Coping with promotion

In the late 1980s I received a telephone call from a social worker in Newcastle, asking if I would like to write about him. He had recently been promoted and was now the manager of a drop-in centre for mothers and children on a council estate in the city. The problem was he had no idea how to be a manager. He had never controlled a budget or managed anyone else. He had never carried out a performance appraisal. He had no idea of how to do the job.

Education programme
In desperation, he contacted some business academics in the North-east. They sat down with him and devised a management education programme. It consisted of modules such as how to manage money and people, how to balance the books, how to delegate and deal with government officials. And, best of all, the programme was based on his daily work, so that he could train himself on the job.

Since then, I have often seen people in the same position as the social worker. Successful specialists who have been promoted through their organisation until they are suddenly appointed managers. Many of them walk into their office on the first day, sit down at their smart new desks and think: "What do I do now?" Their organisations have done nothing to prepare them for this moment. The new managers have been successful in their specialisms so far – that's why they have been promoted. They've been outstanding social workers, doctors or journalists – or architects, surveyors or electricians – and everyone assumes this has prepared them for managing others. But it hasn't.

New managers face a myriad of problems. Not only do they have to deal with budgets and meetings. They have to understand parts of the organisation they have never dealt with. And they need to decide how to relate to workmates they used to share a pint with after work.

This is one of the hardest parts of being a new manager: how do you order people around, decide their salaries or even make them redundant when, until now, you had all been equal, all been mates? When Gianluca Vialli was forced out as manager of Chelsea Football Club, several of the players remarked that he had changed when he got the top job. He no longer seemed to be their friend. To which ex-manager Ron Atkinson, who has banged a few heads together in his time, replied: "Of course he was no longer your friend.

New managers face a myriad of problems. Not only do they have to deal with budgets and meetings. They have to understand parts of the organisation they have never dealt with before

He was your boss." So what is the new manager to do? A well-run organisation will have anticipated some of the problems and prepared the new manager for the job. An MBA is one way of doing this, particularly if it is a part-time course that allows new managers to apply in practice what they pick up in the classroom. But MBAs are expensive courses and, more importantly, they are extremely time-consuming.

Another way of preparing people for management is to transfer them around the organisation, giving them experience of different parts of the company. But what if you work for a company that is not far-sighted enough to provide this kind of management training? You might, like the Newcastle social worker, have to take matters into your own hands, calling on people in different departments and saying: "I've just moved into my new post and I'd really like to find out what goes on in your department, as we'll be working together. Do you mind if I spend a couple of days shadowing you to see what you do?"

How to manage
As to the problem of how to manage your old mates, the relationship changes. There is no getting away from that. You can no longer join in the scoffing about head office the way you used to. Conversation and laughter might dry up when you drop by. It can be pretty lonely, but all is not lost. There are new friends to share a joke with, people in a similar management position to yourself. And while your relationship with your old workmates might be different, it doesn't have to disappear altogether. You still know a lot about them, their problems and their personal circumstances.