How to ace your first week as a manager

Your first week as a manager will likely be stressful and overwhelming. To give yourself the best start prepare thoroughly,  keep a cool head, don’t try to do too much and focus on accomplishing a few simple goals.

Suggested goals for your first week:

1. Complete any on-boarding activities and paperwork.
2. Make good first impressions.
3. Begin to get a lay of the land.
4. Bonus: help your manager and each team member in some small way.

That’s it! There’s no need to do more in Week 1.

How to accomplish these goals:

The first week is all about meeting with people and gathering information.

1. Introduce yourself to your team right away.

By doing this early in your first day, you’re sending your team members a powerful signal that they’re a top priority to you. Introduce yourself in a friendly and casual way, be interested in them as people, and tell them all that you’d like to meet with them individually over the coming week to learn more about them and their work, and hear their perspective on how things are going in your department.

2. Figure out which meetings to attend.

In your first day, ask your team and boss which meetings you should attend this week. Get them on your calendar. Take notes and try to soak up as much information and context as you can. Ask questions if you don’t understand something. People will be patient with you during your first few weeks.

3. Meet with your boss.

Start by trying to build personal rapport. Search for a common interest or some common ground. Then ask questions to learn more about your boss’s working style and expectations for the job. A few good questions to try are:

• “What are you expectations of me and my team?”
• “What are you hoping that I focus on, and why?”
• “How would you like me to work with you?”
• “What’s working well here?”
• “What are three things you would change if you could, and why?”
• “What questions do you have for me?”
• “Who else should I talk to?”

4. If you’re given an assignment, give it your best effort.

First impressions count for a lot so make sure you knock your first assignments out of the park, even if they are trivial.

5. Hold your first team meeting.

Your new team will probably be as nervous about getting a new manager as you are about becoming one. Bring everyone together to establish rapport, set people at ease and start the process of exploring ideas and expectations together. Be upfront and receptive. As James Burgess advises, “Get to know your team, and be sure to let them get to know you, too!” You will also learn a lot by observing how your team members interact as a group.

You could set the stage by introducing yourself again and letting the team know you’ll be meeting with each member individually, but that first you want everyone to have an honest conversation about questions and concerns. Listen carefully and actively, and at this stage in the game, avoid making any grand pronouncements or decisions.

What will your team want to know about you? In The New Boss, Peter Fischer identifies some questions you might hear, as well as the subtext that probably lies behind each:

• “How long are you staying?” Subtext: Is it worth adapting to you? And are you just going to use us as a springboard to the next step?
• “What do you do when you’re not at work?” Subtext: Are you human?
• “How did you end up in the position?” Subtext: Did you deserve this promotion or did you get it through connections?
• “What did you do before?” Subtext: Are you up to the task?
• “What do you plan to do next?” Subtext: What changes are you going to spring on us?

6. Meet with each team member individually.

Build rapport by finding a common interest or some common ground. Show interest in each team member as a person, without overdoing it (it’s important to also respect boundaries and avoid “interrogating” people). Then transition to a set of general questions to help you learn more about the general situation:

• “What are you expectations of me?”
• “What are you hoping that I focus on, and why?”
• “How do you like to communicate?”
• “What’s working well here?”
• “What are three things you would change if you could, and why?”
• “What questions do you have for me?”
• “Who else should I talk to?”

7. Set up recurring weekly 1-on-1s with each team member.

Schedule weekly recurring 30-minute meetings with each team member through the next six months. Explain that the 1-on-1s are not status updates, but rather open-ended conversations to talk about the week and any issues or opportunities that have come up, and to provide support with professional development.

8. Schedule meetings with other stakeholders.

Whom should you talk to? Schedule time with managers and leaders of other teams, customers, distributors, service providers and anyone else who seems even remotely relevant.

Tip 1: Don’t overlook those whose job titles aren’t particularly lofty. Sometimes administrative staff members and customer service representatives know more about the true state of things than anyone else. And their ideas can be just as good as a vice president’s or CEO’s!

What should you talk about? Don’t get too hung up on protocol, but do try to ask the same basic questions of everyone and listen for recurring themes as well as differing views. Take good notes. Here are some sample questions:

• “What’s working well here?”
• “What are three things you would change if you could, and why?”
• “What are you hoping that I focus on, and why?”
• “What questions do you have for me?”
• “Who else should I talk to?”

