An Advice For Managers

Effective managers who are genuinely concerned with team members’ efficiency, productivity, and happiness, realize that training and personal development are absolute necessities. Corporate managers need to know this. Some managers, of course, work to avoid training their work force because they fear that eventually a team member will replace them at the helm of the organization. You should choose to look on this possibility as an incredible benefit. If you have no one prepared to take your place, you are destined to stay just where you are! It is also true that most managers avoid training because they believe trainees will advance past them.

Personal growth is not reserved for some sort of management elite. Managers who involved their team members in a planned process of personal growth actually hasten the process of achieving organizational goals. With this, team members quickly discover that the easiest path to achieving their own personal goals lies in helping the organization reach its goals. The team member who is growing personally finds renewed excitement in the work – and the excitement is contagious! You will find that a continuing program of training and personal development is a key to securing the confidence and trust of your team members and to ensuring the overall success of the organization. All training has but one goal: to develop a more productive and more versatile work force.

Personal development, on the other hand, inspires team members to take greater pride in themselves and in their potential for achievement. While personal development often express in intangible ways it creates valuable benefits when couple with training. The result of training and personal development is a combine reduction in costs and an increase in quality, productivity, and overall performance. Workers may feel excited about who they are and where they are going in life, but without specific skill-building and job related training, they may become frustrated at their inability to climb the ladder to greater success.

Team members who are “green and growing” developed mental attitudes and work habits that are conducive to change. Team members who are “ripe and rotting” resist change and cling to old, unproductive attitudes and habits. The Manager choice is simple: empower these individuals with the opportunity to grow and develop in every area of life or allow them to waste their potential for happiness and achievement.

Most work is badly done because of poor or inadequate training. Encourage extra courses and study. Send your team to that seminar. Provide teaching tapes and video. Focus on “continuous improvement” rather than “static perfection”. As a manager you must create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and rewarded. Encourage your team to explore new options instead of settling for the obvious.

When children don’t get positive attention, they sometimes resort to negative behavior to attract the attention they desire. The same is true in an organization – without positive attention, team members can begin to create negative changes to get the attention and recognition they need. Giving team members challenging assignments and adequate rewards will keep them “green and growing” and keep them focused on the organization’s short-range and long-range goals.

As a manager, you, more than anyone else, determine the environment of your organization and whether your people are investing in others. Begin by institutionalizing investment and making it a part of your organization’s culture. Encourage growth. Set aside time and money for investment in your team. And take on the responsibility for investing in your core managers. The more leaders you have on the team and the further developed they are, the greater the dividend. Your job is not to perpetuate the status quo; your job as a manager is to teach, coach, and encourage team members to develop their innate potential for achievement. As a manager know that training yourself and organization is an ongoing responsibility. Don’t be the Mr. Boss man and wants to lord over them.

Every member on a team has a gift and must therefore be given the opportunity to exercise that gift. Your organization is not a spectator. The spectator is one who watches but in an organization we all participate. If the future is to be achieved for your organization it will depend on what the vision looks like. It is important to understand that for your team to become great and effective it must possess a common goal (vision), diverse skills and contribution and a strong coaching and communication. Every team must have a vision and how they are going to get there and if your organization is to achieve its dreams it ought to know this.

To become an effective team, managers must know and practice what is Important. Prioritize the things that need to be given first preference and of course, in this case, it is the organization and so it must be prioritized. And so, what are your team members or organization priorities?

Your organization will not make progress if the leaders don’t have a vision that is bigger than self.  And if your organization should make progress its managers must grow. It is the manager’s growth that determines the organization’s growth. Managers need to grow because life and society are constantly changing and they must be able to meet up with these changes. Know this; a leader cannot lead a follower beyond where they have personally grown. They must improve in order for them to stay in front. And for your organization to make progress its leaders must stay on the same page.

Friend, there is a need to carry on constant evaluation so as to be able to flow together because in a chemical reaction if the elements or chemicals don’t correspond, you will have an explosion, the same is with leadership. And there surely will be an explosion when we do not keep evaluating our management team. This is the truth in a nutshell: Individualism wins trophies, but teamwork wins championships.

Managers will have to place the organization’s interest above their own. They will have to know exactly where they stand as a team. Of course every team should know where it stands because there is a scoreboard that everyone can see. Players glance at the scoreboard continually during a game. When the game is over, at least they know if they have won or lost.

In building a great team, players should pay the price. There is no success without sacrifice. If you succeed without sacrifice, then it is because someone who went before you made the sacrifice. If you sacrifice and do not see success, then someone who follows will reap success from your sacrifice. For an organization to become effective it needs quality leadership and a team to take her to her dreams. While it is true that your organization is making little or great effort in meeting its aims and objective, I believe investing in training, leadership development and team building should be your organization’s top priority.

(Chealy Brown Dennis is a marketing and business development consultant. He is also a motivational speaker and offers training in leadership and organizational development, creative sales and marketing, strategic planning and team building and offers on-location and train-the-trainer formats. He can be contacted through email at: dennisbc2011@yahoo.com or on phone at: 0886-264-611 or 0776-545-394)