Welcome to Edition #33 of Ask Gorick Anything. This AMA is part of Gorick's Newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 3 min
ASK GORICK ANYTHING
“How to get new hires to take ownership?”
Have a career question? Ask me here.
Subscriber’s question:
Hey Gorick - Really appreciated the session!
[Note: This question came from someone who attended one of my keynotes—which you can learn more about here.]
Had a quick question.
Something that I have struggled with the most in managing new hires and apprentices is that they are taking up a lot of time needing to be guided. Obviously, this is expected to a certain degree. But I think the issue is that they are not great at keeping themselves busy upskilling or looking into topics of interest further when discrete tasks are not actively in front of them.
I know this is on me as well as a lot of the work and the culture is new to them.
Do you have any particular strategies that we talked about today (or didn’t) that help inspire confidence and interest or empower them to be the stewards of their own development?
I love coaching them in development, but I think both parties would stand to gain if I was able to spend less time doing so.
—Anonymous from Hoboken, NJ, USA
Gorick’s response:
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks so much for attending my session — I'm grateful to hear that you enjoyed it and really appreciate you following up with such a thoughtful question.
Ramping up a new hire is hard work—especially if you’re new to management!
- Step 1: You do the work yourself
- Step 2: You show someone else how to do the work
- Step 3: They do the work and get your feedback
- Step 4: They do the work themselves without you ever being involved (ideally!)
- Step 5: They not only do the work they’re assigned, but also fill in gaps that are unspoken (ideally!)
The gap between step 2 and step 5 is huge—and the process of getting there can often be time-consuming and painful.
Here are 2 strategies I've found helpful for accelerating your team’s learning:
- The “therefore” technique
- The “if… then” technique
Let’s explore both in more detail!
1. The “therefore” technique
Encourage your new hires to propose a “therefore” statement for anything they bring to you.
It looks like this:
“[Situation] just happened. Our 3 options are [A], [B], and [C]. I lean towards [B] because ______, therefore we will need to also let Katie know about [implication] and Max know about [other implication].”
C+ new hires come to you with problems.
B+ new hires come to you with problems + options.
A+ new hires come to you with problems + options + proposals.
The goal? To help new hires think outside of direct tasks and more in terms of how each task fits into the broader system.
The more you empower your direct reports to come to you with a well-considered proposal, the easier it’ll be for you to simply say “agreed” or “let’s change X; otherwise, good to go!” (and not have to involve yourself in hours of back and forth that you don’t have time for). You’re also empowering your team to think for themselves and to show their leadership potential.
2. The “if… then” technique
Confirm how much “runway” (defined here!) each member of your team has and give them “if… then” statements to encourage them to make their own decisions in your absence.
It looks like this:
“I'll be on the road next week, so I won't be as responsive as I'd like. Can you give me an update on what you're working on and how much time it'll take (e.g., how much 'runway' you have)?”
...and...
"If [this happens], [ask this person / do this / try this / document this / write it down and let's chat later, but otherwise move on to X in the meantime]. Is anything unclear or inconsistent?”
The goal? To make sure that people aren't just sitting on their hands when you aren't around to answer every question.
Being a manager is hard. (Tap here for my top 3 tips for any new manager.) You’ll mess up—and so will your reports!—but by asking these questions, you’re already many steps ahead of most.
So, thanks for investing in your team's growth — I know they're lucky to have a manager who cares this much!
See you Tuesday for our next story and unspoken rule,
Gorick
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