Tip 2: Hold these meetings in other people’s offices, if possible. Why? It’s a golden opportunity to learn more about the people you’ll be working with. Do they display family pictures, sports memorabilia, diplomas? Or are the walls bare? Is your supervisor’s desk messy or neat? Take it all in and use what you learn to build rapport (e.g., “I’m a Red Sox fan, too. Hope they can pull it together in time for the playoffs.”), as well as assess working styles and preferences.

9. Model the behavior you’d like to see.

Whether you realize it or not, your team will be both consciously and unconsciously following your example. What messages do you want to send? For example, if you want your team to work hard, you should work hard, too — and Week 1 isn’t too early to start.

At the same time, don’t overdo it. If you stay until 9 p.m. every night and send emails all weekend, your team members will feel pressure to do so, too. Be conscious of their personal needs and time.

10. Be aware of, but try not to worry about, any pressing projects or crises.

Get used to it: There’s almost always something to worry about when you’re a manager! Although it’s important to begin noticing what will demand your attention in the near future, don’t neglect the mission-critical step of using your newbie status to talk to others and get a lay of the land. If you put your head down too early, you’ll miss the big-picture view. And that’s the view that matters most when you’re a manager.

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How to prepare before you start as a manager

 

Your transition to becoming a manager starts as soon as you accept the job. There’s a lot to do and as with most things in business, good preparation (or lack thereof!) can make or break you.

If you’re joining a new company, hopefully you have a few weeks off before your start to prepare in peace. If you’re being promoted from within the same company, your new team and manager will start observing you and forming opinions before you even start. It’s not fair, but that’s how it goes!

Reading our entire “First 90 Days as a Manager” section is a terrific start, but there are many more things you can, and should, do before Day 1. Here are some tips that will allow you to hit the ground running:

1. Learn about your team.

Ask your new manager or HR for the names, job descriptions and resumes for each of your new team members. Memorize their names and faces and try to get an early sense of what kind of people they might be and how they might work together.

2. Talk with the previous manager.

If possible, set up a call or coffee with whomever held the position before you. Ask about everything you can, including:

• What skills are required to be successful in the job? Why?
• What were your top priorities? Why?
• What’s working well? Why?
• What’s not working well? Why?
• How should I work with my manager?
• How should I work with each team member?
• Who are the other key stakeholders, both internal and external?

3. Learn about the organization.

If you’re new to the organization read everything you can find, including:

• The company website, particularly anything about values and the culture
• Press, both good and bad
• Market reports
• Competitors’ websites
• Any other materials you can find

4. Learn from experienced managers.

Have a call or coffee with at least two experienced managers from any company. Ask about their experiences as a new manager.

5. Identify skills you need to develop.

Most likely you will need to learn multiple new management skills, as well as a few non-manager skills. If you’re managing a marketing team for the first time, it’s time to take a crash course on marketing. You won’t know more than your team members, but at least you’ll have a better understanding of where they are coming from and how to communicate with them.

6. Practice core management skills.

Managing entails using a completely new set of skills that can be overwhelming to learn all at once. Before you start, read up on three of the most important new manager skills, listed below, and practice them as much as you can.

• Delegating
• Giving Feedback
• Running 1-on-1s

7. Review your priorities for the first 90 days.

Our recommendation is to focus on the following four:

• Build a productive relationship with your boss
• Build a productive relationship with your team members
• Set goals and start delivering value
• Develop essential management skills

8. Plan your first day and week.

Write down the three most important tasks for your first day. It may be hard to get to them all done if you end up spending the day in HR meetings, but try your best. The next article will give you some practical suggestions for how to spend the critical first week.

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How to evaluate and improve your team’s goal performance

 

Hit or miss, once your team finishes a goal, you may feel compelled to rush to the next one. Don’t do it. Otherwise you could end up repeating a costly mistake next quarter — or realize, a year from now, that you got too comfortable with your “fail-safe” process, and other teams are passing yours by.

