Managing for the First Time

Citation

Dawson, S. (2001), "Managing for the First Time", Personnel Review, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 711-717. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr.2001.30.6.711.1

These three books are part of a series of inexpensive management “how‐to” books published by the Institute of Personnel and Development. Although such books generally receive little attention in academic journals, they are bought in large numbers by business people and HR managers, and are often used as primers and prompts by industry trainers. Accordingly, the primary demand is that they “work” for business practitioners: their advice must be practical, well informed, tested through experience, and reliable in a variety of contexts.

Mill’s Managing for the First Time does not disappoint. Her focus is on making the transition into management from doing one’s own job to getting things done through others. This requires the development of a new skill set which – as the title suggests – the intended readership is unlikely to have in depth. As one might expect, people skills are the primary concern. Fully three‐quarters of the book focuses on the first 100 days in a new management position, which Mill calls the “honeymoon” period. The phrase highlights just how crucial the first months are in establishing one’s effectiveness and reputation as a competent manager and leader.

Mill recommends goalsetting to a timescale. As she emphasises, judgements will be made on one’s ability and potential from day one, so crystal clear objectives are vital whether or not they involve implementing change. Objectives need to be negotiated with your own boss, then stuck to – but you must not say yes to everything. Mill recommends asking your team for their input, and the same with key colleagues and customers. The initial period will seat the new manager in his or her new role, and the best advice in this section is “prove your added value – fast”.

Two paragraphs on p. 26 illustrate the difficulty of giving advice gained through experience to people who don’t yet have the experience: on the one hand, don’t change things too fast; on the other, don’t leave it too long to make changes. But it highlights the dilemma first‐timers will find themselves in – and not just on this issue. As the old saying goes, hasten slowly – and communicate well. The book has many seemingly simple yet highly practical tips, such as keeping a page on each team member in your organiser so that you can check key points on each person at a glance.

One manager is quoted saying that “communication is where most managers fall down”, and Mill is right to emphasise the need for personal contact with your team over and over again. First‐timers should heed the reminder that most people want you to manage and to demonstrate that you can do it competently; it is not about being challenged for the sake of it. The book includes a standard set of useful tips on time management and some typical challenges on managing age differences, diversity and conflict, again with short practical tips drawn from reflection by herself and others. Mill mentions mentoring briefly, and makes the valuable point the a mentor can be someone outside of your own organisation. A stronger emphasis on the importance of modelling and mentoring in relation to one’s own development as a manager would be justified.

The book ends with some advice on building management skills in the longer term. One suspects, however, that this important aspect of personal development is in practice put aside by many under the pressure of daily workloads. If there is a fault – and it is hard to find fault with this short, practical management primer – it would be that it does not sufficiently acknowledge the complexity of workplace cultures and the difficulty of organisational change. Nevertheless Managing for the First Time can be recommended as a useful hands‐on introduction to its subject.

The second of the three books is Bell’s Transforming Your Workplace. This is not about organisational change (as its title implies) but about office design and the effect of office environments on people and the waythey work. A more accurate title would be “Transform your office” or “Redesign your office for more effective working”.

Bell begins by noting the wholesale transformation in the nature of most office work from routine clerical processing to the interactive exchange of knowledge and information. Despite this, the majority of office environments continue to reflect the structures of hierarchical space allocation and supervised clerical processing that developed in the nineteenth century. Studies have shown that about 50 percent of office space is unused at any given time. The extremes of open plan and cellular office space are frequently dysfunctional for the activities performed in them. Bell argues that “increasingly the workplace will be used as one of a number of working options, and be the place where people go, in particular, to interact and exchange information and knowledge” (p. 11).

He lists a range of different office environments, such as single/shared space, hot desks, formal/informal meeting areas, booths, carrels, and team project spaces. A short section on new layouts makes several sensible observations which emphasise that space should be allocated by purpose and functionality, not by status and seniority. This reflects his basic premise that workspace should be optimised to boost personal, team and organisational effectiveness. Two floorplan sketches show what a radical difference designing around contemporary functionality can make. If implemented, such changes may require new working protocols such as a clear desk policy and space booking procedures.

Bell emphasises the importance of the visual in design – after all, we don’t go out to bland, featureless restaurants if we can help it. Art, flowers, even the smell of coffee, affect our mood and productivity at work. Some firms have used work area displays of items that reflect the success of the business, as well as showing them in reception areas, to increase pride in the job. Similarly, dress codes may be determined by what one is doing and who one is seeing that day rather than by organisational formalities.

