I have a friend named Michael that is much younger than I, which is to say he has all of his hair and no silver in his beard. Michael called me one day and said “Bart, they promoted me out of the field, and I need help understanding the basics of business management.”
Let’s put this phone call in perspective. Mike works for a national service company that installs a specialized piping system in commercial buildings. I asked him a few questions to get a feel for his attitude about the new position, his perspective on management and whether he felt this was the right move for him. He told me he can do the job, he just needed help learning some of the basics business stuff, like how to read his departments budgets and forecasts. He had some ideas he wanted to implement to bridge the disconnect between field and office.
I asked Michael what his boss was offering by way of support. His answer was not so encouraging- there would be no official training in skills that managers need such as reading financials, etc. Why would they? I mean Michael was great at his field job, so he should be great at his office job, right?
Maybe not. Mike could have become a victim of the Peter Principle – that employees are promoted until they reach a position at which they are incompetent, and then they are either moved sideways or moved out. Michael was smart enough to recognize he needed help, and that none would be forthcoming from his own company. I often wonder why that is?
I was privy to a scenario much like that years ago, when our manager slid every salesperson and assistant manager a large printout of their departments financials and sales projections. The good part of this was that they were finally sharing numbers, projections and the requirements for meeting their margins. Without preamble the manager then went on to admonish us all about our duty to study our numbers, be familiar with them, etc. The bad thing was when a salesperson who was previously promoted from the field, asked how to calculate the margins, the manager would not tell him. After a while I spoke up and ended up writing the formula on the whiteboard. And watched as the manager wrote it down in his own notes.
I tell that story to say this – there are very competent people out there that are promoted from the field into the office. And they are not given any form of help. It is sink or swim. Added to the fact that political silos are now in their face, and you have a recipe for ‘In, then Out!’
Whether promoting from within or recruiting to fill a position, think about the requirements that the position has and whether your candidate meets them. I don’t mean just skills, I mean behavior, motivation, ability to learn. Know what you will have to teach them. Get them help. Bringing a person in from the field is a risk, and but can be very rewarding as that person has a good isea of how things are done, and the issues that the field person faces.
A person that comes from elsewhere has to learn your business as well as all of the issues. Maybe a good thing from a fresh perspective, maybe not.
Be careful, and be ready to teach and help. When promoting from within, there are other issues, like the relationships and bonds that have been formed. How your candidate has formed them, how closely they have formed bonds and how they deal with that are issues you should observe and talk about before hand.
I would like to have people seriously comment on this issue. Thank you. Bart
