Baby sea turtles

I was once standing on a walkway looking down on the lower corridor of an office building I worked in. Next to me was my new boss, who had just hired me for a management role. 

Another new manager walked underneath us.

"Oh boy. Him. Nice guy, but I don't think he's gonna make it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. New managers are like little baby sea turtles trying to make their way to the ocean. You never know which ones will make it." 

I felt a small chill go down my spine. 

"Like, there's always coaching ..." 

"Yeah. No. Some of them just get eaten."

I was a little outraged by this and it created a tension between us where I kept trying to get him to make things explicit to me because I did not want to be eaten. I wanted to make it to the ocean. For his part, he kept insisting that I was a smart guy and I'd figure it out, and that there was no secret rule book that had been hidden from me. 

I like to think that I take more responsibility for my own baby sea turtles than he did for me, but I also think that he probably reflected how it had worked for him. And I'm about as in the ocean as you can get, even if it is not to my taste some days. 

Over time, I've come to accept his take more: I'm okay with the people working with me to learn from observation and developing their own interpretation of what they see. I should be clear on what matters—what my non-negotiables are—but there's a lot of space around that to fill with their own way. 

And I also think there was a flaw in his metaphor: 

"Not making it" as a manager is not the same as being eaten alive by a pelican. It's just ... not making it as a manager.