He was the fastest tech on the floor for six years. Trained half the crew informally. Never missed. So when the supervisor left, the promotion was obvious — to everyone, including him.
Nine months later he asked for his old job back. Two people on his crew had quit. He was working later than he ever had, doing the difficult jobs himself because it was faster than watching someone else do them slowly.
Nothing about him had changed. What changed is that we took the thing he was excellent at and made it the smallest part of his job, then never told him what the rest of the job was.
Why the strongest performer is the riskiest promotion
A great individual contributor is fast because they’ve eliminated the gap between deciding and doing. That reflex is exactly wrong in management, where the whole job is deciding and then not doing.
Three predictable failures follow, and they follow in this order:
We don’t promote people into management. We promote them into a job we’ve never described, and then evaluate them on it.
The ninety days before the title
The fix is not a course after the promotion. It’s a rehearsal before it — a quarter in which the person does parts of the job while the safety net is still up and the title is still open.
A note on the path you don’t have
A lot of businesses promote their best performer because it’s the only reward available. If the only way to earn more is to stop doing the work you’re great at, you will keep converting excellent technicians into mediocre managers and losing both.
A senior-craft track — more pay, more scope, no direct reports — costs less than one failed promotion, and it changes who puts their hand up for the manager job. The people who volunteer when there’s a genuine alternative are usually the ones you actually wanted.
The tech in the opening did go back to the floor. We hired a supervisor from outside, and he trained her. He’s still the best tech there.