Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So our somewhat small company (around 300 people) is split into 3 major departments. One department manager was fired over a year ago and they decided to replace him with a guy from a completely different department (from an analytics side of the company to a content creation side of the company, great match, I know). Anyway, while this guy has been with the company for 15 years (came in 5 years after the company was founded), he has ZERO background in our department and absolutely no knowledge of it.
So, his first week was this week and he started off by having individual meetings with everyone in the department. Which I thought was great and fine, until I had mine with him. Instead of trying to get to know us all and anything positive, he starts off with these questions (asking them with a cold-stone face, with responses that include "yeah..yeah...what else?")
1.How would you improve the company?
2.Where do you see yourself in the company in 5 years?
3.If you were me, whats the first action you would take?
4.What do you think it takes to get promoted?
5.If you lost clients, would you feel responsible?
..I mean, the questions mostly all seem normal, but with cold-faced responses, there was no "I look forward to working with everyone to help them achieve their goals and the companies" or "I'm glad to meet you and hear feedback and I look forward to addressing concerns."
Now, what I must say is amazing about this "promotion" is that this guy's department (which again, he led) lost around 20% of their clients last year. Is coming into a creative environment with an engineer's mindset and corporate values. Also, he's bringing a significant amount of people from his department over.
As I was thinking about this yesterday, I was trying to wonder, why would he be asking these types of questions? Is he planning on firing those he doesnt feel are fit for the company? Or does he just think he's the king and is trying to get us to give him answers that we dont realize we are giving? It all seems pretty sketchy to me.
Last edited by distancerunner101; 01-11-2014 at 07:06 PM..
Ah no doubt. I've only been with the company for only 6 months or so, which definitely would put me in a bad spot as a new graduate. If that is the case, hopefully he waits another 9 months until my lease ends in this town so if I am not in the spot to be kept, I can get the hell out of dodge and find a new job. I had several offers coming out of college and chose this one over at least two others that were for good companies, too. So, while it will obviously be horrible to lose my job this early on, I'll be on the lookout for sure.
In my experience in industry, Navy and education, the new manager almost always meets with his people one on one. With those or very similar questions.
Having been in that position before, I can tell you personally that companies move management around for reasons that sometimes make no sense to the rank and file. He might be there for any number of reasons. Maybe they just dumped him on your department, but there is a good chance that they didn't, and that he is there because someone needed him there for a reason that is beyond your ability to understand with a whopping 6 months of experience and a diploma with barely dry ink.
You have to look at what didn't happen here. Your department manager was canned a year ago, and after a whole year, senior management picked someone from an entirely different side of the company to run it, not you or someone closely related to whatever it is that you do. It's very possible that he's there to make a lot of changes.
Or maybe they just put him there because he was available, he knows the company, and nobody else in your group stood out.
Either way, you can help him or just assume that you have all the answers.
I agree with 43north. It may be upper management is grooming him for future assignments and wants him to learn all phases of the business. Or they feel that he can bring something into that department (knowledge of how it integrates with other groups, smooth out rough edges between departments, etc) that will be good for the company. And everyone has their own personality and bring some features of it with them. Also if he ne3eds to learn how to work in an environment that is different from the one he was in before the senior members of that department should help him learn what he needs to learn. that needs to be done respectfully and remembering when it comes down to it he is the boss.
He's learning about his employees and the current way of doing things. If he didn't, someone would be complaining about THAT.
To be blunt, you sound threatened. My advice - help the guy out. Don't think that everything he is doing, he is doing to be annoying or mean or to take over how things have always been done like a bull in a china shop. He's being cautious and checking out the lay of the land. Wouldn't you?
I worked somewhere that did a huge manager swap when a new director came in. A guy with a finance/operations background was moved to managing the customer service department. He had never so much as worked in a call center before, but he had a great personality and everyone in that department loved working for him. Turns out, the new director noticed he was a charismatic guy that people liked working for and his personality tests showed that he valued his employees more than his analytical tasks... the fact that his employees are willing to follow him says a lot. He might be asking these things as a way to get to know you professionally: who you are, where you want to be, what your priorities are.... to assign new tasks accordingly.
Here's the thing about Corporate America: no sense in trying to understand it, just accept it. You may not understand why, but there was a reason.... so just accept he's your new boss and treat him with the kindness and respect you'd show any boss.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