To guard against these kinds of painful (and potentially career-limiting) outcomes, you’ll need to continually hone your goal-setting process. Try pausing after each big goal to follow these tips:

1. Evaluate your team’s performance, including how much they learned and improved their process.

People tend to make win-or-lose evaluations of goals, but performance is rarely so absolute. For example, if you end up at 95 percent of a goal, is that the same as meeting only 50 percent? Would it have been worth the effort to push for those final five percentage points and burn everyone out in the process? Maybe. Maybe not.

Also be sure to consider less quantifiable yet critical factors, like whether your team learned, improved their process, and worked well together. Did they broaden their understanding of a new market, implement new time-saving software, or better leverage each other for problem solving? These kinds of things — more than whether they hit 95 percent versus 100 percent of a forecasted metric — will lead to future success.

So, how’d the team do on the goal? Factoring in all of your performance considerations, grade your team’s success — for example, on a scale of zero to one. Maybe your team earns a 0.9 if they hit their target metric but you think they could have collaborated more effectively, and a 0.6 if they fell well short but showed some improvement. You’re not always aiming for a one here — too many perfect scores could mean your goals are easy.

Then, walk through the full evaluation in a team debrief (see point No. 5). By including the team’s learning and improvement, you’ll be letting your team know that those things matter to you, and should matter to them, too.

2. Consider what you learned about your team’s dynamics and address areas that need improvement.

How your team worked together toward the goal is one of the best predictors of how they’ll work together in the future.

As part of assessing your team dynamic, consider the important informal roles that team members played during the goal process. Ask yourself:

• Who stood up for the values and mission of the team or company — for example, by trumpeting these things or by subtly modeling a value in their behavior?
• Who provided support when others needed it (technical, emotional, or both)?
• Who acted as an expert, and on what tasks (and did the rest of the team view them as expert)?

Depending on your answers, you may realize that some of these roles still need filling. Consider who on your team might fit the bill. Or, you may need to encourage a team member to embrace their informal role more fully, or gently suggest that someone tone it down (for example, by saying to an overzealous expert, “Wei knows a lot about this too, and I’d like to be sure she has a chance to share her expertise”).

3. Determine whether you or your team made undue sacrifices for the sake of reaching your goal.

Goals give you tunnel vision — great for helping you and your team focus on an objective, but potentially terrible for noticing what that focus may be costing you. So when reflecting on the goal process, check whether high expectations or stress have caused you or your team to:

• Skip out on regular obligations. Canceling 1-on-1s lately? Not making time to give advice or help other teams? Missing more dinners at home? It may be totally worthwhile to make these sacrifices once or twice, or for a short period. But have they become a destructive habit?
• Lose interest in the work itself. Sometimes as the pressure of meeting a goal number or deadline rises, the work you or team members once loved just doesn’t seem that fun anymore. Psychologists would call this a reduction in intrinsic (or internal) motivation. This trade-off tends to happen slowly and, over time, can hurt performance and even lead to burnout.
• Take shortcuts. Some types of shortcuts may be improvements, like reducing steps in a legacy process. But plenty of others, like signing low-quality customers or deliberately inflating cost estimates, are potentially dangerous. It’s easy to say, “That doesn’t happen on my team!” But one third of workers report observing misconduct on the job, according to global surveys by the Ethics & Compliance Initiative.

If any of these sound familiar, you’ll need to address the issue, either with individuals or through team feedback.

4. Assess your coaching and leadership performance.

Self-reflection is critical to improving as a manager. Think back to pivotal moments in the goal process: expectations you set (or didn’t set!) around the objectives, feedback you gave to both individuals and the team, tasks you delegated, coaching you delivered along the way. What were the results of your actions? For example, in the case of feedback you gave, did the team heed and implement it? If not, you might want to work on giving feedback and your persuasion skills.

You’ll get a fuller picture of your performance if you ask your team members for feedback. Ask them what you did that worked well and what didn’t, so you get specific results that aren’t all positive. For help navigating what can be a tricky ask, given the power dynamic, see the video below.

Experienced manager Grayson Morris explains how he “seeds” the conversation to get more honest feedback from direct reports. 

5. Conduct a debrief with your team.

Whatever you call it — a debrief, post-mortem, retrospective — schedule it soon, before you and the team are onto the next project or packing your bags for vacation. Your goal should be to walk out of the room knowing what the team’s going to do differently next time, and who’s responsible for making what happen.

