Making the Right Decision as a New Manager

In the last post, as a new supervisor, you made a work change which everyone in your group liked but got you into hot water with your boss, Bruno. You bought popularity with your group at the expense of a misstep with Bruno. How do you make the right decision?

Making space for the right decision

In the conversation You had with Candice in a previous post, she pushed to implement a change and you agreed. Let’s pick up that conversation near the end and see what could happen if you don’t immediately agree.

What to consider when deciding

It’s a little tough to disappoint an employee, but it can be necessary to give yourself time to work through the issue. Questions you need to ask and get answers to are:

If it’s such a bad process, how come it’s been around so long? Is it inertia or is there some reason? Do some research. For example, how do the units who get advance notice use the info?

Who outside your group might be impacted by the change? If you don’t send the heads-up, it will save your group time and effort. But are you just pushing that extra time and effort downstream to another unit? Will your change have a big or negligible effect on them?

Is this a big enough change that you need to run the idea by Bruno? Maybe yes, maybe no. Supervisors need to know what’s within their authority. I’ll say more about that in another series of posts.

That was the easy bit

Say you realize that the change would be good for your group but not for the rest of the department. You might be tempted to let the issue slide and hope Candice will forget the whole thing. I know this has the advantage of avoiding a discussion which is likely to cause bad feeling.

But if you don’t discuss your decision, Candice might rightly think that you’re being secretive, or don’t care about her opinion, or have caved to somebody else’s pressure rather than having come to the conclusion yourself.

I don’t deny that saying ‘no’ to Candice to her face might be uncomfortable but you are jeopardizing both the respect and liking of your employees if you don’t. So bite the bullet and talk to her. Next post.