The Biggest Miss in Medical Device Skills Training

​According to Careerbuilder, the online employment job board company, 58% of managers said they never received any training related to their promotion [into management].

It sounds crazy a company would do such a thing, unfortunately I’ve seen this with my very eyes countless times across my 20-year career.

Companies seemingly love to promote people out of the individual contributor role, slap them with management responsibilities, then omit [intentionally or because they don’t know any better] training the newly promoted person in order to do the new job well.  Now, there’s always two sides to the coin so I can see how some reading this would say, “well, the employee needs to take some responsibility and seek out help or training, etc.”  While that may be true to a degree, the employer is ultimately responsible for ensuring the success of their business – which means making decisions which put their employees in situations to be as successful as one can be.  Training is a big part of that.

Ironically, CEB Global (now part of Gartner), has an equally fascinating data point.  The outcome of a study they performed indicates 60% of new managers fail within their first 24 months.

Were you able to connect the dots? 58% of managers never get training for their roles and 60% of managers fail in their job within 24 months.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come to the realization these two data points are intertwined.  To promote someone into a job which they’ve not done prior and then not offer training to do said job, is one of the biggest mistakes a company can make.  A mistake which is completely avoidable.

In the medical device industry this scenario plays out all too often; I’ve witnessed it dozens of times and have yet to receive an honest answer as to why it continues to occur.  

Here’s the scenario:

Miss Trisha Johnson is a rising star.  She’s a great R&D engineer and employee, always offering up ideas and solutions to boot.  She takes responsibility, is well liked by her peers and is always raising her hand to take on new projects.  She’s has a knack for getting things done and somehow seems to always hit her deadlines.  Now, who wouldn’t want an employee like Miss Trisha Johnson?  Answer – everyone wants the Trisha Johnson, she’s in high demand!

Miss Johnson’s employer recognizes she’s a gifted employee and decides to promote Trisha into her first managerial role.  Trisha is excited, the company is thrilled, all is lovely.  After the first six months in her newfound role, Miss Trisha Johnson – despite being a great employee prior - is starting to feel the weight of being in management. Prior she was excelling as an individual contributor engineer, she was joyful, the job was fun and rewarding.  She solved all sorts of technical problems and loved coming into work, even on the weekends.

As our scenario plays out…

Several months into management the feeling she has today is quite different.  Her boss told her the first couple weeks in the job, “get comfortable, learn the ropes and I’m sure you’ll do great”.  That peptalk and a monthly one-on-one is about the extent of the professional development she’s received six months into the job.  No management training has occurred and none is scheduled in the future.  Despite that, Trisha took it upon herself to read a couple books on management practices like ‘Start with Why’ and ‘The First 90 Days’.  Even with those readings under her belt, something feels off.

Fast forward, Trisha is now 18 months into the job and behind in her job.  Yes, her boss is there when she needs him, but a lot of the job just feels a bit foreign.  Leading people, getting buy-in, delegating work, presenting to executives, drafting complex reporting (and the list goes on) has all been done on the fly with a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.  It’s not that Trisha isn’t smart, or can’t learn something new – quite the contrary, it’s that she got thrown into a situation with very little training in the art of people management.  A skill which is VERY different than performing in a technical capacity as an individual contributor.

This is the first time she’s ever been in a situation where her work was anything less than exceptional. Furthermore, it’s not just Trisha who’s experiencing issues in the job.  Trisha’s team has been showing signs of dissatisfaction, expressing concern about her ability to lead, becoming noticeably disconnected and argumentative.  One of her employees, a well liked and respected principle engineer ended up quitting after working for the company for six years.  Upon her exit, the principle engineer shared with Trisha she “I like you, but I don’t feel like the company or our team is being set up for success.  We’ve given feedback on what is needed but nothing changes.”

As a result, Trisha musters up the courage to have a tough conversation with her boss to ask for help.  She’s feeling like a fish out of water and needs training, and not just one-on-one discussions with her boss, but formal managerial training to really help build a new skill set in her repertoire for leading people and work into the future.

Her boss is a good person and happily hears her out. Unfortunately Trisha’s request for formal training is beyond her bosses approvals. He responds, “I can ask about that [managerial training], but we don’t really offer that at present for managers, its usually reserved for executives.”

Trisha leaves the conversation dejected, not feeling supported or set up for success.  Like her team, she begins weighing her options, other options outside the company.  Three months later, she reluctantly resigns and takes a job with another medical device company working back in an individual contributor role.  [no one should be surprised by this]

Despite the fact Trisha’s former employer is a large OEM, there is still a sizeable impact to the business because of this situation.  The company lost a principle engineer and their manager, a former star player, within a couple months of one another.  When that happened legacy information and experience walked right out the door, while simultaneously generating talent acquisition cost closing in on half a million dollars (salary plus overhead) to replace the two roles.  This doesn’t factor into account damage that may have been done to the surrounding teams, culture and associated initiatives.  


If you’ve heard of a career story similar to this, or lived it yourself, do us all a favor and share this article with someone you care about who may be considering going into management for themselves.  Training will be vital to their success.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with following a career path in management.  Quite the opposite.  What is wrong is when a company takes an employee who was good at one thing and then moves that person into another capacity and does so without any formal training. They cross their fingers hoping it will work out and move on to other pressing matters. 

Our scenario above is the definition of the ‘Peter Principle’, which is a management theory formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in 1969.  The Peter Principle states, "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence."  What this means is people are often promoted based on their performance in their current role, not their potential to succeed in the next role—which often demands different skills.

The Peter Principle is similar to the ‘Halo Effect’ – A cognitive bias where success in one area is assumed to imply competence in other unrelated areas.  These are dangerous assumptions companies and their existing leaders make when promoting employees.

As in the case of our scenario above with Miss Trisha Johnson, she was an excellent R&D engineer, but that doesn’t mean she will automatically be an excellent people leader.  Yes, some people may be able to make the transition well, however most people (as our stats from CEB Global show) will struggle in the new management role, especially if they don’t get formal training, coaching and consistent support. When this happens we have what is commonly referred to as the ‘accidental manager’, which is a term used to describe individuals promoted to management roles without proper preparation or training.

Want to set up someone to be successful in their new management role? (or existing management role for that matter)

Get them formal training.  Period.  Then, ensure said training is consistent and useable in the job the employee is meant to function in.

Promoting an employee and putting them in a new job they’ve never done before, especially one which requires you to lead people, and doing so without training is a recipe for disaster.

Good news – there’s an easy way to fix this dilemma. 

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​One of the two podcasts I run, which is called ‘The Business Wingman Show’, covers this very topic we’ve been rummaging through in this article – why managerial training is needed, what happens if you don’t, and how to find the right training support.  Listen to the podcast HERE.

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