How Companies Can Avoid Creating an Accidental Manager with Cary Cooper

In the sports world, the best players don’t always make the best coaches.

Wayne Gretsky is called hockey’s “Great One” for a reason. As a player, he won 4 Stanley Cups and 9 MVP awards. But what some people may not know is that he also coached in the NHL. In his four seasons coaching the Phoenix Coyotes, they didn’t make the playoffs once.

That story often repeats itself. Magic Johnson is considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He won 5 NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and an Olympic gold medal as part of the 1992 Dream Team. After his retirement, he also tried his hand at coaching. He resigned after only 16 games.

It’s the same truth for the business world, too.

Just because you are good at a particular skill doesn’t mean that you would make a good manager. So, why is that the standard career path for so many in the corporate world? And how can companies avoid creating an “accidental manager”?

To answer those questions, we spoke with Cary Cooper. He's a professor of organizational psychology and health at the University of Manchester, the author of "Wellbeing at Work: How to Design, Implement and Evaluate an Effective Strategy," and former president of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.