Going to have to kiss goodbye to mountain biking for the foreseeable future. I’ve accepted a promotion to a management position in Houston. Will miss Aberdeenshire greatly.

So how do you manage? There’s a team of 8 plus secretary. Welding, materials and NDT engineers in the oil and gas industry. I’ve never had to manage anyone before, so this is a mystery to me and there’s going to be no chance for me get any management training. What’s the best way to start off on the right foot? Start authoritatively or first spend time asking lots of questions of my new slaves staff?

I’m a little worried also that my age is a factor, being (only!) 32. But actually not entirely worried as I am the most qualified for the position and the team is relatively young anyway. Anyone remember Doogie Howser MD 😉 ?

The people working for you will know the business better than you, so ask their advice first. Best to spend a few months learning the lie of the land before you start changing things.

Stamp your authority from the start, give them an inch and they will take a mile 😆

Think of being in management as like trying to herd cats

One of my best mates made a similar move, too he’s working for PGS in Houston after leaving the UK. He started managing a team where all were older and more experienced than him. They also all earned more money than him! He found it hard at first and I certainly can’t offer much in the way of advice as all the teams I’ve managed have been younger more inexperienced people, apart from one who fell out with me and I put on a warning. He jumped before I sacked him.

Generally though, on the practical side of running a team.
Give plenty of feedback, not just on the stuff that goes wrong.
Know when to back off or push it, the guy I mentioned above would have continued to take the piss, you have to gather evidence and have the courage of your convictions to give them a bollocking, then explain to the rest of the team what you’ve done and why
Don’t under estimate the power of a team bonding session. A few hours in the pub can work wonders
Give them an opportunity to get stuff of their chest.
Set proper targets and review them at least once every 3 months.

being a team manager is mostly commons sense with a bit of a framework thrown in, if you are not a ‘people’ person (and I’m not) then you basically have to force it.!!

Good luck

Listen. Listen.
Question every decision before you make it.
Stick to your decisions.
But be ready to change them.

Listen,
Don’t jump to conclusions
treat people as you would wish to be treated
Do NOT take any crap (Otherwise you turn into a WAP manager)
It gets easier with experience as time goes by.
P.S. From my time in NDT welders are Sh*ts and insist everybody uses personal monitors when bombing.

Think of being in management as like trying to herd cats

Cracking. Thanks. 😆

I think the age isn’t going to be such a huge issue. I think the US is a bit better on the issues of equality. I’m actually replacing a young female manager, so like I say, not particularly worried.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to written work [quickly does a spell check of previous posts]. I’d hate to think what sort of documentation this team will produce – reading their CVs hasn’t brought me a lot of confidence. Do you just have to accept that some people just are shite at certain things and then let it go?

It’s NDT. The reports have to be correct!
Working on the Refinery’s over here half of the teams check the other’s work.Somebody will always try to toss it off and just fill the report sheet in.
If somebody is “shite” offer training ,give an oppertunity to improve.If they don’t procedure with disciplinary based on capability.
Change the people or change the people

Do you just have to accept that some people just are shite at certain things and then let it go?

Coach and train where you can. But accept that people have strengths and weaknesses.

Part of the skill of Managing is building teams – complimentary strengths and weaknesses etc. Deploy people in the areas that suit their strengths.

I’m definatley of the ‘less is more’ ethos when it comes to people management. Apart from a few to$$ers most people just want to do thier job to the best of thier abilities, with minimum fuss and go home.
If the team you are going into is doing well then you really don’t need to do much in the first few months, if they’re not that would be a different story (and as a first time manager the company shouldn’t be sending you out there).
Also I’d say that its not that they are shite at things more that you’ve identified a training need 🙂

“I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to written work [quickly does a spell check of previous posts]. I’d hate to think what sort of documentation this team will produce – reading their CVs hasn’t brought me a lot of confidence. Do you just have to accept that some people just are shite at certain things and then let it go?”

Bin the CV’s and what others will tell you about the existing staff. There might be a total waste of space there looking at the paper work. YOU might be the difference. Get on site and meet people make them want to work for you.

Remember your job is to help them do their job better, not do their job for them.
You are there to be respected, not there to be liked.
Treat everyone the way you expect to be treated – fairly, with respect, but firmly if necessary
If you don’t know, don’t be afraid to ask – see first suggestion
Don’t wimp out at the first hard decision – see second suggestion
Look for a quick win as soon as you can – coming in from outside you may see something that has been under their noses but has been missed, so use it to make your mark.

how does perfectionist become a manager? perfection doesn’t exist, don’t waste time and annoy your team looking for it.

Identify the weakest link and sack him asap.

Make sure the rest understand their job is to make you look good, and never forget your job is to make your boss look good.

BTW if you don’t have the right to hire and fire, you’re not a manager, you’re a chief clerk.

Listen and be honest, show them you have the team’s best interests at heart, lead by example, push people into good opportunities, identify people’s key skills, find a confidante in the team, stick with your decisions, but prepare to accept that some will be wrong.

My management style is throw people in the deep end and tread water next to them. Nobody learns to swim in the shallow end.

People should know how to do their jobs. Find out of they do by letting them.

