Book Review: "The First-Time Manager" by Loren B. Belker, et al.

Belker, Loren B., et al. The First-Time Manager. HarperCollins Leadership, 2018.

Review

This book was recommended to me by a colleague. The First-Time Manager is essentially a user manual for someone who is entering management (especially if you are entering management in a large corporation). There are a lot of good thoughts, ideas, and tools scattered throughout this book which have parallels within most large corporate organizations. If you are seeking a book that briefly and concisely covers all the basic elements of management, I think this is a great book. Throughout reading this book I was able to easily relate it to my day to day managing and think about how I could apply it.

Key Takeaways

Manager Fundamentals

What I found most interesting about this book is that it covers concepts and tools that are not new to me based on my training in the workplace. Instead of being a book that changes my perspective, it was more of a book to reinforce the learnings and teachings around me. After reading this book, I feel that I have a greater appreciation for the structure that I have around me in my current organization. It helps me to realize the importance of training programs for new hires and pre-allocating time for a probationary period. Also, the book reinforces the importance of performance management tools by explaining the benefits from first steps with a new employee to last steps with a dismissed employee.

“Almost without exception, managers say the most important ingredients in hiring a new employee are experience, qualifications, and education. They rarely come up with the missing ingredient: attitude. You can hire an employee with all the experience, education, and qualifications you could hope for, but if the person has a bad attitude, you have just hired a problem employee.”

Planning (Further) Ahead

We all know how important it is to plan, but there is a chapter in this book that discusses planning in a slightly different way. When compiling your team and evaluating their skillset, you need to set a timeline and try to forecast how that role will change over time. In my current environment I see individuals moving from role to role every 2-4 years. As a manager, if you are attempting to have a long-term vision, this can be limiting. This thought combined with some of my recent readings on adopting an infinite mindset helps me to see that as I am building a team, I should seek out individuals who I believe can be successful in the short term but are adaptable to thrive in the long-term. For example, if I am observing that my technology development process may trend from physical testing to virtual testing over 5 years’ time, I may want to hire individuals who have a simulation background/interest. This may seem obvious, but in my experience, we tend to focus on the immediate issues at hand and try to fill roles with people who can address them. Adapting this approach will result in employees who feel more fulfilled with their growth and will also increase retention.

The Crummy Side of Management

If there is one book that gives you the details on firing, dismissing, terminating or laying off it is this book. Throughout the different chapters there is a clear message that there is a difference between being a respectful manager and being a friend. Also, it makes it clear that as a manager you are responsible for objectively evaluating performance of individuals and in doing so you should work very hard not to let your feelings influence those evaluations. According to the book, a good manager is careful not to over inflate appraisal because it could result in a false impression of performance.

“Don’t fall into this trap. By not addressing areas where the employee needs to improve you are not doing her or yourself any favors. You are instead undermining the value of an honest appraisal and creating the misimpression in the employee’s mind that she is doing just fine.”

There is specific emphasis on documenting the performance of your employees thoroughly because this may ultimately be used when you must terminate the individual. I can relate from my limited experience that being honest about low performance and correcting it, is one of the toughest parts of the job.

Final Thoughts

Within this book there are a variety of different concepts and ideas. Each concept is covered briefly and can be profound if only read for the first time. This is a great book to have on hand if you ever need a quick reference for how to handle anything in the work environment as a manager.