Do Business Well

Jim Welbach is feeling a bit frustrated these days. He has managed to find room in his budget to hire one extra person in his marketing operation, which means that he has been able to promote one of his staffers, Jane Loudin, to the post of Assistant Marketing Director—on a provisional basis. She will now oversee much of the advertising copy and press releases that Welbach formerly supervised—thus freeing him up for larger projects with his boss, the company’s executive VP.

It all sounds reasonable and workable, but like so many plans that look good on an organizational chart, this one has run into a few snags. It seems that the staffers who now write the ad copy and press releases, and who were not offered the job, are not acting in a cooperative fashion with their new supervisor. There are disagreements, arguments about work, the content of the copy, whose ideas get precedence and imagined or not-so-imagined slights, followed by recriminations.

Much more than he had anticipated, Welbach is appealed to by staffers to resolve the conflict. Invariably, then, he finds himself involved. Now, Welbach has begun to suspect that unless he takes measures, he’ll be unable to free himself from these new demands that are being made on his time, and will be right back where he started. But he isn’t sure about what measures to take.

If you are contemplating the promotion of a staff member to a supervisory position, you may encounter a problem similar to Jim Welbach’s—particularly if others on your staff either wanted the promotion themselves, or don’t feel the promoted person deserved it. There’s a good chance it will take more than your announcement to produce good results. Here’s what you might plan on doing after you’ve made your choice:

• Support your own decision. Provisional promotions have a built- in weakness—they present the possibility that the person you’ve decided to promote is, in effect, only a candidate. This, in turn, implies that the group that is being supervised can put their stamp of disapproval on your choice. Thus, certain disgruntled group members who have been passed over are encouraged to engage in adverse lobbying, rather than in trying to cooperate. Your best bet, if your decision is for a trial run, is to keep the arrangement confidential between you and the candidate.

• Talk to key staffers, especially those who may think you should have offered the job to them first. You don’t have to justify your choice, but you ought to make it clear that it was made only after due consideration. Talk about why you promoted from within instead of bringing in an outside person (”I wanted someone who was qualified and who already knew the operation”). Mention how important it is to you to have the new supervisor supported by people like the person to whom you’re speaking.

• Provide continuing support. With or without a firm appointment, there will still be those who will assume that your decision can be rescinded if the person you’ve chosen can be made to look bad. They may, thus, go out of their way to cause difficulties—perhaps not so much because they wanted the job, but because they did not want a peer to get it. It is at this point that you, the manager, have to make it clear that you have stepped aside, that all decisions related to the area over your appointed person’s responsibility are his or hers to make.

• Stay out of arguments. If you are still, apparently, an arbitrator, then everyone—your appointee included—will assume that you are still making the decisions, and that nothing is final until you have decided that it is. You will thus be perpetuating—even aggravating—the situation you wanted to avoid. Instead of shifting your responsibility onto someone else’s shoulders, you have retained it. At some point, you’re going to have to say, “Now, I’m out of it.”

• Observation: Some managers don’t altogether accept the process of letting go when it comes to their own authority. They become worried about what might happen if a promoted subordinate acts independently. Sometimes, an unconscious sabotage takes place—one that undermines their own best interests. The point to remember, once you’ve made the promotion, is that the process of establishing authority is a very delicate and difficult one. Without your patience, tact and visible support, it’s not likely to happen in your department either as quickly or effectively as it should.

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