beyond what they are currently doing. This is invaluable in today’s
marketplace with exponential changes in technology and
globalization providing cheaper, more skilled workers half the
world away. Alternatives for getting results are increasingly
feasible. Growing your human assets gives your associates and
your organization negotiating power. Automation was the threat to
business in the last century. Now, unskilled labor is the threat.
Peter Drucker once commented that illiterate no longer meant not
being able to read, but meant not reading. This equates with
skilled employees today. Unskilled doesn’t mean your staff is
uneducated; it means they aren’t getting the results you require.
Managing by coaching, mentoring and counseling brings those
skills to the forefront fast.A Story About Managing ...................................................................................
A manager set up a team to look at the way the department
responded to customer requests and complaints. The team
consisted of employees involved in various functions of customer
service. The manager studied the way his team worked and
decided that the average time to handle customer calls could be
reduced from 72 to 24 hours by eliminating certain steps. At the
first team meeting, he outlined the purpose and goal of the team,
then presented his findings and asked the team to come up with a
plan to reduce the turnaround time on requests and complaints.
The team responded by saying, “What do you need us for? It
looks like you’ve done it all yourself.”
Managing results is about getting commitment, everyone’s
commitment. Involving people at the end of a process isn’t going
to impact much on buy-in. In order to manage continued job
performance, get the team involved fast and often. The extent of
their contribution might rest on their experience and insight, which
you can develop and facilitate. Start fast, do always and you are
managing in a StaffCoaching™ way. To get to commitment, flex
your approach in contributing, collaborating, communicating and
challenging within each of the roles of the StaffCoach™.Coaching, Mentoring and Managing7