The first half of the book provides powerful food for thought about the changing nature of work and the practical sense of designing workspaces to actively support it. However, as the book turns to deal with how to implement a transformation of the office environment, its tone changes from intelligent to clever. The shift begins with a chapter on “Feng shui and fishtanks”, a fairly trite couple of pages devoid of analysis or practical advice. Thumbnail sketches are offered of office personality types “that I am sure you will recognise”, all of whom are prone to resist the sort of changes proposed by Bell. He offers no suggestions about dealing with this – it’s like it or lump it, and his attitude to staff views emerges as fundamentally disrespectful (“you know who the dinosaurs are”, p. 49).

Advice on obtaining management support is simplistic – “you may get more… than you expect” (p. 48), and there is little on how to sell an extensive office redesign proposal to management. The principal problem is his failure to compellingly demonstrate the business advantages to be gained from redesign. As a result, lack of senior management support seems almost inevitable. What did Bell actually do at Scottish Enterprise? How well did it work a year later? Where else has redesign made a significant difference, and in what ways? Even a page on this could have provided some basis for a solid argument. Although the first half of the book holds valuable food for thought about how design might radically affect organisational productivity, I cannot say much for the approach to implementation that is offered, and which seems to be pitched at someone with plenty of time on his or her hands.

The third book is Conquer your Stress by Cooper and Palmer. They offer a five‐stage analysis of the topic, from defining a stress model, to stress management tactics, personal behaviour modification, physical health issues, and the development of a personal action plan. A series of short questionnaires moves the reader through the basics, from understanding his or her own attitudes and behaviours in a variety of contexts towards developing strategies for managing stressful situations. The aim is to provide a “toolkit” of tactics that the majority of readers would find useful in coping with workplace stress.

The stress model is essentially built around the idea that “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”, Because our thoughts influence our behaviour, modifying our attitudes and behaviour in given situations will lead to others perceiving us differently, which will in turn encourage further modifications in ourselves, and so on. In my opinion, the practical application can be difficult in multi‐dimensional workplace cultures. Once roles are established, people tend to be expected to conform to the patterns of behaviours they have established for themselves, except where a change of job role forces areappraisal by peers. On the other hand, deliberate modification of one’s behaviour – putting forward a “new image” – may achieve the desired result provided that it is done consistently. It is a case of trial and error/trial and success, rather than following a formula with any guarantees.

The book offers several pages of tactics to release stress‐induced thought patterns which are intended to promote a realistic self‐appraisal rather than “positive thinking”. A set of questions to challenge the beliefs that we hold address the three central issues as to whether they are logical, realistic (i.e. empirically true), and helpful in terms of us achieving our goals. Another method is the construction of a belief analysis list, in which the pros and cons of any given belief are analysed, and the writer attempts to replace unhelpful and unrealistic beliefs with more suitable ones. (A similar exercise may be done with filing cards: on one side of a card, write a negative belief that you hold about yourself; on the other, write a realistic reappraisal that encourages you to counter it and act positively. Review the cards regularly and replace or modify them as circumstances change.)

The authors emphasise that because self‐esteem is dependent upon external contexts, it usually good when things are going well but poor when they are not. Cooper and Palmer instead favour a model of self‐acceptance that doesn’t require one to eliminate one’s failings or foibles before one can face oneself in the mirror. (This was to me the most valuable insight in the book.) They offer some imagery exercises to cope, motivate, and time‐project more positively realistic views and goals, and usefully suggest taping the directions for self‐listening and implementation.

The central chapter addresses the issue of changing one’s own behaviour to deal with stress. It reviews social support networks and how to enhance them, assertiveness – as distinct from aggressiveness – and time management. The book suggests that there is a close link between poor time management skills and procrastination, and offers some tips to deal with this. The penultimate section deals with physical exercise, motivation and psychological relaxation exercises, focussing on the Benson method and an imagery technique. Both enjoy wide acceptance as effective approaches to stress reduction, and they are presented clearly here. The book ends with a section on developing a personal action plan.

I found that the book delivered useful advice, but the final caution by the authors that reading it is the easy part is true indeed. It is hard to set out to deliberately act to change one’s behaviour – just look at the volumes of information on dieting in any public library. By contrast, Cooper and Palmer say all there is to say on this subject in one paragraph, based around the simple statement that “body weight is increased when energy intake exceeds energy used”. I found that I got more out of the book on a second reading – I’ll let you know in a year or so if it’s worked!I think that the book should be clearly subtitled “a workbook” or suchlike to emphasis that it is intended to be written in (and consequently, not left lying around the office).

On these three books in general, I must admit some initial scepticism because of their shortness – the content of each is roughly 80 pages, in a typewriter‐sized font with generous spacing between the lines. Yet Mill’s book in particular shows how much useful management information can be packed into a short space, and from a design point of view they are very easy to read. I am happy to recommend them to others as introductory works on their topics with the few reservations noted above.