Project Management (Creating new Products or Services) 2 страница

Giving clear instructions about what you expect is your first task as a manager/coach. It is also important to realise and accept that this stage usually produces a DROP in new staff motivation because that’s when they come face to face with the reality of the new job. At this stage, you should become a HELPER, coaching new staff to prove their strength to gain new confidence and skills as well as to form new ambitions.

Finally, as new staff get control of their jobs and you then become an advisor or counselor to be consulted they need you.

If an employee Experiences Failure, ask him/her the Following Questions in Sequencially.

1 At what point during the task did your approach cause failure, and are you personally responsible for the failure.

2 Can you pinpoint why your approach failed?

3 Would it help to follow the same approach again with improvements? If the reply is yes, then analyse what went wrong, when and how something went wrong. You together with the staff member can and should be able to devise a series of improvements to avoid failure again.

However, if the reply is NO ask yourself the following questions.

1 How did you plan the task; 2. What wrong decisions did you make; 3 What must you do differently next time; then design a new programme to correct the defects if necessary.

EVALUATING TYPES OF STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

Training type or Coaching Style	Benefits and Reinforcements
Technical: In-house specific training on the job during working hours by specialist instructors or supervisors	a) Develops high quality performance of tasks b) Must be repeated at regular intervals c) Is best coupled with certificate awards.
Quality: Total Quality Principles specialist instructors with technical tools required for improvement need by particular staff.	a) Provides “quick fixes” for immediate and longer-term organisation-wide benefits b) Instills a philosophy of continuous practical improvement c) Must be company sustained indefinitely.
Skills:Financial accounting, creative thinking, IT, public speaking, writing presentations, chairing meetings, interviewing, selling etc can be trained in-house or out-resourced	a) All employees benefit from a general multi-skilled grounding. b) Nervousness about using skills is cured c) Opportunities for practice are needed to build and maintain effectiveness.
Professional: Full-time or part time education to obtain qualifications e.g. in accountancy, law, banking, engineering.	a) Provides valuable portable skills to the worker as well as to the employer b) Specialisation helps to grow in-company appointees for future to senior jobs. c) Requires effort over a considerable period.
Functional: Education/training in marketing, planning, sales-management, purchasing, human resources-management, external training but not usually full time.	a) Functional training always leads to better performance and improved career paths, b) Must be linked to appointment to functional roles in the company.
Activity: “Outward Bound” leadership and teamwork type courses engaging in physical tasks such as rock climbing	a) Provides effective means of team-bonding and re-energising the workforce. b) Must be supplemented and coordinated with more direct management training
Managerial: Providing expertise, skills and knowledge in strategy, change-management with a business-school focus done internally or externally.	a) Provides identity, works on real corporate problem solutions. b) Is invaluable grounded-learning relevant to the job. 31.

Advice to Managers

1 If mistakes are made, you should ask yourself if you played any part in the development of mistakes.

2 Use your years of work experience and knowledge to steer junior staff members along the most appropriate career paths.

3 Find a wise mentor for every junior staff who will suggest ways to avoid solve problems.

4 You should encourage employees to suggest ways of solving the problem.

Teaching by Example

As the boss of a group you should be the role model - the person who sets the standard of behaviour in your company. You should create the right atmosphere for successful teamwork and use examples to teach and encourage good practice in your organisation, because employees copy the behaviour of the manager.

It is therefore very important that you as manager you should not fall below the standards that you set yourself, nor should you behave disparagingly to members of your staff who fall short of the set standards. Behave consistently at all times because your behaviour is part of the company communication process.

Tips for the Manager

1 Give examples and show how things are done instead of giving orders and instructions.

2 Use opportunities to lead from the front and to set good examples.

3 Bring in outside expert for staff training and development as often as possible.

4 Action learning (doing the job) to learn new skills is more effective than reading books.

There are ten characteristic qualities of leaders that are admired and respected in organizations.

They are: supportiveness, competence, charisma, fairness,broad-mindedness, intelligence, courage, directness, honesty and vision.

Understanding Cultural Differences in Modern Global World 37.

The emphasis placed on teaching and learning about different cultures varies from country to country. The Japanese place great importance on action learning, Germans tend to be more formal expecting their staff to follow instructions, Americans are taught about business management and will often adopt “ empowerment ” methods that are later neglected, British managers are likely to regard skills as natural untaught assets.

