How to manage your erstwhile friends after promotion （519 words）

By Emma Jacobs

The good news: you have been promoted. The bad news: you are managing your peers, including people you would describe as friends. So how do you manage those with whom you shared personal confidences?

Liana Davey, psychologist and founder of 3 coze, an executive team consultancy, recommends having a “reset conversation” with team members, along the following lines: “I will never consider not being your friend, but as a manager I have to set our relationship. How do we make it work?” By posing a positive question it leaves no room for the relationship to fail.

The awkwardness of this scenario, she believes, puts empathetic people off applying for promotions, whereas “it wouldn't even cross the mind of a driven person willing to steamroller over their former peers”.

Robert Sutton, professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, as well as author of Good Boss, Bad Boss, warns that a bit of teasing from your team is inevitable, although if it goes on for longer than a couple of weeks you are in trouble.

The first few months should be spent listening to your colleagues, advises Katy Tynan, management expert and author of Survive Your Promotion.

“Unfortunately many new managers don't get proper training, so they think they need to assert their authority and boss people around on day one.” They spend more time trying to tell people what to do, and not enough time listening and learning.

A good rule of thumb, Ms Tynan says, is to spend the first 30 to 60 days in learning mode. Meet the people on your team, work on getting a solid understanding of the skills and motivations of team members, rather than their attributes as a friend.

There needs to be a bit of social distancing between yourself and your former peers, advises Prof Sutton. The friendship can survive and it might make you a better and more empathetic manager because you care about their wellbeing. But you need to be clear-headed about the possibility of calling out team members over a problem or, even worse, firing them.

It works both ways: as a former peer, you are more likely to get blame and grumbling directed at you, he says.

What if you know your friends are cutting corners? You have to make a judgment on how it affects their performance, says Prof Sutton. You have to call people out on the big things, rather than the small fudges.

Ms Tynan advises having an “off the record” conversation with the friend to let them know that, as their peer, that behaviour was not your concern — but now you are the boss, you are going to have to deal with it.

Give them a grace period to clean up their act, but let them know that if they keep up that type of activity, you will have to deal with it on the record. If they do not fix their behaviour, you must act.

However, she adds, make sure you are also recognising as much (or more) the good things people are doing, and not just focusing on the negative.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1．Which is not right about the promoted people who don't get proper training?

A．have enough time to listen and learn

B．assert their authority

C．boss people

D．tell people what to do

答案

2．How long it will take to spend to be on the learning mode?

A．10 to 15 days

B．15 to 40 days

C．30 to 60 days

D．35 to 60 days

答案

3．Which is not right about when you are promoted?

A．social distance

B．fire peers

C．clear-headed

D．care about peers' wellbeing

答案

4．Which is not right about what new managers should do?

A．call people out on the big things

B．rebuke the subordinate when having mistakes

C．give a grace period to clean up

D．not focuse on the negative

答案