Many people often criticize others for "changing their mindset after changing positions," as if they forget their original intentions after a promotion. But the truth is, when you change roles or get promoted, your mindset really does need to shift. Why? Let me start with the perspective of "information intake."
First, take a look at this organizational chart. The scenario is that the boss instructs the completion of "Project A" and sets a deadline. After the directive is communicated, five department heads receive the instruction. These five heads then communicate with each other, coordinating project direction, quantities, targets/initial draft completion targets, dates, final draft completion targets, dates, final completion dates, and so on. Then they hold regular meetings to report progress, assess whether additional personnel is needed, and set execution dates.
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In communication between departments, it's the heads who coordinate. That is, one department head communicates with the other four heads, learns about the current progress and direction, exchanges information with each, and then passes directives down to their own department to middle managers. These middle managers assess the situation, break down tasks, and distribute them to junior managers and frontline employees. You might currently be in one of these positions, handling maybe only 10% of the entire project—perhaps the graphic design for a subsidiary activity.
A complete project is only formed by piecing together the detailed work completed by every individual. Therefore, the lower your position in the hierarchy, the less you understand about the overall project, and the more you simply need to follow instructions without making mistakes.
So when your position changes and you move up the ladder, the amount of information you receive increases, and so do the things you need to consider. For instance, if the organization sets a completion date of 5/3/2018, your department's completion date must naturally come earlier—perhaps a week or two earlier—to account for reasonable timing.
Or perhaps, if data traffic flow is the target and everyone must share the load equally, with the best-performing department receiving additional bonuses, the department head might set even higher performance targets in hopes of exceeding goals.
How to operate all of this depends on accessing different layers of information, which allows managers to make decisions. But this is information that frontline employees simply cannot access. Therefore, when facing horizontal position changes or promotions, the domains and directions you need to consider naturally shift. Even colleagues within the same department make different decisions and develop different approaches because they receive different information—so how much more so for managers?
The second dimension is "power." When a company promotes an employee to manager, it naturally grants them more decision-making authority. For example, hiring new staff. In the past, when we lacked the power to decide, we just hoped someone would come help us. But for a manager, a new hire not only needs sufficient capability and shouldn't drag down the team—they also need to consider whether the person's personality matches company culture, whether they'll get along with existing employees, and whether to hire them at all. The manager has sufficient power to make this decision.
With power comes the pressure of bearing risk. Perhaps as a subordinate, they knew how to operate more quickly and efficiently. Once promoted to manager, they must accommodate and consider other departments' positions, or make decisions from the perspective of protecting their subordinates. In other words, they must be more careful and cautious—things that, as a simple subordinate, they never needed to worry about.
This is why we say, change your position, change your mindset. After all, your identity is different—the situations you face and the risks you bear increase accordingly. If you continue working the same way as before, not only will you fail to grow, but the organization could face problems too. And switching to a new company? That means changing even more things… (To be continued in Part 2)
