They say the third time's a charm. That's the way it
worked for Nicole Geller, founder and CEO of GCS Inc., a 5-year-old
temporary agency and government contracts consulting practice in
McLean, Virginia. It took Geller three tries to find the right
sales manager.
The first manager was too indecisive. The second manager was too
corporate-minded. But Geller, 38, found the right fit the third
time around. That sales manager is now the company's president,
helping GCS and its 50 employees accomplish healthy sales of $4
million, and Geller couldn't be happier. The past still nags at
her, however. "I feel like I failed with two people," she
says. "But I learned a lot about what kind of person I really
need."
Finding the right manager can be an exercise in trial and error.
It's estimated that 40 percent of all new managers leave the
job within 18 months, according to Manchester Inc., a business
consulting group based in the Philadelphia area. Why? Often, it can
be traced back to what is not discussed before the new manager or
executive starts the job. In fact, the seeds of failure are usually
planted within the first 100 days of a new entrepreneur-manager
relationship, says Larry Stybel, co-founder of Boston-based
consulting firm Stybel Peabody & Associates Inc., which runs a
program called First One Hundred Days to coach entrepreneurs and
their managers through the first three months of their working
alliance.
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Although entrepreneurs are good at setting goals and hiring for
knowledge, they often forget to mention which aspects of the
company should stay the same before their new managers start to put
new ideas into action. "It's an incomplete package,"
Stybel says. "The entrepreneur hasn't brought up those
‘third rail' or socially taboo issues relating to the
company."
When a new manager crosses the line and tampers with a procedure
or project the entrepreneur wants left alone, things can turn ugly
very fast. Says Stybel, "I've seen situations where at the
end of three months, both sides are no longer speaking to each
other."
Lay Some Ground Rules
Prepare your potential manager by discussing his or her role as
early as possible. During the interview, go beyond your goals, says
Stybel. Think about the aspects of your company that are strictly
off-limits to change. If this person will be managing your
brother-in-law, for example, you need to work out how to navigate
the situation upfront rather than leaving it until after he or she
is hired. If you really like the way your customer service
representatives greet customers over the phone, you'd better
say so before your new customer service manager changes it.
Discussing such details ahead of time will create a mutual
understanding and help the manager avoid making major tactical
errors.
Like a lot of other entrepreneurs, Geller assumed her new
managers would intuitively understand her vision of how the company
should run. So when her second manager came aboard and suddenly
wanted to take a hands-off approach with customer service, Geller
balked. This manager had hit on one of Geller's core issues,
offering each client personalized customer service. "I really
put the kibosh on [her idea]," she says. "Ultimately, it
led to her not doing well and probably feeling not as
empowered." The relationship was doomed from that point on,
and it ended within the year.
Having learned from her experiences, Geller offers this advice:
Talk about your business values, ask a lot of hard questions and
listen closely. "That's where you're going to pick up
on their skills and whether they can even converse with you in a
way that feels professional and comfortable," she says.
"Get to know them as people." By the time she hired her
third sales manager, she was asking the hard questions and was more
in touch with her own third-rail issues. "I really didn't
get into some of the tough issues [with the first two
managers]," she says. "I wish I would have because it
would have given me the answers right upfront."
On-the-Job Training
Your work doesn't stop once a manager is on the job. You
have to build a relationship that goes the distance.
To do that, you should start off small. Make a short list of
projects and ideas you will both avoid during the first few months.
Stybel suggests using the first 100 days to tackle easier problems,
instead of the decisions that are most likely to cause a meltdown
between an entrepreneur and a manager. "Do the doable things
for immediate success," he says. "Achieve some
wins." You should be talking with the manager every day,
especially during the first three months.
Finally, after a few months, ask new managers what they wish
they'd known about the company before they started working for
you. It could be eye-opening, not to mention useful for making
future management hires.
Chris Pentilla is a freelance journalist in the Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, area. Contact her at chris@sitting-duck.com or
www.sitting-duck.com.
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