By Phil Geldart on January 6, 2014
There are three elements to effective people management:
1. Have the right person in the job. In order to ensure maximum productivity in any environment the right person needs to be in place. Understand clearly what the criteria are for the job, what skills and abilities are necessary, and select wisely. There are times when an individual must be hired from without, and times when an individual can be selected from within the organization, perhaps by promotion into the position. Whatever the circumstances, having the right person in the job is an important first step.
2. An individual needs to be fully trained. In many cases training can be broken down into several categories, such as functional training (e.g. a finance person that requires a CA designation); skills training (e.g. listening or leadership); and operational training (e.g. how to use the organization’s intranet). The proper training and orientation is crucial.
If you’re operating within an empowered environment, the training will be ongoing and continuous. Managing people requires a commitment to this ongoing training, and requires care to ensure that the training time is being spent in the most appropriate fashion, and on the most relevant topics.
3. Leadership. I believe that whom a person works for is often more important to the outcome then what a person does, or the culture of the
organization. Whom you work for plays a huge role in determining your overall productivity, ability to impact, degree to which you can make a difference, amount of support you get, and feedback you receive in order to improve.
The brilliantly managed individual will eventually become brilliant, assuming they are the right person with access to the necessary training. Consequently you as the leader need to provide outstanding leadership. This creates the necessary environment in which your team can flourish.