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Might be good to focus on getting them (and yourself) comfortable that they are trained as a "problem solver". Most underrated but valuable skill in any company since so many of our projects are "unique and have no established roadmap or process". It paralyses even seasoned industry vets.
Maybe start with smaller projects where you answer some questions, but not all, so you give them freedom to piece together how to solve (tell them what the deliverable is but not the process). Since smaller, lower stakes, it's fine if they do something wrong and then you give them feedback and ideally they avoid those errors in future projects and you can start to give them more independence on larger and larger projects, They'll likely have to hunt around and talk to other people in the agency as well, so a good exercise for them to build those relationships and processes themselves.
My boss early in my career was a “sink or swim” type guy…and it was also the way I learned. My current report doesn’t seem as intuitive as maybe I was naturally.
Have you had a conversation with them? Get a read on how they see their performance or training needs versus the feedback you’re getting. Try looking at the situation as something you both are going to work on together but it doesn’t primarily fall to you. As a leader you are their to set expectations, provide resources abs support your team needs to be successful (not to micromanage how the work gets done). I’ve really found that most challenges are best dealt with head on. When you come from a place of empathy and support you can’t go wrong. Good luck, it’s a tough scenario but when you come through it and see the person grow it’s very rewarding.
I’ve had struggles with this in the past as well. I think back to when I was entry level, weekly check ins with my AS/AD were so helpful to separate the mentorship from tasks. Owning smaller things where they’re collaborating with other departments so you as the AD aren’t constantly the only one checking their work while still giving them some freedom (if that makes sense).
As a seasoned Account Manager in Advertising (15+ years of experience), I train other AMs on my team, since I so good with processes, products, and platforms. This leads me to author a lot of SOPs for the team. Has anyone on your team created SOPs, so that the new AM has guidance on how do things without your feedback or having to shadow them? Can you delegate someone for them to shadow?
Gotcha…yeah my current agency doesn’t have anything documented. We are a hot mess. 😂
if you micromange and have 20 people working for you. You wil be one bussy person.
I always have scaling in mind. So in my company Im designing processes so people can work on their own and take ownership for the work they did.
For instance tasks we do people pick them up by themselves. All of the info is on the cards as wel as the support chats behind it for of they dont know something.
We have the huddle on monday where everybody tells what their focus is. At the end of the week we huddle to ask them what they have done, what was difficult and how they handeled it for instance ask a collegue to help them or outsourced something.
At a certain point we see how many tasks are finished by a person, how complex they where what preferences are of individual persons and how fast they can problem solve.
It works great for now in our small team of 6 freelancers working on 3 different timezones.
We build a custom database for this like CRM + project management software.
The big advantage is it integrates with our office software and video conferencing software as wel we can query everything into dashboards.
Its different than top down working where I as the manager will tell everybody what they need to do.
All I need to see is the deadlines of the tasks and support everybody who get stuck in a task. And do the accountmagement of the clients on strategic level.
So its really a style that looks at automation, ownership of work, responsibility of employees and supporting them in stead of commanding them.