Understanding your Team and making them perform better
[Submitted by CA. Divya Balasubramanian,
Chartered Accountant,
Gurgaon, Haryana]
May 25, 2010
After being an employee for over 3.5 years, I have recently turned tables and can understand my managers much better. Further after a rather insightful discussion with entrepreneurs and managers I feel the main progeny of problems is people management, I decided to pen my thoughts on the same.
I can now relate better with the plethora of tedious tasks such as planning, decisions, cohesive teamwork and most importantly handling employees and understanding their subtle nuances in behaviour. The key aspect to being an Entrepreneur is managing matter and more importantly managing people.
In this article I am focussing on the importance of team and employees.
The first thing is to understand critically is the difference between things and people. People are not just resources they are” Human Beings”. It’s these people who form a team and make anything and everything a success.
Being a CA, a derived equation for the same would be Things < People as Things * people= Tangible Results.
A lot of managers pride themselves on their open door role with their team and all the other ways they signal to employees that their inputs are welcome. Managers probably believe that they’re actually hearing what’s on most people’s minds — after all, people speak up in meetings, chat with you in the hall, and copy you on e-mails. Well, you’re not hearing as much as you think or as much as you need to.
Personally I am not a stickler for jargons and guideline; thankfully there surely is no one way to cogently work toward a goal.
As per a survey by James R. Detert, Ethan R. Burris, and David A. Harrison at Harvard Business Review there are few myths that common managers believe and follow about understanding employees:
- Women and nonprofessional employees withhold more information than men and professional staffers because they are more concerned about consequences or more likely to see speaking up as futile.
- If my employees are talking openly to me, they’re not holding back.
- If employees aren’t speaking up, it’s because they don’t feel safe doing so, despite all my efforts.
- The only issues employees are scared to raise involve serious allegations about illegal or unethical activities.
As a fact most people withhold feedback on routine problems and opportunities for improvement to avoid wasting their time, not because they fear consequences.
Honest feedback is not the solution to employee satisfaction. Make people involved. Don’t ask for suggestion for making the change. Tell people to be a part of the change.
Finally as entrepreneurs the key to the change is simple “BE REALISTIC”. Don’t agree to impossible deadline and scrunch up people. Remember the job and deliverables are the Client’s only interest but the quality and credibility is yours. Make people work with you and not make them feel they work for you. Delegation is not the only solution that a Manager has. Its takes efforts to roll up those sleeves and getting things done. Always the end is not the only destination. At times the process is more important. People matter. Understanding this fact is worth a lifetime’s yield. Invest in them, coach them; it’s a small price for a lifelong solution.