However, because the world has become a global village and business is now a global activity, learning and knowing about customer culture is very important for business success,

Nurturing Staff Talent 38.

Identifying and nurturing individual talent is one of the most satisfying and productive aspects of a progressive manager’s work. Finding good staff is only part of a manager’s task, but talented staff can be very difficult to retain or manage in an organisation because they are marketable.

You should look out for signs of staff abilities that are not being fully used and find ways in which such talented individuals can contribute more effectively in your company, because the more talented successful individuals are under-employed, the more likely that they will leave your company for better challenges elsewhere.

You should always have an answer to question ‘ What will I do when John or Sergey leaves your company ”? This preparedness will create opportunities to recognise the importance of every employee so that replacements are available. You must maintain a regularly up-dated replacement staff folder to reward someone with promotion every time you lose talented staff.

To Achieve the above Always ask Yourself the Following Questions about Your Staff.

1 Could other staff develop special expertise if any of my key staff members leaves?

2 Can any of my staff develop and combine new talents such as research and management?

3 Do any if my staff show signs of organisational ability in different areas of work?

4 Are my staff successful at bringing in new business and talent to the company?

5 Has any of my staff shown abilities to lead others?

6 a) Do any of my staff have personal qualities of drive and perseverance?

b) Do any of my staff have the ability to form relationships and to communicate effectively?

c) Are there energies and strong needs and motives that you cannot meet?

d) Is there continuous willingness in my staff to learn and develop in their work?

f) Do I have the ability to identify, recognise and reward individual talent?

g) Do I set targets, coach, give feedback and praise staff for good performance?

h) Do I reward incentives publicly as well as publicly recognise achievements?

i) Do I invest in staff personal growth and development training?

j) Does development of talent depend on input from both the organisation and the individual?

k) Am I able to identify difficult, demanding, and disrespectful and deal with them effectively.

l) Do I concentrate mainly on staff’s contributions and not on their personalities?

m) Do I know that sometimes difficult staff members are the most productive staff members?

Advice for managers

1 Promote talented individuals even if they are excelling in their current job.

2 Speak out if you believe someone is being moved to the wrong job.

3 Unorthodox appearances sometimes accompany willingness to achieve and talent.

4 Your staff can have abilities that go beyond their present roles which can take them upwards in the organisation and perhaps into middle management levels.

5 If someone has mastered a particular job that is a good reasons for supporting their promotion into a senior position.

6 Always remember that staff abilities are likely to be under estimated in many organisations.

Therefore:

1 Look out for staff with enthusiasm, commitment teamwork spirit etc and promote them.

2 Encourage staff to apply for any internal senior openings in the organisation.

3 Promote within the company in the first and replace staff with outsiders as the last resort.

6 Allow aspiring staff to demonstrate ability to manage several tasks within the organisation.

7 Train staff to take over duties with higher responsibilities whenever that is necessary.

8 Make a list of good co-workers and keep it as a future reference resource.

Motivating your Staff

Giving and receiving orders is less motivating for staff than taking part in the planning and decision making. It is very important that you share company strategy with your staff telling them of their part in achieving the company strategy. Take the trouble to improve staff’s understanding of the company strategy and to win their approval because, staff approval will have high positive effect on the implementation of the strategy. Never forget that employees will invest their lives and financial security in your company. Enable your staff to achieve their ambitions and to manage themselves in order to achieve company goals.

Use Some of the Following Motivating Factors and Actions: 42

TYPE OF FACTOR TO INFLUENCE	TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTION
To achieve Self-Fulfillment	Enable employees to accept & take challenges
To achieve Recognition	Tell employees how well they are doing.
To gain Peer Respect	Celebrate the individuals success publicly.
To widen Expertise	Encourage development of special knowledge
To increase Competence	Provide Training to develop skills.
For continuous High Achievement	Agree on targets that are achievable.
For developing Staff Autonomy	Allow employees to plan and design their own work
For developing Self-Confidence	Make sure allocated tasks can be done well
For developing Self-Interest	Increase individuals’ regard for “themselves”
To developIn-Company Companionship	Ensure there is an employees’ club.

Advice for managers

1 Use strategic thinking of all your staff by involving them where possible in the formulation of plans and implementation of your company strategy.

