Becoming a Manager

APPENDIX

Research Design and Methods

This study is an extension of research that I conducted earlier on retraining middle managers in financial services firms. For that project I interviewed more than 100 midcareer managers about their careers and organizations. During these interviews I was struck by the disproportionate attention these managers devoted to and the vehemence with which they described their earliest experiences as manager. One manager in his early fifties commented that it was as if it (his first year as a manager) had happened only yesterday.

I became intrigued by the apparent potency of managers’ first experiences on the job and began to explore the literature. The managerial press had countless reports of new manager incompetence, ...