Chaos Theory (or Transition to Management)
A couple of months after first being promoted to a manager position, during a weekly one-on-one meeting, my supervisor asked me for a detail of a project one of my team members was working on. I did not know the information and admitted that I was struggling to keep up with all the ins-and-outs of all my direct reports’ projects. I said I felt like I was failing in this new assignment. Chuckling, he reassured me that I was doing fine and offered up some advice. Advice that, frankly, seemed stupid to me in the moment, but which, soon after, I realized was true and quite helpful, “You have to get comfortable feeling a little bit out of control.” As an individual contributor I had had a strong, direct influence on the outcomes of my projects, and, indeed, the success of those projects is what opened the door to the management role. As a manager, I had to learn to let go of that control and trust my team members to handle the details. Further, it’s not possible for one person to stay current on every detail of every project, that’s why we work in organizations. Most importantly, higher level managers don’t expect you to know every detail of others’ projects off the top of your head, only the critical items to help direct the needed outcomes of the business. If you’re asked for detail that you don’t know on the spot, just be sure to follow up and report back so you don’t leave your management wondering.
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