2 Let staff to make suggestions and take decisions that are suitable about the strategic plans.

3 Allocate tasks with “ feel good ” factor about the organisation and its management structure.

4 Define and discus staff individual job requirements so that employees can fulfill their tasks.

5 a) Individual employees should be able to understand and describe their own tasks.

b) Employees should be able to define behaviours that are required to perform their tasks well.

c) Managers and employees should j ointly define challenging performance goals.

d) Employees should understand the importance of achieving the goals of the strategic plan.

Improving Company Performance

All improvement programmes run out of steam unless you make conscious efforts to review and support staff in their work. Improvements come from repetitions; and greater gains come from focused strategic planning, implementation and staff development and training.

Total Quality Management (TQM) was built around the idea that individual employees can always improve their work by learning new techniques and applying them to their work.

In TQM workshops staff must learn to master techniques such as the “ Six Management and Planning Tools ” required to resolve issues.

These are:

1 To describe what is (going wrong) and not working;

2 To collect and analyse facts on the issues that are not working (going wrong);

3 Ability to decide, plan and implement solutions;

4 To confirm that solutions work;

5 To incorporate solutions into a refined process and

6 To re-examine the solution process and find any weaknesses in it.

Delegation(Handing Power Down the Management Line). 43.

For delegation to be effective, you must set out the agenda for particular tasks, decide on the powers you must keep, and select people whom you think will carry out the delegated duties.

The delegatees must have clearly defined roles that they helped to establish; they must choose their own working methods, make decisions and be responsible for meeting agreed goals.

The “ Six Management and Planning Tools ” to ensure quality products and services that every company should aim are:

1 You should aim to improve the quality of all company processes.

2 Your employees should focus on quality work that produces real customer benefits.

3 You should use training in TQM to increase employees’ general abilities.

4 You should concentrate on single initiatives at a time so as to avoid confusion.

5 Listen to all staff contributions and hear what they say, and ask for their improvements ideas.

6 Expect and encourage employees to continue achieving better company goals all the times.

7 Learning curve studies show that intensive development is followed by a “ leveling off ” stage.

8 Select new themes for training and development every year if that is appropriate.

Introduce Self-Management

The really good aspect about staff self-management is the concept of “ Getting it Right the first time ”. The more you allow staff personal responsibility is the more they will get things done right the first time, and the greater will be their interest for better and higher productivity because they will be inspired to maintain and produce only high quality first products. With high firsttimequality production inspired workers, you will NOT need quality inspectors and thus you will cut down on production costs and increase your bottom line.

Furthermore, “ Getting it Right First ” staff-work-attitude raises staff morale which is essential for maintaining TQM. High staff morale can enrich individual motivation and performance even in times of company crises because; individual objections and objectives are by-passed for the collective good of the company.

To instill the “ Getting it Right First ” staff-attitude and “ Raise staff Morale ” you need to ask yourself and positively answer the following questions.

1 Do I enable employees to take pride in the quality of their own work in my company?

2 Do I constantly look for ways to increase staff group morale with my employees?

3 Have I considered setting specialist group projects and tasks within my company?

4 Am I making the best use of a staff deployment policy and annual review findings?

5 Am I setting (smart) achievable, measurable, time limited objectives that motivate my staff?

If your answers to the above questions are “ Yes ”, then you a progressive modern manager, you should continue on the same lines. But, if your answer to the above questions is “ No ”, then you need to re-think your management methods, strategy and style to be able to answer the same questions with a “ Yes ” in future.

Advice for managers

To Get it Right First and Raise Staff Morale you should:

1 Make “ right first time ” the key strategy and aim for every member of staff team.

2 Expect all staff members to supervise and monitor the quality of their own performance.

3 Encourage implicit changing company-processes and a desire to move forward with times.

4 Ask questions to find out if every employee is aware of the team or company strategy.

5 Develop a company future vision with input and participation of the entire staff group.

6 Involve your entire staff group to devise and incorporate company slogan “ Getting it Right First time ” and (“ TQM ”) policy.

7 Increase the company’s “ Competitive Advantage ” by coining a lively vision statement.

7 Involve everyone in the corporate plan and vision to enrich jobs and increase motivation.

8 Use outsourcing strategies if necessary to reduce costs and increase profitability.

Together with your staff’s participation, establish a lively exciting corporate vision to develop extra associated improvements themes, to devise plans to realise company objectives and to regularly review plans and make necessary adjustments and additions.

