Management Fundamentals: The 8 Areas Every New Manager Has to Get Right

You were great at the work, so someone gave you a team. Now you are answering questions all day, fixing other people's mistakes, and wondering why your people do not just do what they are supposed to do. If that sounds familiar, I want to give you a different way to look at it.

Here is what I have learned coaching companies around the country: 80% of the issues in our organizations, and I think it is even higher now, are not the people. They are the system, the process and the manager. That is good news, because systems can be fixed. This episode walks through the eight areas of management I coach, whether you are running a company, a department, a jobsite or a household.

My definition of the job is the same one I use for leadership: a manager creates and maintains an environment where people can get their work done efficiently and effectively. If people are struggling, the first question is not what is wrong with them. It is what is wrong with the environment I built.

What does it take to go from doer to manager?

Most of us started on the front line. I started with tools in my hands. Then I got a chance to manage a small piece of a business, then a bigger piece, then multiple areas, then a department. Every step up is a chance, but it also means a change in what the job is.

Doing is about me: controlling me, managing me, watching me. Managing means getting things done through other people. That is hard, because it brings difficult conversations, and it is always easier and less dramatic to say, let me just do it myself, it will only take a minute. But when you are doing, you are not managing and not leading. The task belongs to someone on your team who needs to be taught, equipped, trained and held accountable for it.

And please hear this: a great manager's calendar should look different. I have talked to managers who feel guilty because they are on the phone and email and reading a leadership book while their people are working with their hands. Reading a management book is work. You carry more responsibility than before, for the results and for the people. Cut yourself some slack.

The eight areas of great management

1. Planning: why do you need a written plan?

How will you know what your team should be doing if there is no plan? Ask yourself whether you have, in writing:

• Policies and procedures: how we work together, and the rules of how we play.
• Core values and a mission: why we show up every day.
• A scope of work: what we are actually supposed to be doing.
• A budget, and a way to track budget versus actual, including what to do when something unforeseen blows the number.
• A schedule for people and for operations, so the right people are in the right place at the right time with what they need.
• A quality standard and an inspection process to verify the result meets the goal.

If you do not have these, start putting them in place. It will change your department, your results and your life. Instead of fighting fires, you will be managing.

2. Organizing: are you removing obstacles?

Organizing is structuring your resources and orchestrating them toward a plan. Your job is to remove obstacles, clear up uncertainty and get people back on the road. When there is confusion, people lose focus and passion, and when people are unsure, they wait. Things bottleneck. A consistent, reliable environment lets the right people do the right things at the right time like an orchestra. That is 100% your responsibility as the manager.

3. Staffing: how do you hire and onboard the right people?

People are your number one asset, and in most companies the people side is the biggest struggle. Small and mid-size companies have little extra staff, money or time, so they live in reaction. Someone leaves, and the instinct is to replace them as fast as possible instead of with the right person. Build a real process:

1. Qualify before you hire. Use a DISC assessment or a questionnaire, call two and three levels of references, and let different people on your team meet the candidate. You would be amazed how many managers never call the references.
2. Use the GWC filter from the Traction (EOS) system: do they get the job, do they want it, and do they have the capacity to do it?
3. Onboard slowly and on purpose. Most places throw a new hire to work in days, hand over an employee manual, and say sign the last page. Spend the first several weeks teaching the job, the software and the policies. Use AI tools to help build training.
4. Plan for staff ahead of growth. If you land a new opportunity, who will you need in six months or a year? Plan proactively, not reactively.

4. Directing: how are you leading?

Directing is leading your people, and it takes work on yourself. How well do you ask questions, remove obstacles, motivate and coordinate? By motivate I do not mean pulling someone out of bed. I mean celebrating wins, saying you crushed it, and getting excited when someone asks for a new opportunity.

Communication has to work in three directions. John Maxwell's book The 360 Degree Leader makes the point that you have people who report to you, peers at your level and bosses above you, and all three need to hear from you. Then there is enforcement. If you let policies slide for some people, everyone is watching, and inconsistency creates chaos and bad attitudes. And the hardest voice to manage is yours. Most of us hate conflict, so a conversation we should have today gets put off for four or five months, and by then the moment to teach is gone.

5. Controlling: are you inspecting what you expect?

If you do not inspect what you expect, you will probably not get the results you are looking for. Walk around. Once or twice a week, talk with people on the front line and look at the work. It reminds everyone you are paying attention, and you hear and see things that lead to better systems.

Then measure. What reports do you look at every week and month? In the Traction system, a scorecard runs on a 13-week trend, because you are not looking for the day you crushed it or the day you blew it. You are looking for the direction over time. Compare results to the plan, compare this month to last month and last year, and when something is off, your job is to correct the variance. Not just watch it. Find out why and put a fix in place.

6. Producing: whose results matter most?

As a manager you are responsible for results, and the results that matter most are the company's. Do not get territorial or combative about your own area. If your department does great and everyone else does terribly and the company goes out of business, it does not matter how well your area did.

One more idea here, from the book The Great Game of Business: share the numbers with your team. Employees often picture a company swimming in money. If you show them that a million dollars of revenue with a 3% net profit means about $30,000 left over, many of them will say, let's do this better. Invite them into your numbers and you will be surprised how they step up.

7. Systems: what if the way we have always done it is not working?

If the answer is, we have always done it this way, and it is not getting results, erase the board and shred the policy. Track the variances and investigate what keeps you off point. Look far enough ahead to anticipate what is coming: in homebuilding, a superintendent who only looks a week out ends up with a house sitting empty because no trade is available. Be objective, assign variance corrections, watch your budget, profit and cash flow, and keep every process easy to understand. If it is crazy complicated, people follow it for one lesson and then forget it.

8. Thinking: when do you plan the plan?

Great managers spend time thinking and coordinating. Maxwell says thinking is the hardest thing we do. I was coaching two young leaders who could not focus in the office, and we decided they should leave for an hour or two every week, turn off the phone, and bring their reports, cash flow numbers and quarterly priorities. Your task list and calendar should make room for that.

What can you do this week?

1. Grade yourself 1 to 5 on each of the eight areas and pick the lowest one.
2. Pick one recurring problem on your team and ask what in the system allowed it to happen.
3. Put a weekly walk-around and a weekly thinking block on your calendar.
4. Catch someone doing something right, and tell them. People say who they work for is far more important than pay in why they stay.