How to Prepare New Managers To Succeed

Do You Know How to Prepare New Managers To Succeed?
New managers have a very challenging, but potentially very rewarding, track ahead of them. The key to new manager success is their preparation — they, with the help of proven new manager training, need to be ready and set before they go.  Do you know how to prepare new managers to succeed?

Previous Leadership Experiences Help
Any previous people leadership role can provide new managers with some idea of what’s involved in managing others effectively — whether as head of a scout troop, chair of a community volunteer program, or a business project leader. In every case, the best managers understand that they exist because of and for their team. Their success will be measured not by their own individual accomplishments but by the success of the team.

But How to Prepare New Managers to Succeed?
How do you help your new managers prepare to take the reins, set expectations, motivate them to work together, keep your team engaged, and consistently deliver high quality results?

Three Steps to Prepare New Managers To Succeed
The knowledge, skills, and abilities required to lead, manage, and coach others to higher performance is not intuitive and, for all but a few, does not come naturally. Deloitte reported that companies invest the highest percent of their training dollars (35%) in management and leadership development, but our organizational culture assessment data tells us that only 25% of employees rate their companies as good at helping individuals transition into their first managerial roles.

Here are three ways to set new supervisors up to succeed:

1. Be Highly Relevant and Business Outcome Oriented
   Many new supervisor training programs and best practices exist. All promise results, but the difference between success and failure is execution.  We know from training measurement research that only 20% of  management training participants change their on-the-job behavior and performance from stand-alone management training.To get meaningful and lasting results, treat your new management training like a change initiative, not a one-time training event.  Focus on what occurs before, during, and after the solution.

   BEFORE: Do We have a problem worth solving?  Are we setting learners up for success?
   Before you even begin to look for a new supervisor training program, you need a clear business case for change.  Make sure that improving new manager competence and confidence matters to (1) the target audience, (2) their bosses, and (3) the business as a whole when compared to all of the other pressures and priorities that they face. For example, if you are not experiencing or about to be experiencing significant employee performance, engagement, or retention issues, management training may not be the best investment to make.

   If you have a management problem that is worth solving, then take these steps before you get started:

   — Actively include key stakeholders in the instruction design process.
   — Explicitly link everything you do to key business priorities and talent strategies.
   — Accurately assess people manager skills versus agreed upon new manager competencies or standards.
   — Create targeted individual development plans for each participant.
   — Identify the critical few management scenarios that matter most for your unique culture and strategy.

   Note: Content is the easy part.  What you do with it matters.
   Most clients focus on content areas like: understanding a manager’s roles and responsibilities, setting clear team goals and success metrics to operationalize company strategies, assessing team strengths and weaknesses, prioritizing, delegating, decision-making, managing workloads, communicating, coaching, motivating, and managing performance.  All of this content is readily available.  The art is making it relevant, impactful, and sustainable.

   DURING: How do we build skills and knowledge that matter?
   For any training to have a chance at changing on-the-job behavior and performance, participants must be able to practice, receive feedback, and continuously hone their new leadership skills.  Ideally, participants are able to practice until they prove that they “can do what you want them to do” quickly, correctly, and in varied leadership circumstances that reflect the key scenarios they will face as a new manager.

   Athletes and first responders spend much of their time practicing, preparing, and improving so that they can perform at their peak when the stakes are high.  The same concept should apply to your new managers if you want them to be high performing.

   Use a highly experiential and action learning design to build core management skills while moving real work forward.

   AFTER: How do we sustain the new ways?
   To get lasting results you need to design in meaningful reinforcement, microlearning refreshers, feedback, coaching, and training measurement. Learning is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. Create a system to check in regularly with your managers to ensure they are practicing the new skills, reinforce their efforts, and give them feedback on how they can improve.

   Then consistently coach them toward mastery and measure the training results as you go so you can clearly answer questions like:

   — Did the training make a difference?
   — What is and is not working?
   — Are managers using the new knowledge, skills, and processes?
   — Are their bosses involved, supportive, and reinforcing?

   Do you have enough follow through to help ensure that new management behaviors stick?

2. Make It Easy to Find Mentors
   Initially, it would be ideal to have new managers shadow the previous manager or someone in a similar role so they can get a sense of what the job will entail. Then make it easy for people to find a mentor for the long-term with whom they can share concerns, learn the ropes, and get practical advice on challenging issues.A consistent and supportive sounding board can be invaluable in helping to make the transition to management as smooth and relatively problem-free as possible.
3. Make It Easy to Connect Groups of New Managers
   Regular meetings with other new managers can be enormously helpful in learning how to deal effectively with problems as they arise. Make it easy for new managers to find a cohort of peers to safely share experiences, debate options, offer solutions, and discuss common issues.  An open forum with peers can be a boon for new managers and create the confidence required to take on the management mantle.

The Bottom Line
Now you know how to prepare new managers to succeed.  Design and deliver a proven new manager process to provide the fundamentals, find mentors to provide experienced feedback, and create a forum for new managers to discuss issues and solve problems with their peers.

To learn more about how to prepare new managers to succeed, download 12 Research-Backed Tools for Managers Now