T-shaped learning curves are a pain.
Let’s pretend you’re great at doing X, so you get promoted to be a Senior X-er. You still excel, so eventually you get promoted again – this time to Head of X. And that’s when the pain begins.
So now you’re in charge you you’re not (just?) doing X, you’re also managing the people who do X, the X-ers… people like you used to be. People who are still doing X. All the training you got over the years to be better and better at doing X isn’t any use any more, because now your problems aren’t X-problems; they’re Xpeople-problems.
Blatant advert time… if you, your team or your managers need to shift from “doing X” to leading and presenting-about-X, talk to me. (Your team with thank you, trust me!) I can solve one of those problems at least – the one about how to present your X-team’s contribution, output, value, whatever… For your own sanity, for your organisation’s benefit and frankly, to save your people suffering bad presentation like you did when you were a lowly X-er.
More important than me earning my crust, here’s a fistful of tips for making the transition from “doing X” to leading or “managing X”.
Presentation tips
Some of these are easier to say than to do, but the ideas are sound… (Oh, and they’re in no particular order!):
- present before you need to present. When you’re not the Head of X the stakes are likely to be lower, so take the opportunity for trying it out when it’s less of a problem if things go wrong
- don’t just attend meetings with presentations, actively look at how the presentations are done. In particular ask yourself these three questions:
- what was the presentation supposed to do
- what happened that made it less successful at that (be detailed and tactical – don’t just say “it was boring”; ask yourself why it was
- what happened that made it more successful at that
- volunteer – yeah you heard me. Find a low-stakes opportunity and volunteer for it before anyone else does. That way, you’ll have tried your hand at presenting before you’ve got no choice about taking on a high-stakes one. For example, volunteer to go to the client that one one ever likes and you know is not going to buy from you anyway. You’ve got nothing to lose.
- avoid presenting in front of your colleagues! I know it’s a temptation, with the logic of having “a friendly audience” but the consequences of screwing up are higher because you’ve got to see them again, and again, and again… any benefit you might think you get from having a few friends in the room is more than undone by the anxiety of having, well, a few friends in the room
- try to avoid like the plague standing in for someone else if they get sick or otherwise hand you down their slides. The process of creating the presentation is part of how you learn it and if you’ve not been involved, you can’t know it so well – always assuming their slides aren’t a pile of pooh, which they probably will be!
Non-Presentation tips
Note that this isn’t my area of expertise, though I’ve got plenty of years of experience at it. Take these with a pinch of salt 😉
- use whatever training opportunities your organisation has – chances are there’s a budget or program somewhere. Admittedly it might not be talked about (or indeed actively hidden!) but use whatever you can. Not only do you get the training, you get your name known!
- keep a diary or something – not a literal diary, but find some way of recording what your bosses do that you swear you’ll not do, or that you’ll try to emulate. The process of observing is great; the process of writing it down to think about it is even better
- find a way of reminding yourself after your promotion that your new role isn’t to do the job – it’s to make sure the job gets done. “I don’t have time to manage the department Simon, I’ve got my real job to do” is about as tosh-headed a sentence as I’ve ever heard! 😉
I’m out for now…
Okay, that’s it. I’ll no doubt add to these over the years, but I’m a bit pressed for time right now. What would you like to add to the tip list?
(PS: You have no idea how hard it was to write this without making an X-man joke at the start of this post).
