Bursts of Color - Training New Managers

It’s the nature of fast-growing companies that many of us are doing things for the first time. This is particularly true in management, as sometimes even the founders and other senior folks have little to no experience managing people. This has obvious advantages (no bad habits) as well as disadvantages (amateur hour).

The magic question is usually: how can we get these new managers up the steep learning curve as quickly as possible?

LeaderKit from Rising Team is a subscription toolkit for managers that develops one key leadership theme each month. Each kit includes training, a tool or assessment to use with the team, and a fully-guided team-building workshop on each month’s theme, plus access to a support community of other managers and coaches and weekly leadership tips to continue the practice. Think of this as a 1-2 hour monthly training that’s way cheaper and more scalable than outside consultants. If you’d like a live demo, I’m happy to introduce you to founder Jen Dulski. Disclaimer: I’m also an investor.

Michael Stoppelman, my longtime friend and Burst advisor, experienced his own steep learning curve at Yelp, where he joined early and built a team of 500 as SVP Engineering. He shares some suggestions in this Primer for New Engineering Managers. Here’s a taste:

Starbucks founder Howard Schultz has said:

The concept here is simple: though the executive team in Seattle makes a bunch of important decisions, it is the local store manager who hires, trains and leads every barista. As a result, that means that a customer’s experience – how clean is the store, are we greeted with a smile, how good is our drink – all comes back to that local store manager. For new managers, getting used to this responsibility can be pretty daunting, so I wrote down a few of my own suggested Dos and Don'ts in Welcome to Management.