BASIC
MANAGEMENT SKILLS – THE MACHINE APPROACH!
Recent studies have shown that industrial supervisors
are working at less than 60 % of their potential. Basic management
skills training is guaranteed to change all this and at such little
cost
Introduction
ALL the evidence from modern theorists, the Japanese success story
and from the top international companies is that success in today's
world depends on the Leadership and Motivation of people. However,
it is amazing that so many companies and managers fail to grasp this
opportunity by not putting it into ACTION.
How many times do we hear companies say:
Our people are our most important resource?
You will see this type of statement in company brochures, annual accounts,
statements to shareholders, etc. There is no doubt that these are all
based on good faith but to what extend does this policy filter through
the organization. ANSWER: NOT MANY.
Most managers seem to be pre-occupied with machines and the technical
aspects of their work. This is in spite of the mountain of evidence
that proves that the key to future success is our ability to manage
people effectively at all levels in the organization.
The problem is that managing technology and machines can be easily
defined and understood whereas people management tends to be abstract
and difficult to deal with. Let's see if we can simplify the
problems and develop a practical model that will be effective in the
real world.
The machine approach
Maybe, a good way to approach people management is to adopt the basic
approach we take with machines. For example, machines have technical
files (procedures, specifications, performance standards, etc.), planned
maintenance systems, corrective action procedures and many other types
of support.
Why not treat people, at least, in the same way and with the same
importance as machines. This would be totally consistent with our toolbox
style approach that we discussed earlier.
Let's look at the key actions that we can easily do:
1 |
Get yourself
informed |
Time required
5 hours max. |
Cost
NIL |
Getting to KNOW your group and the
individuals is the first key step.
You need to determine all their strengths, weaknesses and
potential before you can start to think about making improvements. |
2 |
Determine the correct management style
to use |
Time required
2 hours max. |
Cost
NIL |
The Leadership module demonstrated that we need
to determine the maturity of our group and to adopt the matching
style. This is step two. |
3 |
People planning |
Time required
8 hours max. |
Cost
NIL |
We do it for machines so why not for
people? |
4 |
Increase productivity through motivation |
Time required
2 hours max. |
Cost
NIL |
We now need to build and maintain relationships
and define the motivating factors that we learned before into
a simplified practical form that can easily become part of your
routine behavior. This is our PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE program
for people |
Of course, there is a lot more to this subject and all these are covered
in the managers toolbox.
Chris Thomas is the author of the Managers Toolbox training material
located at www.managers-toolbox.com and runs the very successful Basic
Management Course for new leaders and supervisors. You can contact Chris@managers-toolbox.com