How much help do we get to ensure that we have the right people doing the right job? Most of us get plenty of guidance and systems to run the business but what can we do to ensure that we can get the best out of our team?
In fact, are our people management tools as good as our business management tools?
How many of us have experienced times when we have instantly 'clicked' with a new employee? How powerful that is, how easily we managed them and how fruitful was the relationship!
How many times have we found ourselves unable to understand, or are irritated by certain people with whom we have to work? How frustrating that can be and how difficult it is to manage them or work together to achieve the results that we know we should.
These questions emanate directly from another question -"What makes people tick?" - and represents probably the major reason why managers have difficulties in managing certain members of their staff, or their teams do not work the way that they can and should.
The key to having our team, subordinates or colleagues do our bidding is to have them do it for their reasons, not ours. The problem has always been: how do we, as managers, identify those reasons relatively easily, cost effectively and, more important, quickly?
It is a well-accepted axiom that we, as human animals, are naturally attracted to people who are like ourselves and yet our workplaces are full of people who manifestly are not like us.
If we are to manage other people effectively and profitably and benefit from their initiatives so that our life is easier and more fulfilling, we must gain their trust and confidence in our ability as managers. So effective and efficient management is not about 'telling'. It is really about selling ideas and concepts to others.
The more we understand the people we are responsible for and work with, the better we shall be able to sell them our ideas and the more willing will they be to buy into those ideas and be willing and effective elements in our team.
There are some 1.7 million human types that can be identified using the world's premier measurement of behaviour. Of those, the average manager will be able to instinctively understand about 15-30%. This is one of the reasons so much recruitment fails to be effective, because managers are attempting (probably subconsciously) to recruit people in their own image. Instead, if we were to learn how to identify the type of person most likely to succeed in a given position and match the applicants to this requirement, we would be able to reduce the number of costly mistakes and increase the effectiveness of our teams.
Similarly, if we can improve our understanding of how our people behave in the work environment and how they need to be managed, we can improve the effectiveness of management and the motivation of the employees.
Both the recruitment and management of employees can be substantially improved through the use of a simple psychometric measurement tool through which we can understand all the human types we come into contact with, quickly and easily. The manager who has this power of understanding, rarely has to 'give orders' and benefits from very high levels of interaction and initiative with his staff. Life becomes far easier and less fraught, more rewarding and interesting than for those of us who can only connect with 15-30% of the people we come into contact with.
People are such complex animals that they should come with a user manual. Unfortunately, people are not provided with such instructions but, there are methods for getting a reasonable set of guidelines that will enable us as managers to manage any human type. An instrument such as Personality Survey, routinely provides this information in about 15-20 minutes and it does not require a degree in psychology to use it.
Aside from spelling out in some detail how best to manage an individual, so that both gain more from the interaction, it gives valuable insights into his or her own management style, and even gives guidance on their probable suitability for sales or management positions.
Knowledge of this depth gained by the usual method of empirical deduction takes the average manager at least three months. That represents a great deal of salary possibly being paid to little effect before any other considerations of effectiveness or productivity.
Architects, builders, carpenters, etc., all maintain in their own fashion that, before making any changes to the environment, first measure what already exists. We can apply a similar axiom to people. Before attempting to change the way people are, or the way they work, first measure what exists and then utilise the best of what is available.
By now, you have realised that these are the first steps toward effective and lasting team building. In today's fast paced world where people change jobs frequently and teams need to be formed to meet the requirements of specific projects, we need to be able to change the make up of teams rapidly to take advantage of the market conditions. All the more important then to make use of management tools - like Personality Survey that will help us, ethically, efficiently and quickly to assess those we manage and then adapt our management style to fit the circumstances. Using well-made management tools will usually improve the bottom line by up to 25% so it is certainly worth looking into.
There are also tools to help test particular skills, like selling that, for instance, when used in conjunction with good behavioural measures, further increases our understanding of people, sometimes by orders of magnitude.
There is no doubt that getting the best out of our people is one of the major challenges that faces management today - but with intelligent forethought, the people who we manage can become a resource, not a liability.
The author is a leading authority on psychometric management tools, lectures at a number of universities and is committed to evolving tools to help develop people to achieve their real potential. One such tool: Personality Survey has been developed and refined over 15 years and is installed and used in many leading companies in the UK, Spain and Australia.
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