The First Real Change in the Biography of the Manager

On his career path, the manager has dealt with some change. But one change has been especially important as this change is nearly irreversible; the step from professional, expert or specialist towards manager.

This change is most of all about a change of focus on the type of work and on responsibilities.

Managers are said to be responsible for the performance of teams and organizations and this responsibility is linked to the work of the people in the team. The manager's responsibility is about a certain mandate that he agreed with senior management or stakeholders. And the manager organizes this mandate by delegation of activities to employees in his team.

In this process the manager must take some distance to what could have been his colleagues.

Most companies grow like this; one of the employees gets promoted to the role of manager.

The change of focus goes hand in hand with a change in responsibility. Not only the "amount" of responsibility but also the type of responsibility. The amount is simply the outsource-agreement: the manager is responsible for the contract of operation and each the team member is responsible for their individual part.

What happens than is the transfer of focus: the individual team member is focused on a piece of the business -- a business activity -- whereas the manager (recently promoted from specialist) is no longer involved in the business but most of all with organizing the business. Examples are that when one employee is ill, he must be replaced, the manager must hire contractors, he must check the (operational) plan and communicate about it with its own manager.

The reason that there is no-way-back is that the type of knowledge that is required to be either involved directly in the business or that only with organizing is completely different. The manager will shift his focus on organizational knowledge and during this process will loose his expertise in the business which requires a continuous update and maintenance. The longer a manager spends time on management, the harder it will be to return to the role of expert or specialist. If he would ever want this. It is however something to consider, most in these times where specialist are scares but managers are not.

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The First Real Change in the Biography of the Manager