You should be aware that neuroscience research shows that the slogans which people use in communicating with others shape peoples’ thinking and behaviour. Avoid using negative feeling causing phrases such as problem solving instead of this; you should use Can-Do phrases like finding solutions which excite adrenalin to find solutions. Create an invigorating atmosphere which is appreciated and valued by all your staff as an essential feel-good-factor of the organisation.

Advice to managers

1 Encourage the workforce to consider themselves a knit team as a football team.

2 An employee who feels neglected and excluded from the group is likely to be unmotivated.

3 If a group grows too large divide them into tow or more smaller cohesive groups.

4 Publicly celebrate the achievements of individual employees, staff groups in your company.

5 Initiate employees in one person “ Quality Improvements Projects ” (QIPs) if that is possible.

“ Closed Minds ” is syndrome called “ Not Invented Here ” (NIH) when employees disagree with any new ideas from outside the company or from other sections of the company. Be aware of the “ Closed minds ” syndrome and counteract it because its consequences are often expensive and disastrous for your company. 50.

You must welcome all ideas; accept those that are good to ensure the flow of new ideas. You must explain the reasons why any ideas are rejected because some ideas come from staff who act as your spies on any good practices spotted from your competitors.

Advice for managers

1 Clearly emhasise to your staff that new ideas will only be rejected after due consideration.

2 Ensure that creative contributions should be discussed and decided only in staff meetings.

3 Always insist that opportunities are seized after risks have been fully assessed.

4 Stress that not taking risks is worse than taking risks and is due to lack of self-confidence.

Create a staff open-mind set by following these steps:

a) Establish special creative projects to encourage initiative; b) Build a non-managerial effective staff team; c) Insist that such new initiatives are recognised throughout the company; e) and openly celebrate positive creative efforts.

Dealing with Staff Conflict in your Organisation

Conflict will always arise when several people work together. If you are faced with conflict, adopt a positive rational approach to defuse any heightened emotions; and then look for a resolution based on pragmatism and compromise. You cannot avoid dealing with staff conflict as a manager.

Guilt and anxiety are common negative emotions that you must manage very carefully. Even if you believe that one staffs’ position is correct, you should be prepared to consider the other point of view and then go for a compromise solution.

When Conflicts Arise ask Yourself the Following Questions.

1 What is exactly the problem; where does it lie and what has caused it now?

2 What are the potential alternative solutions to the problem?

3 Which is the best solution out of all the alternatives?

4 How is the chosen solution to be implemented?

5 Do I provide an environment where disagreeing employees can openly voice their opinions, and then work towards solutions?

6 Can resolutions to general conflicts come from frank airing of grievances?

7 Do I give myself enough time to consider the above questions before making my decision?

Advice for managers

1 Remember that you are concerned with the behaviour not the character of the person.

2 Carefully analyse presented problems as they arise and start by resolving them in your mind.

3 If anger or animosity persists ask a close colleague to help you to defuse the situation.

4 By addressing the reasons and emotions first you can help staff reach a compromise.

5 Avoid demonising trade unions or any one person and deal with issues on their merit.

6 Demonstrate your people management skills so that they are accepted by your staff.

7 Never give into black-mail or demands that are unreasonable, always seek compromise.

Managing the Change Process, Work Patterns and Culture in Organisations. 58.

The modern business environment changes so fast because of advances in technology therefore every business organisation manager must constantly cope and accept change as normal before the INVISIBLE HAND OF CHANGE itself changes the whole organisational environment in the way it wants.

Many managers often focus on the mechanics of change concentrating on ensuring that plans are followed. Change in business management refers to life-transitions in the manner in which companies conduct their daily business activities. Change refers to the evolving ethos and culture of management style and work patterns that must evolve with changing times.

Nowadays you always need to improve patterns of working and employ new ideas and technology. NB. Changing business working-patterns is not for weak managers, it is for bold managers who realise that old patterns die hard, and that if their organisation is to survive in the modern competitive market old patterns and work-behaviours must evolve and change.

Organisational change can only be greatly assisted by you, showing concern for your staff anxieties, coupled with your strong interest in their welfare and future wellbeing. Also remember that appropriate Change will only happen with the cooperation of your staff; therefore staff must understand why change is necessary for the company’s survival. This means that, you the manager must inform them fully and effectively communicate the need for change in habits, culture and work-patterns of your employees.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16