The Role of IT in Getting New Managers Up to Speed

A new leadership article in HBS Working Knowledge caught my eye this morning:

"The usual employee-orientation process needs to be retired. In this article from Harvard Management Update, savvy companies explain how to jump-start the success of new managers. Tip: Set up meetings, use technology, and coach newcomers."

Global and geographically diverse companies need to use technology to help with this process and they suggest:

• Using e-mails to announce the new manager's expertise and interests to others;
• Signing the new manager up for the online discussion groups and mailing lists they'll need as they ramp up; and
• Showing the new manager how to use expertise locators.

One short coming of this article is that they don't explicitly make the link between technology and helping new managers understand social networks in their new organisation - so jump over to CIO magazine to complete the picture on the role of social network analysis.

Tags: knowledge management, social network analysis