The day YOU become a "Manager"

What was the first thing you did when you became a "Manager"? Did this new role make you feel on top of the world or was it the opposite?

Well, when I became a "Manager", my first thought was that this new role demands more time and innovation from me. Moreover its not just about ME , its about MY TEAM. I am now responsible for the team and should be able to guide the team when in need. I need to be cautious and patient :)

 I was given a small team to manage a shared service offering (automation tools). My goals were to ensure that this service runs all the time and we are able to address as well as resolve the related issues. Post my role definition, I met my team and exchanged thoughts on this shared service as well as how would they prefer running this service. I jotted down the pointers to ensure that my goals and my team's goals aren't running in different directions. Towards the end of this first meeting ....I mentioned that am there for them whenever they need guidance/support. I believe this part is the most important ... letting your team know that YOU are there!! We started off well... we had daily standup meetings .. we were clear with the activities and the ownerships.. we used to view customer feedback and plan for the improvements.. and above all I used to participate in their issue resolution calls as well as roll out on major tool changes. We used to spend some time daily to discuss off-the shelf matters that used to deal with kids admission, home, health ..etc..etc...each one in the team felt their presence is important!!

Everything was going well when one fine day.... the server broke down. It was a Friday evening when this happened and we all were winding up for the day. In fact few of us had left for the day. We started getting calls that the server isn't available and there was CHAOS now. In such situations, one needs to be calm and plan to avoid such chaos. I  got into a conference call looping  the respective team members. Each one shared their diagnosis report and it was confirmed that there was hardware crunch on the server as well as some issue with the OS. Ramping up hardware and restarting the server may help us resolve the issue. I asked the team to immediately work with the IT department and get this issue resolved. Meanwhile, I started sending emails to the customers stating that the server is down and we are working to resolve the issue, will update them once ready. The next two hours were more difficult since the customer calls were not ending, they were calling and were asking about the status. This had happened for the first time and we ourselves were not prepared. Finally the issue was resolved and we notified all customers about it. This was a learning for us and we wanted to ensure that this doesn't gets repeated. I appreciated the team for their efforts.. it was a team work where all of us were focused to address this alarming situation. We became more cautious post this event and derived out ways to overcome them in future.

So, being a "Manager" isn't easy .. you have to be an agile planner ... a proactive  leader... a calm human.... and always run with the team , giving them direction and helping them gear up speed to win the race !!