|
|
|
|||||
|
specialists in enhancement and management of human performance |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
Watching the success and failure of many businesses played out on myriad TV stock-watch channels, the value of knowledge becomes eminently clear. People who have acquired the skills of MBA either on the rough streets or within ivied walls have a distinct advantage over the masses of suits. While their high price tags may be argued, it's no doubt these people have taken the opportunity to "practice" business. They have expended time and energy to actually study the complexities of market, product, manufacturing, distribution, accounting, loss and profit as sciences. They have turned their back on seat-of-the-pants and what passes for common sense observation in favor of objective analyses of real commerce events. Make no mistake. These folk are business geeks. They are more serious than a network engineer with a server crash. And most earn their comp package, at least by hours of effort. However, there's something missing from those MBA's. Something that if you knew, the knowing would notch up your career at least a quantum. I like to call it an MPPA -- Masters in Person Performance Administration. People skills, again?! Yes. I'd venture to guess the vast majority of managers across all business strata still rank their skills in this area as superior. After all, many have been practicing for three to six decades. Let me submit to you that they have really just been "doing" people skills, often with very little study or practice. They've got a BA in this area, not a Masters. Here's an illustration of the difference. Tom Swanson is an average guy with a rather unique occupation. Tom is a professional driver. No longer a racer, now he trains speedsters, bodyguard chauffeurs and highway patrols. He started driving like most of us -- on his dad's lap twisting the wheel. At age sixteen, he gained his freedom with his License. Had it not been for his love of automobiling, he'd be like us now -- adequate in common roadway circumstances and probably believing he's a bit more capable than the other 90% of "idiots in the way". But Tom is a pro. And he didn't get that way by common sense or mere years of experience. No doubt he has a knack, yet more to the point, he studied. He practiced. He tested himself. He learned how autos are engineered. How tires roll on different surfaces in varied conditions-rain, snow, sand, fire and brimstone. He understands vectors of steering resistance. Most of all, Tom knows and respects what 3,000 pounds of mass moving at a velocity of 60-180 mph can do. On any given street in the world, he sees a different road than the rest of us drivers. He hears and feels an automobile differently. And he has a bunch more options to get himself from point A to point B, quickly, safely and elegantly in any and all conditions. But you or I might not notice all this sitting shotgun next to him on Any Avenue USA. At least not until the road detoured, the speed limits were obliterated, a 1000 other motorists merged, and the weather changed. I suggest handling people's performance (including your own) is a bit like driving. If you are a manager, executive or account rep, you've got a license. You probably have been getting around okay, rarely lost and seldom involved in personnel crashes. My friends, the road is changing. Margins are narrowing, information speed limits are gone, and it's hailing dotcoms and e-commerce. Meanwhile there is a shareholder or customer with a radar gun behind every water cooler. It's time for you to be a pro. It's time for an MPPA. Here's some pre-course work. First, realize that this area of business skills is the most challenging. Simply because these are performance skills. During a performance an audience will not interrupt the performer and tell them to change or start over. The same holds true in sales, press releases, job interviews, staff quarterly reviews and team meetings. In performance skills, immediate feedback is rare. Customers and prospects will not tell an account representative "Stop, you're doing it wrong!" They simply will not buy or continue to do business with the company. Subordinates rarely challenge management style at the moment of inappropriateness, rather their dissatisfaction shows up in poor department results, low morale and resignations. Second, surrender to the fact that people are endlessly complex. Start dealing with people as human beings rather than as "staff" or "intellectual capital" or "markets". This requires much more than an MBA or years of 'common sense' experience. (I find that someone who says they have 15 years experience in managing personnel usually only has one year's experience that has been repeating over and over for the last 14.) Third, investigate teaching, training, and coaching in skills and techniques that allow you to become extremely adept (a master) at performance--producing results with and through other human beings. You could start with some of the latest in rapport and staff coaching. Finally try on this belief for a week. Ultimately, in business, when you strip away all the accounting, the supplies, the vision meetings, the computers, copiers, bandwidth, the products, the contracts, the endless strategic analyses and financial reports. At the bottom you find the sole, single, quintessential challenge: How do you get this complex, ever-changing, whimsical, demanding, cantankerous, idiosyncratic, enigmatic organism--a human being--to do what you want it to do? Get down here at the base, helping your staff and company deal with that question specifically and profoundly. It just might be your executive edge. (NOTE: Allies Consulting offers a menu of programs that can help you become masterful at your performance skills, or your staff to do so. They will meet or exceed your expectations: they are designed to deliver real results. They also leverage our other programs, magnifying your ROI!)
|
POBox 9635