New Management Position? Avoid Quick Win Traps

New Management Position? Avoid Quick Win Traps

Of course, realizing quick wins is important when you're in a new management job. By doing so you reassure your boss or stakeholders that they made the right promotion / hiring decision, you convince your employees that they can have confidence in you, and you show to your colleagues that an equal has joined their ranks.
But Mark van Buren and Todd Safferstone have found through a large-scale survey that there are 5 frequent traps on the way to a quick win, leading to what they call a "quick-win paradox":
1. Focus too heavily on the details
2. React negatively to criticism
3. Intimidate others
4. Jump to hasty conclusions
5. Micromanage direct reports
In general, van Buren and Safferstone recommend to shift your focus from creating individual quick wins to creating collective quick wins. This advise makes sense being a manager. After all your primary job is to make your people successful.
Source: The Quick Wins Paradox, HBR Jan 2009, p. 54-61.

		Ashok A kella Finance Manager, India
	Quick Win Paradox True, no companion will give you a walk over or s (...)

		Venkatakrishnan
	Short to Long Term Yes, individual to collective is true, at the same (...)

		Frances
	New Management Position I lived that New Management position and I found t (...)

		Charu
	Shifting Management Focus from Individual to Collective Not Always Good I am not fully satisfied with this. According to m (...)

		Ram
	Leadership Success depends on Team Leadership success nowadays is a one way ticket, w (...)

		Muhammad Azhar Sajjad
	Quick Win Paradox I agree to be a successful leader one should shift (...)

		Michael D. Moore Entrepreneur, United States
	Quick Wins It is a blind spot for many companies to seek quic (...)

		Bosede Abiola Adetifa Manager, Australia
	Leadership must have their Ears on the Ground I totally agree with most of the comments so far. (...)

		Bosede Abiola Adetifa Manager, Australia
	Individual AND Collective 'Unless we join forces and recognize each other's (...)

		Gregory Johnson Coach, United States
	Leadership Radar Vision I agree with the conversation and would add that A (...)