially accepted a few weeks ago into the "den" leadership. I will definitely take your recommendation on Woodbadge.