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Selling work
Maintaining your own book of business and your own teams.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed is the shift from managing tasks to managing people and strategy. As a senior manager, you have to think more long-term and align your team's goals with the company's vision. I'd say key skills for the jump include strong communication, strategic thinking, and the ability to mentor others. How do you feel about making that transition?
Essentially the same role as a Manager but you have to build a stronger presence and make the client feel more comfortable working with you. Partners and teams will rely more on you and you also get a bigger paycheck than a manager.
Accelerate building your network to start selling work. This part goes smoother if you start building your network early in your career. Build your team, invest time in people, make sure you have the next “you” behind you, and make sure they have opportunities.
Smaller local firms are the only ones I see not outsourcing. Outsourcing is burning out teams at all levels but partner. The outsourcing model is horrid but partners are getting paid so no one cares.
The question I always have is: if the people below you can’t get the work done, how can you possibly have the time to shift from being task-oriented to having the time to focus on the bigger picture? I totally understand the leverage model, but at the Manager level I find so often that staff and Seniors just cannot deliver the work product necessary for me to be able to “get out of the weeds” and feel comfortable that things aren’t getting missed. The person at the top is always going to own the deliverable and I just can’t see myself being able to be totally removed from the details and also have confidence that things aren’t missed. I know that’s probably just my own hang up but I’m curious if anyone SM’s have advice on that.
There is no way out so I’m quitting. I definitely don’t feel like I have the experience I need within my teams to effectively start to be more of a big picture SM. They’ve been saying staffing will get better for years but it’s a lie. I’m burnt and moving on.
I'm on pace to become an SM this cycle. I don't think a lot of people here will agree, but I really think whether you're an M or SM comes down to peoples' perception of you and whether they feel like you're a leader/in-charge or not. I really focused on that this year (i.e. delegating more, taking charge of client calls, etc.) and it's made all the difference - I don't think my performance is any better or worse.
By the time you're an experienced M, you've probably seen enough different problems and have had to navigate gray areas/difficult projects enough times. The only thing that separates people is soft skills and being seen as someone who can grow the practice in the future. That requires executive prescence during client discussions to lead/communicate what the deliverable is, being able to team through tough problems with your more technical associates/SAs, and sell additional work to clients.
Since the work at this level seems to be a lot more admin vs what I like doing, I'm thinking about leaving either end of this fiscal year or whenever I get the title for industry. I actually enjoy doing the work and hate the admin/BD side, which it seems I'd be more involved with as an SM