This is often tougher than it sounds; teams tend to focus on dishing out recognition and possibly blame during a debrief — to the exclusion of what to do with this information. As these acknowledgments come up, you can incorporate the feedback you developed while evaluating yourself and your team, as well as ask, “What steps can we take to improve this next time? Who might be responsible for making this change?”

6. Resolve to implement at least one change that comes out of the debrief meeting.

Too often, teams go back to their desks after debriefs and forget what just happened, which means everyone just wasted their time. One debrief may not give you all the answers, but likely it will give you at least an idea or two to test, which will provide you with even more data to learn from.

You’re not looking to do some massive experiment that stakes the team’s reputation on the results. As experienced manager Michael “Zipp” Zippiroli explains, he prefers small, controlled tests: “I am uncomfortable with my team doing whatever they want,” he explains. “I am comfortable with them saying, ‘I have a hypothesis I’d like to test. My hypothesis is X, and I’d like to do five calls to try it.’”

Just make sure you’re measuring what you think should change (as well as important things you don’t expect to change, to check your assumptions). Also have a group doing it the old way, so you have a comparison for your test.

7. Communicate your results and plans beyond your own team, sharing what’s working and how the team intends to improve.

Once you have your team’s results, you’ll also have an audience — your manager and peers want to know how things went. And there may not be a better time to give your team’s ideas a voice. In addition to communicating how your team performed:

• Ask for additional input from your manager. Hopefully, you’ve been getting your manager’s feedback all along. But it’s worth asking for more now that results are in and everyone is thinking about what comes next.
• Ask peers how their teams fared, and solicit feedback. If your team is an outlier — performing really well or really poorly — it’ll be valuable to learn more about why. And if a bunch of other teams struggled, too, that may ease the pressure on your team.
• Consider getting feedback on any planned tests (point No. 6). Peers facing similar challenges could offer some great input, as could your manager. Or, you may need approval from your manager before doing a test, depending on your relationship and your organization’s culture.

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100+ questions for better 1-on-1s with your team members

 

How can you ensure that the time you spend in 1-on-1s with your direct reports is useful — for them and for you? It’s not easy, especially given that these meetings are supposed to be their time, yet the inevitable power dynamic makes it awkward for some direct reports to take the lead.

One of the keys, in addition to asking your direct report to set the agenda, is to come armed with a few thoughtful questions of your own. This list can spur ideas.

To start the meeting:

Many managers like to use the same, unassuming opener each week to start 1-on-1s. It may seem boring, but doing so encourages direct reports to drive the conversation by starting with a topic they want to talk about (remember, it’s their meeting). The answer will also help you gauge how they’re feeling that week.

1. How's it going?

2. So, what's on your mind?

3. What would you like to start with?

4. Hey, what's going on?

To gauge job satisfaction:

Proactive questions about job satisfaction can help you unearth issues before they become full-blown problems — and lead to unwanted turnover. Some direct reports are more forthcoming than others, so even if the answers to these questions sound positive, listen for clues to deeper issues, and ask plenty of follow-up questions.

5. How are you feeling about your role?

6. Are you happy here? What makes you say that?

7. Do you feel like you're growing in your role? What makes you say that?

8. What interests you about the project(s) you're currently working on, and why?

9. What is your favorite/least favorite thing about your work right now?

10. How do you think that least favorite thing affects your overall performance?

11. What's working well for you in your current position?

12. What would you like to see change?

13. In what ways does your current position allow you to use your skills and talents?

14. Which areas make you feel like your hands are tied or you are unable to reach your full potential?

15. What do you think you could be doing differently?

16. If you could work on anything for the next month, what would it be? What makes you say that?

17. What's one thing that could make your work more satisfying, and why?

18. Which areas would you would like more feedback on?

To address career development:

Some direct reports may have a career path fully mapped out, down to desired promotion dates. Others may have no clue what they want to do next. No matter where your direct reports stand, it’s worth bringing up career development in your 1-on-1s to ensure you get the best out of your team and keep people happy in the long term. For more see our Career Management for Your Team topic.

