Sunday, January 22, 2012

The return of Charlie


In July I blogged about meeting Charlie, the over-confident kid that brought his game to the local basketball court. I said at the time this kid was one to watch.

Well, Charlie showed up at the local Sunday pick-up games. He was about a foot taller and told me he made the local high school freshman team. Charlie was confident as ever, but he was playing his game the same way he played it when he was at the lower level. He was reaching on defense rather than moving his feet. He was watching his shots rather than crashing the boards. He was jogging the fast break rather than running full out.

Charlie will be fine, but it made me wonder if anyone actually told Charlie the game at the next level is different than the one he dominated. This situation happens all the time in the workplace. As if experienced managers want the newly promoted to learn by mistake the way they did. What a waste of time and resources. I always try to inform the newly promoted the two or three things they have to change on day one at the next level. I identify the things that made them successful which will cause them failure at the next level in the organization.

Do you pro-actively guide the newly promoted to navigate the pitfalls you know they will encounter? What are the few you have noticed are the most helpful?

4 comments:

Cook Family said...

Interesting idea. I've seen this in several managers that still get stuck in the nitty-gritty details of things that they should no longer focus on. The skill they were promoted for then becomes the reason why they drive everyone nuts.

Jason Monaghan said...

Oh! I am soooo glad that you brought this up! It is amazing the value of a mentor program in the development of management that will stay with your organization. Effective leadership is as much learned as it is natural. You may not be able to teach someone to speak up and show initiative, but you sure can teach them not to with insufficient support and preparation. Great topic!

Sandeep Sharma said...

While I agree with the notion of learning from other people`s mistakes/experiences (managers in this discussion), I think it is important that the Balance is maintained between imposition of perceptions and learnings to someone who is younger(less experienced). I guess, The bigger challenge is often in differentitaing between TOO LITTLE and TOO MUCH.

RGresh said...

Awesome advice. Good leaders learn from their mistakes, GREAT leaders learn from others mistakes.

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