–
Decisions about people are the most important decisions
a manager makes
–
Workers have a right to competent leaders
–
If a worker does not perform then the manager has made
a mistake; don’t blame the worker
–
Don’t give new people major assignments
The reason
that decisions about people are the most important is that the right decisions
lead to happy and productive workers; not just the one that the decision was
about but also the ones that that person interacts with. Putting a person in
the wrong position soon becomes obvious to other workers. Everyone is unhappy
and the boss is blamed. If you put the wrong person in a subordinate management
position then that manager’s entire group will suffer and blame both you and
the subordinate manager.
Sometimes the
right person just isn’t available for a management position and you will be
forced to install an acting manager that isn’t wholly prepared for the job by
experience and training. It then becomes your responsibility to make it clear
to the group that the acting manager has agreed to help you by filling in until
you can recruit a permanent manager. Ask the group to help both you and the
acting manager during this period. People will tolerate less than ideal
situations if the reasons are made clear to them and if they are asked to help.
You must be prepared to help
the acting manager with difficult problems and you must make it clear to the
acting manager what his or her position will be when the permanent person is in
place. If possible there should be some reward for the acting manager stepping
up. Often an acting manager blossoms with the opportunity and demonstrates that
they do have what it takes to manage the group. Basically, the rule here is
being as fair as possible to the group and the acting manager but not accepting
a less than fully qualified person for the permanent position.
An important consideration in
matching a person to a job is thinking about what success in that job means to
the person. Let me give a specific example that I have seen done well and
poorly. There are times in competitive enterprises when it becomes necessary to
assign a person or persons to gathering information about competitors. The
obvious candidates are personnel in the sales or marketing department. Giving
the job to senior personnel almost ensures that a poor job will be done. Giving
the job to junior personnel has a much higher probability of success. How can
that be you ask? The reason is that the
primary job of the senior people is maintaining and, if possible, growing
sales. This is what they do and what they get rewarded for. If sales fall then
it is the senior people that are likely to be blamed and they will get little
recognition for doing a good job of researching the competition. They
understand this and therefore don’t put much effort into researching the
completion.
On the other hand junior
personal aren’t expected to make major sales and are more likely to be
recognized if they do a good job of researching the completion. I witnessed a
situation where a naïve vice president assigned the researching competition
task to his senior people and they completely ignored the task. This is clearly
a case illustrating the third principle listed above. I also witnessed a
situation in which a company president gave the same task to two young and
inexperienced marketing personnel. They took the assignment seriously and
gathered an amazing amount of critical information on a key competitor for a
major contract; contributing significantly to our company’s winning the
contract.
Defining assignments for new
personnel is especially challenging. You feel obligated to give them an
assignment that fits their background, your needs and is going to be viewed
positively by the new employee. This can lead to giving new people with
experience major assignments to start with. This is a mistake. The new person
isn’t familiar with your organization. They don’t know who to go to in order to
get things done or even find information. They become frustrated and take far
too long to complete the assignment. New people with experience need a
transition job that enables them to learn the new organization and new culture.
Organization charts alone never
define completely how work gets done in an enterprise. There is always a system
within the system. In well managed
enterprises the difference between the written down system and the actual
system is small. In poorly managed or large and highly bureaucratic enterprises
there can be a big difference so that it can take some time to learn how to get
things done. This is the reason many large enterprises place experienced new
hires in staff positions for a year or two. This practice is wise for people
intended for leadership positions. Transition assignments typically aren’t as
critical for individual contributors even if they are highly experienced.
With the above as guidelines
let’s walk through the task of filling a vacant job. First, think through the
assignment to identify the skills, personality and experience needed. Positions
change with time and require different skills at different times. There are
many things to consider including the characteristics of co-workers, what
skills are required, what constitutes success and failure for the job and how
critical success is to the organization.
Also consider the degree of innovativeness the job requires. Fixing
problems with products/services that are in development has different
requirements from fixing problems with mature products/services. Out of the box
innovativeness is desirable for problems with products/services in development
and highly constrained innovativeness is required for problems with mature
products/services. Most people are innovative but they are innovative in
different ways. Some personality types are divergent innovators and fit the
needs for an out of the box innovator. Others are convergent innovators and
function well solving problems without disrupting a mature system.
Second, consider a number of
candidates potentially having the skills, personality and experience you have
identified as necessary for the job; at least three candidates if possible. Focus
on the strengths of candidates. Match strengths to requirements and forget
weaknesses; we all have them (except where a weakness rules a candidate out).
This is critically important. It is essential to focus on all of your staff
member’s strengths rather than their weaknesses. Tom Rath says on page 12 of
his book Strengths Finder 2.0, that
the Gallup organization’s research shows that:
“If your manager primarily: The
chances of your being actively disengaged are:
Ignores you 40%
Focuses on
your weaknesses 22%
Focuses on
your strengths 1%”
He also says that workers that
are not using their strengths in their job are six times less likely to be
engaged in their job.
If you are not sure of your own
or your worker’s strengths and weakness I strongly recommend that you use an
assessment tool like Myers-Briggs or Strengths Finder. Googling Myers-Briggs
provides a number of sources for personality assessment and www.strengthsfinder.com
provides an alternative to Myers-Briggs.
Discuss the candidates with
people who have worked with them to validate your perception of the candidates
fit to the requirements and to identify considerations you have missed. Discuss
the job with the candidates to ensure they are interested and their reactions
fit your expectations. It’s usually a good idea to ask the candidates how they
will approach the new job if selected.
Third, make your decision and
make sure the selected person understands the new assignment. (E.g. check that
the selected person isn’t redoing the job held prior to the new assignment.)
Finally, be prepared for your
choice to fail. Remember, if this happens it’s your fault not the candidate’s
fault. If two people fail in a row, change the job.
(See p128 of The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker, for further discussion of matching people to jobs.)
Exercise
1.
Recall the last job assignment you made. Think through
the steps you took. Did you take the time to think through the needs of the
assignment? Did you consider at least three candidates? Did you discuss these
candidates with others to check your perceptions? Did you fully explain the new
assignment to the selected candidate? Did you monitor the work to ensure the
selectee stayed on track? If you are
following these steps you are being effective at matching people to jobs. If
not then consider if you need to modify your action plan or just your approach
to matching people to jobs.
2.
Think about the candidates you have in mind for succeeding
you. Did anything you learned in this lecture apply to preparing the candidates
for your job? Do you need to adjust your mentoring plan for the candidates?
If you find that the pace of blog posts
isn’t compatible with the pace you would
like to maintain in studying this material you can buy the book “The Manager’s Guide for Effective
Leadership” at:
or hard copy or for nook at:
or hard copy or E-book at:
Searching for job opportunities in Alabama, Tennessee, Windsor and London, Ontario? To find a variety of jobs, visit The Job Shoppe.
ReplyDelete