19. What are some of the work projects you're most proud of, and what do you think you might want to do next?

20. What are two to three new skills you'd like to learn on the job? What about those skills interests you?

21. What other roles here could you see yourself in down the line? Or what areas would you like to explore?

22. If you were to create your ideal position, how would it differ from what you are currently doing?

23. How is your current work helping or hurting your professional development?

24. Which career or development goals do you feel like you're not able to focus on right now?

25. What else can I be doing to help you grow/advance in your career?

26. Imagine it's two years from now, and things have gone well: What has been your role in that? What does your role look like?

27. Have you given any more thought to your long-term goals since our last meeting? What are your latest thoughts?

28. Where do you see yourself in three years? Five years?

29. What professional goals would you like to accomplish in the next 6 to 12 months, and what makes you say that?

30. To help identify and clarify the goal: What do you want to achieve? What will you do to achieve it? When will you do it? Who do you need to involve? When should you see results?

31. What about this goal is important to you and what will be different when you achieve the goal?

To gauge how the person is feeling about the company:

These types of questions may yield good ideas you want to pass upward in the company, or at least give you an opportunity to explain why company decisions have been made the way they have. They’ll also give you insight into another facet of the person’s job satisfaction.

32. What's the biggest opportunity we're missing out on?

33. If we could improve in any way as a company, how would we do it?

34. What would you like to see change here? Why do you say that?

35. What's the No. 1 problem with our organization, and what do you think's causing it?

36. What are we not doing that we should be doing? What makes you say that?

37. What are we doing that you think we should stop doing, and why?

38. How are you feeling about the company's future overall? What makes you say that?

To gauge how the person is feeling about the team:

You want to be sure your team is functioning at a high level, and here’s a chance to uncover problems and opportunities that will benefit everyone.

39. How would you describe the personality of the team? What sort of person would be a good fit here? What sort of person would add something we're currently missing?

40. How would you say we're doing at working together as a team? What makes you say that?

41. What are some ways we could improve at teamwork? What makes you say that?

42. Who would you like to work more/less often with? Why?

43. How would you describe the division of work among team members?

44. Do you feel adequately supported by other team members? What makes you say that?

45. Is there anything you'd like to see change about the team, and if so, why?

To check in on how the person’s coping with a recent change at work:

Change is inevitable. And no matter what type it is — layoffs, a company merger, a shift in strategy — change is more of a process than a single event. Make sure to check in with direct reports on how it’s going when something has changed in their work life.

46. How are you feeling about the recent news? Why do you say that?

47. What concerns do you have about the change that haven't been addressed?

48. What's going well and not so well with the new situation/development? Why do you think this might be happening?

49. Do you have a clear understanding of the new goals and expectations? What makes you say that?

50. How is the new situation/development affecting your work? What could be getting in the way of your being effective?

To learn more about a project:

These questions go beyond a status update to help you learn about what your direct report finds engaging, as well as challenges or roadblocks you may be able to help with.

51. How are you feeling about the project?

52. What aspect of this project has been particularly interesting for you?

53. What do you feel like you're learning from this project?

54. What frustrates you about the project?

55. Which areas would you like to spend more time on and why?

56. What do you think has gone well? What do you think you could have done better? What, if anything, would you like to do, but haven't been able to?

57. What can I do to make things more manageable?

58. How might I make this project more challenging or interesting for you?

59. What do you think I should know about the project, but might not?

To learn your direct report’s biggest challenges:

For some, discussing a challenge is like admitting a failure. Let your direct report know that you want to hear about their concerns because you care about making things better.

60. What is the biggest challenge you are currently facing? How can I help with that?

61. At what point in the past week were you most frustrated with or discouraged by your work? What can I do to help you manage that?

62. What are your biggest concerns about your current project(s)?

63. I've noticed X about the project… Can you help me understand that better? Talk me through your process.

64. Which parts of your project are unclear or confusing?

65. How is your workload right now?

66. How has your work/life balance been lately?

67. What sort of resources could you use right now to make things more manageable?

To draw out an issue:

If your direct report seems to stop short or gives a curt response on a topic where you think there may be important issues lurking beneath the surface, use open-ended questions to encourage them to continue.