They know more than you, so enquire and listen, sort and sift what you learn.

Research decisions collectively, accept criticism and learn. But finally, you must decide and they must accept your decision.

With the best advice you will make some mistakes. It doesn’t matter if you keep making the decisions that need to be made.

Protect your people and they will protect you.

Be prepared to challenge people who challenge your authority. Either you will finish them, or they will become a strong ally.

You must always have a credible plan. Plan just enough to know what’s ahead, but not too much. Everything comes from the planning. And when the plan is wrong, plan again, but not too much. Did I mention that you should plan?

I made all that up. Make of it what you will. And good luck. 🙂

FWIW. I completely disagree with “Nobody learns to swim in the shallow end”. It’s just a sound-bite.

Some really good advice. Cheers.

Not sure I’ll be firing somebody asap – you were joking, right ?!

I’m thinking back to when my last manager started. He came in from outside but took the first few months to get the lie of the land. Travelled around introducing himself to all the key players (other senior managers) and then came back and started working out what is what within the team. The changes he made started off small at first, but seemed obvious, like introducing a library of useful technical data. I’ll probably be doing the same. Big changes didn’t really start for a whole year.

Understanding the difference between ‘managing’ and ‘leading’ helps.

If you can lead, often you don’t need to do much managing – especially if you’ve good quality people.

First task; relaxed one-to-one, but not too relaxed as you are interviewing them – and they, you.

And protect them from senior management (ie, your Manager), and never, ever blame them in public – either other Managers or in the team. But privately, and treat it as a training session.

I’m an early starter, so my staff always knew if they wanted a ‘private’ chat they just needed to come in early – and always get the first drinks (whether tea/coffee or beers).

Edit – in my first senior management role about the first thing I did was have all contractors (IT Development Dept) take a technical test, after getting rid of two new (and crap) ones by lunch on the Friday…

Not read all of the previous posts but in my experience they need to respect you before you can make any changes. In order to gain their respect show them that you don’t expect them to do anything you will not do yourself and always lead by example. Once they are on your side they will adhere to your changes as long as they understand them and you don’t implement stuff without explaining your motives first. HTH

starter for 10, remember all the things that managers did to you and liked, remember all the thing you didn’t like, and then take into account the fact everybody is different.

make yourself approachable and make youself listen

Praise publicly when appropriate, criticise privately when appropriate, be consistent at all times

Keep an accurate weekly diary on everybody you have to appraise, as then you’ll have some facts at the annual review (if they work away/are seconded make sure their site supervisor does the same). (sorry edit, I’d do this 3 monthly so issues get addressed)

I pesonally found it easier not to be ‘out of work’ mates with people I managed – there is/can be a conflict of interests.

Don’t know your industry but – brief weekly team meeting, have a plan, make it public, keep it up to date and achievable (ie get buy in from your team) and honest(and that cuts both ways), what did you do last week, what are you doing next week, are you on time, everything ok , next.

If you ignore problems or issues they’ll get bigger/harder and more expensive

Try to bear this is mind. Simple maths, 1 manager 8 employees. If the manager kills himself they might get their output up by 15%, but that will hurt – a lot, you’ll achive more by getting 8 people up by 2% nobody dies and the up is the same.

Find out the things that will most likely get you the sack and make sure they don’t happen.

The rest just follows naturally.

This bloke could do with some advice, too:

fanatic278 – Member
…Not sure I’ll be firing somebody asap – you were joking, right ?!

Dead serious. If you want results keep culling the bottom dwellers.

I presume this is private enterprise, not some cuddly bureaucracy.

Dead serious. If you want results keep culling the bottom dwellers.

I presume this is private enterprise, not some cuddly bureaucracy.

You can’t do this in reality, it would become too much of a drain on time and cost.

Firing and recruiting suck up more time and cost than anything else imo.

I’ve never had to manage anyone before, so this is a mystery to me and there’s going to be no chance for me get any management training.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to written work

Don’t worry about being a manager. Sounds like you’re a MINO – just there to take the crap and do the paperwork.

as a young manager (26 years old.. started my current position 2 years ago.. so 24) managing staff across 3 sites, most of which have been doing my job for longer than i’ve been alive… it can be pretty surreal giving advice on how they should be doing their job.

but thats the way i try to see it, its not telling them off, its giving them advice about how to get around challenges… trust in your staff, assume that they want to do a good job that way you’ll find yourself getting less annoyed with the idiots as deep down you’re know they’re not being an idiot on purpose… the ones that are… well there’ll be company policy to follow at that point… be fair but not a push-over.

try to give lots of feedback, ideally much more positive than negative, even if its just a “well done on today buddy, i know it hasnt been a fun day!” at the end of a shift… gos a long way and softens the blow when you do need to advise someone of the correct way to do something.

as above.. listen, dont promise things you think you cant do, make sure you’re the hardest working man/woman in the room, the other staff will want to justify why you’re the manager and earning more instead of them!

smile, dont mess around on a personal mobile if the other staff aren’t allowed, try and learn a little about your team but dont try and force a personal history out of them unless they volunteer the info… nobody likes a manager thats trying too hard to be a “friend”.

dont be scared to ask questions, but make sure you get as many of them out the way as early into the job as possible (imagine your manager asking you how to do their job 2 years after being there?!) and dont be scared to ask questions of your managers.

as with the staff below you.. try and give good feedback in an upwards direction too.

oh yeah, if you’re in charge of rotas… try and work a system that allows people to know as far in advance as possible what they’re working…. i’ve changed it from 1 week ahead to 12 weeks ahead with the ability for my staff to change and swap shifts as much as they want as long as they follow a simple set of criteria… its rare i have to step in and stop certain changes going through.

not sure if much of that makes sense, need to go wake up and defrost my car, good luck dude!

