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 I'm very new to management only 2  months experience. I have been put into a deptment that is way out of control. The my number one problem is employee not coming to work, this causing other employees to due the same jobs every night. So there is no job rotation! My assistant has bluntly walked away from the job. So I have no backup. I feel that I can't even take a step back without the deptment falling apart. I give my employee directions, and it completely backfires everytime. Jobs aren't getting done right. I have been staying over every night this week to finish up task that should have been done. I have done written warnings, training, had meetings, and no success. So what dose my next step need to be? 

edzaun's picture

 Hi Young Gun,

A little more detail would be helpful for providing some insight and there are some general ideas you can use now.

In my experience, companies and departments are very rarely as dysfunctional as your post indicates, and when they are, any manager or director with enough savvy to mark time to music would not dump that load on a person brand new to management.

A few thoughts to address the general nature of your post:

1- The advice Mark and Mike give about looking for the cause of people problems starting at your own desk and expanding in concentric circles outward is extremely helpful. The vast majority of the problems I experience in dealing with people are caused, or at least exacerbated, by my DISC tendencies. Even if you think you are right, modify your behaviors to smooth things over with the group. You won't reach everyone but you will narrow your problem down to a manageable level.

2- If the direction you give your directs backfires every time, as you write, I would suspect confusing or contradictory direction. Most people want to do well. We are programmed to follow a lead and people will rebel against any boss who gives them direction that prevents them from getting things accomplished.

3- If you have not listened to the DISC review podcasts, go get them. If you have listened to them, listen again. Lock yourself in a room and concentrate on the content. Take notes. Take the DISC profile and learn what your tendencies are. Assess each of your directs and figure out what their DISC profiles are and deal with each accordingly.

         3A- Go get the Manager Tools Basics podcasts and digest them completely. Listen to them until you have committed every detail to memory.  Implement the Trinity exactly as recommended. DO NOT GO FASTER! Do not underestimate the power of One on One's and proper feedback. Coach according to the model. Delegation will come later, once the boat is back on course.

4- Having meetings and holding training does not necessarily get the job done. If you have only been a manager for two months, it sounds like you are trying to build Rome in a day. Sit down in a quiet room, grab a notepad and a pencil and make a plan. Go slower to go faster. The more time you allow for things to develop, the stronger they will be and the more effective in the long run. Lay out a timeline that allows plenty of wiggle room for the day-to-day distractions that always appear.

5- Many new managers, myself included when I started, seem to think they have been promoted because they know everything about the area they are managing and must have all the answers. Would that were true. Then again, if it were, Mark and Mike would be out of a job. Don't assume you have or should have the answer to everything immediately. You are not the only one who feels like she or he is lost and everyone else knows exactly what they are doing.

6- Be patient. Your team in getting used to you in your new role and you are getting used to them from your new perspective. Even if they were your peers before you became a manager, wait; especially if they were your peers, this is a new relationship for all of you. Give it time to grow and thrive. You can kill it now by acting too quickly but you cannot make it grow faster than it will. All you can do is nurture the relationships or poison them until you have no chance of recovery.

Being a manager is not the easiest thing you can do, but it can be very rewarding. Not only financially but personally as well. Like anything else worth doing, you have to learn how to do it and practice very hard. There is one person in ten thousand who can be a great manager intuitively and we ain't them. That's why we have Manager Tools. Use the resource and accept the free gift Mark and Mike have provided.

Hope this helps and gives you something to think about.

Ed Zaun

DISC Profile 7-3-1-2