68. Could you tell me a little more about that?

69. Can you share some of the details around that particular issue? (Who was involved? Where? When? For how long?)

70. What was that experience like for you?

71. What did you like most/least about that?

72. How did that affect you?

73. How did that make you feel?

74. If you could change what happened, how would you alter it?

75. What do you think caused that to happen?

To coach a direct report on a problem:

Coaching can be a powerful way to encourage, empower, and help direct reports to solve their own problems. Ask questions that help the person establish a goal outcome, explore the situation, generate a set of potential solutions, and finally plan the way forward. For more, see our Coaching topic.

76. What's your No. 1 problem right now? How are you feeling about it?

77. What would be the most helpful thing for you to take away from this conversation in order to make progress on it?

78. What have you tried so far to make progress on it?

79. What ideas can you bring in from past successes?

80. What haven't you tried yet?

81. What are some possible ways to get the solution you need?

82. What additional resources from me would be helpful for you as you solve this problem?

83. What are your next steps to make progress on this problem?

To promote continuity between meetings:

Your 1-on-1s will be more effective in the long term if you follow up on the topics, goals, and actions discussed in previous meetings and set items for follow up next time.

84. What sort of progress have you made on the next steps we discussed last time?

85. In our last 1-on-1 you mentioned that you'd like to grow in X — how has that been going?

86. In our last 1-on-1 you mentioned you were frustrated by X and wanted to try Y as a solution. How has that been going?

87. What development areas do you want to work on in the coming weeks?

88. What actions will you take before our next 1-on-1 to make progress on X? (Also discuss and agree on actions you will take to help.)

89. During this meeting you've mentioned that you'd like to pursue X. What steps can you take toward that before our next 1-on-1?

90. What additional resources can I provide for you between now and the next time we meet?

If you feel like your 1-on-1s are stuck in a rut, or ineffective:

You want a 1-on-1 to be a good use of your time, as well as your direct report’s. Sometimes a simple change of scenery can help. Other times, direct and honest questions about the issue can really open things up — chances are if you feel the meetings aren’t as effective as they should be, your direct report feels the same way, too.

91. Would you like to walk today, or go somewhere else outside the office?

92. I've noticed that our last several 1-on-1s have stayed pretty surface. What are your honest impressions of this meeting? What could we be doing differently or better?

93. What would you like to see change about these discussions? How could we make them more useful for you?

94. What would you be doing right now if we weren't having this meeting? How do you feel about being taken away from that task?

95. I'm trying to make my 1-on-1s better and would appreciate your honest feedback on this one — what did you like about it, and what could be improved?

To address the direct report’s personal life:

Asking about your direct report’s personal life can be a good way to show that you care about them as a person. Be sensitive and keep in mind that some people are more private than others. Depending on the individual, personal topics could be informal small talk about the person’s family or interests, or more serious matters. It’s often good to start with broad questions, like these, and be careful not to make assumptions.

96. How are things going for you outside of work?

97. How do you feel about your work/life balance?

98. What, if anything, did you used to do that you find you don't have time for right now?

99. I've noticed you're a little quieter than usual. Is there anything you'd like to talk about?

100. What could we change about work that would improve the rest of your life?

To ask for feedback on the 1-on-1s and on your performance as a manager:

Getting feedback from your direct reports can be just as important as giving it. Not only will it help you improve as a manager, it can also build trust and strengthen your relationship with your direct reports.

However, only ask for feedback if you feel confident in your ability to take the feedback well and act on it; asking and then doing nothing could do more harm than good. Plus, given the power dynamic involved, how you ask is critical. For an example of how one experienced manager handled this situation, see our video Asking a direct report for feedback.

101. I'm interested in feedback on how I can improve as a manager. In preparing for our next 1-on-1, would you be willing to think through what you like about how I do X (for example, run team meetings) and what I could do differently or better? (Ask prior to the 1-on-1.)

102. I'd like to improve as a manager and I could really use your help. Next week, would you be willing to share some feedback on one to two things you think I could do better as your manager?

103. What can I do to help you enjoy your work more or remove roadblocks to progress?

104. Which areas would you like more or less direction from me on your work?

105. I'm trying to make my 1-on-1s better and would appreciate your honest feedback on this one — what did you like about it, and what could be improved?

106. What are your impressions of our 1-on-1s? What could we do differently or better?

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