Get a 8″ long pointy stick and a 6ft board of ply wood. Tilt the plywood at an angle of about 30 degrees.

Now get some firm dog poo logs and locate them on the plywood with some chocks behind them to stop them rolling backwards.

The logs should be placed on the plywood slope at positions relative to the performance of your staff, closer to the bottom of the ramp means they’re poor performers, higher up means they’re good performers.

now, sit near the bottom of the plywood slope and get someone to remove all chocks – “chocks away” and then start pointing poo back uphill with your pointy management stick. Obviously the aim is not to let poo hit your hand holding the pointy stick of let it roll onto your lap.

Occasionally one log will roll onto your knees / lap and sometimes a log will get your hand but generally you’ll be continually poking poo uphill with your pointy stick. Its a never ending task and you could get covered in poo almost any time. The minute you take your eye off the poo, you’ll get covered in sh1t

Folk sometimes make the slope steeper without warning too.

Welcome to management.

I used to work with someone who I thought was a pretty crap manager.
One of the other guys used to be an army officer.
After another one of the managers rants, the ex army guy would often say quietly, out of his earshot, “The way to lead people is to light a fire inside them, not underneath them”.

I don’t normally like sound bites, but I thought that one was quite good.

Houston in Renfrewshire is not too bad.
If it was Houston in US of A, then you will be just another non-American manager to fail in American. Ask Tony Hayward, and all the other non-US companies that struggle in the US of A.
Further up the Organization by Robert Townsend is an OK book.

The boss of Indigovision has some views on the subject
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bb1rc

Managing is very much a case of encouraging people to do things; you get better results from people if they think they thought of an answer/way to do something/etc, despite you putting the idea in their head.

Be fair and don’t allow your principals to be compromised. Be flexible in the way that you do things and how you see things, but don’t be a pushover.

Make sure that any targets or goals that you set, for yourself as well as your team, are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound. I know that bit does sound very David Brent, but having all those defined at the start of a task makes things a lot easier down the road for both you and the team members. It also means that you can record and extend metrics based on the type of task and identify places where people can improve or mentor others.

Lastly though, make sure that your team is just that. Having a collection of individual stars is great, but your job will be to make sure that the whole is better than the sum of the parts.

Shout lots.

Jesusf****ngtit*ychrist.

The STW’s with the HND or HNC in bullshit and bluster really stand out in this thread.

2 management styles – leading or shepherding.

If you are a leader then your staff know the direction and will follow you and you don’t have too many worries.

If you are a shepherd then you’re trying to keep brownian motion organised and you will never be able to relax.

Macavity – Member
…Further up the Organization by Robert Townsend is an OK book.

Great book, cuts out the crap.

-snip- (edit)

Haven’t read all the above but from my own limited experience I would give just three pieces of advice:

Be yourself

Retain your integrity

Work for your team just as hard as they work for you

All the best and I hope you enjoy your new role!

Managing is relatively easy – you can learn management from books and classes. Leadership is the hard part. People need both and if you are to succeed, you do need to do both. TT’s simplified, distilled view of leadership:

Your position means you can make your staff do things. Leadership is making them want to do things.

If you ‘get’ that, you are going in the right direction.

“The STW’s with the HND or HNC in bullshit and bluster really stand out in this thread.”

Throwing stones in a glass-house? tsk! Are you Alan Sugar by any chance?

The bottom-dweller comment is revealing. It’s true that there are some employees that don’t want to be there and should move on. But there are more reasons for under performance than that. Many broken employees just need a little fixing, not firing.

But there are more reasons for under performance than that. Many broken employees just need a little fixing, not firing.

^^^^ Yup.
I read up a lot on sociology and psychology, sometimes its the tiniest changes such as lighting and workstation arrangement can improve the mood of the workforce, and a happy workforce is usually a more productive workforce…

And to the OP, always remember, us ticketed welders have EARNED the right to be Bolshie bastards..
We KNOW we CAN do what others THINK they can do!

buzz-lightyear – Member
…The bottom-dweller comment is revealing. It’s true that there are some employees that don’t want to be there and should move on. But there are more reasons for under performance than that. Many broken employees just need a little fixing, not firing.

OK, let’s be a bit more loving.

Get them re-assigned to somewhere where their lack of performance will not reflect on your management. Release them to the public sector.

Get some training yourself ?? Most companies bigger than puny offer management training modules.

And understand your role when it comes to after work drinkies – buy the first round then rack off home !!