Three Tips for Managers Joining an Existing Team To Get Up to Speed, Build Credibility, and Set Themselves Up To Lead Successfully

Slipping into the driver’s seat

Stepping in as the manager of an established team can be a dream or a nightmare.

Sometimes, you’re joining a well-oiled machine. You receive a smooth handoff from the current manager, who has been skillfully guiding the team along for some time. They’ve been promoted, or decided to go take on a new challenge, but they welcome you and introduce you to the team as their new manager. They sit with you and answer your questions. They walk you through the team’s recent accomplishments, current challenges, and even give you a rundown of all of the current team members.

You smoothly assume control without even the slightest jitter of the nose.

And other times, you’re walking into a shitshow.

The last manager quit on bad terms, or perhaps was fired abruptly either due to the dreaded RIF or ongoing performance issues. If it’s the latter, likely the team hasn’t been getting the support, guidance, or attention they need. They may be feeling burned out or like the organization has given up on them. Team morale is low. The most skilled among them have started exploring internal transfers or updating their resumes. Those that feel like they have nowhere else to go eye you suspiciously: some new outside manager, surely here to squeeze them for more productivity or help figure out who else should be let go before disbanding the team entirely.

This car has been careening towards a brick wall for some time, and now you find yourself with your hands on the steering wheel. Good luck avoiding the crash.

Let’s talk about a few tips that, whether the team is cruising along or swerving wildly, can help you shift into your new role smoothly.

Don’t jerk the wheel.

No matter what course the team is on, try to resist violently jerking the wheel in a different direction.

At first, don’t change a thing.

More specifically, don’t make a snap decision based on your first glance at the team and spring into action making sweeping changes. Instead, spend a little time observing the team. Get a sense of both the internal (to the team) and external (with the rest of the company) dynamics. How do they work together? What are their relationships like? What’s the general mood and morale like in team meetings? Are they shipping? Who are their customers?

If a team is truly in free fall, you may need to take some swift action to stabilize things. You shouldn’t go barreling over the edge of the cliff because Brad said Wait and See.

But assuming you aren’t on a clear collision course, instead of jerking the wheel you should turn to the team and…

Ask for directions.

And then listen.

No, really listen.

You have a lot of good ideas. That’s why you were hired after all, right? You’re an experienced leader. You bring a lot to the table. Maybe you’ve even seen a situation (or a few) like this one before. You're full of wisdom.

But the team knows things that you don’t.

Ask. And listen when they tell you.

At first, they’ll clam up. They don’t know you. You don’t trust you, unless perhaps you were lucky enough to get that smooth handoff from the prior manager. Even then, a kind introduction is no substitute for a real relationship. Relationships take time to build. Trust takes time to build. A great way to start is by listening to what they have to say.

After some superficial feedback or complaints, you might find that you’re sitting in silence.

That’s okay. Wait. Push through.

Eventually, you’ll get to the real insights. They’ll tell you what really happened with the team’s last project. They’ll tell you when things were going better, and what was different then from how it is now. Maybe you’re lucky and everything is great. Even so, I bet they still have some big ideas about how the team can have more of an impact, solve more problems, or generally improve in some meaningful ways.

If you ask these questions persistently, and you listen diligently, you might just be able to…

Figure out how we ended up here.

Every team has a history.

When you go through the process of asking for directions, you’ll start to uncover the history of your new (to you) team. They’ll tell you what they are responsible for. They’ll tell you what they’ve done recently. They might tell you how the team came to be at all. Perhaps they were incubated within another team and then split off. Maybe there was a reorg or a senior departure and this new team was assembled from the remnants of others.

Whatever the case, and no matter what you learn in these early days, assume competence and good intent every step of the way.

There’s a good chance you’ll hear some things you don’t love. Those might be about the state of the team’s processes and systems. They might be about how the old manager did (or didn’t do) sprint planning. You might learn that the team’s core system is really struggling to scale this year because (from what you’ve heard) when it was built someone made an Obviously Bad Decision.

Resist the urge to judge.

Resist the urge to blame.

Resist the urge to assume you would have done better had you been there.

Maybe you would have. Maybe not. But for the health of your relationship with this new team, and your ability to be successful in this role, it doesn’t matter. What matters is not seeming like a know-it-all jerk. What matters is having empathy and being interested in learning and being a supportive manager.

The best way I know how to do this is to assume that past decisions were made by competent people, operating with good intent, with incomplete or imperfect information.

If you can embrace that mindset, you’ll build credibility and trust with the team quickly. They’ll know you’re on their side, and that you're there to help them succeed.

Recap

Don’t start making sweeping changes until you’ve observed how the team operates.

Ask the team what the current problems are. Set aside your assumptions, and really listen to what they have to say. Push through the superficial complaints, awkwardness, and silence and get to the real issues.

Assume competence and good intent. Even if bad decisions were made, generally they were made based on the best available information at the time.

If you can earnestly do these three things, you’ll build trust and credibility with a new team, and be setup to lead successfully.