Two months into the new position and he is again eating cold food while in a work meeting
Unbelievable! A total of two months have passed in this new position, but he is again eating cold food while in a work meeting. He promised himself this would not happen again, considering what the emergency room doctor told him during his last unexpected visit.
This is neither his first nor his second time as an R&D manager, but apparently it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, nor the amount of thorough due diligence you conducted before taking the position; in the end, the reality is usually much worse than expected.
If he took on a role, he would do it to the best of his ability
Just a week after he started working at the company, after he had seen the endless list of open tickets, sat in meetings that presented the new PoC commitments to customers, and witnessed un-polite words being exchanged between his managers and the marketing staff, his gut feeling was to drop everything and run. But of course he didn’t. He does not act like a child, so if he took on a role, he would do it to the best of his ability. After all, they brought him in to improve, fix, and grow the R&D division – but why must it always be so challenging?
He didn't got 100 days of grace, not even 100 hours
Focus 120% of his time on crisis management
His plan was to let the development groups continue with the current courses of action while allowing himself to focus on the vision for the future, as well as improvements to longer term processes. However, planning and reality are two separate things. Most of the group managers turned out to be team leaders who were promoted too soon, and the one that seemed most competent had left the company, as he was disappointed after not being offered the VP R&D role he thought he was entitled for. Pretty quickly he realized that he should focus 120% of his time on crisis management and should apply his remaining efforts to try to improve processes, induct some of his managers, and maybe find an organizational consultant to help him with all of this.
The challenges in managing the X, Y and Z generations
It seemed that the indulgence of the workers only intensified. Though it used to be expected that there would be at least one ‘management challenge’ in the group, over the years the phenomenon had expanded. He also had to manage some of such challenge individuals in the teams of his group managers, since they lacked the experience handling these issues themself. For these X, Y, or Z generations (he did not distinguish between all the letters), when the competition becomes difficult, it seemed to be too much to bear. On the weekends, he found himself reflecting again on the nature of his role Is his purpose only to be a fireman who will be called to put out the loudest fire under the brace determined by the management? To do more, but with better quality, faster, and cheaper results?
He must go through an internal process with himself in order to get the most out of his potential and roles
None of this was new or even surprising, except for how he was finding himself being dragged into the same places he had been before. He has seen it in dozens of people he has interviewed over the years; in the end, people repeat the same pattern repeatedly, himself included. Obviously, leaving for somewhere else won’t change anything. He must go through an internal process with himself in order to get the most out of his potential and roles; it’s essential to understand what is stopping him and what is motivating him.
He realized exactly what needed to be done
The token fell to him a week ago at a social gathering with old friends. One of them, a development manager himself, spoke openly about the difficulties he was facing. They sat and talked for hours Throughout the course of the conversation, he found himself clearly understanding what that friend needed to do and saw how this conversation helped the friend to organize his thoughts, filling him with energy and concrete ideas for the coming week when he would turn from a responder to a leader.
Someone to confide in that will take some of the load off him
Then, he realized exactly what needed to be done, and that what he was lacking was actually two different things – he needed someone who speaks the same language and comes from the same world to confide in, and someone who can open up more hours in his day by assisting him with closed tasks, such as setting up an off shore activity, mentoring managers, helping with discreet recruitments, and simply taking some of the load off him.
