March 17, 2:10 pm
Got Team Building? Managers – It Really Works
I don’t know why it doesn’t surprise me – but an article today at Management-Issues highlights research from the Hay Group that 40 percent of managers actually sap the will to work out of their employees. It makes me want to tap some of these managers on the head and say “Hey – team building works because of the team factor, not because you say it should.”
This ties right in to my belief that training managers to think like managers needs to be a higher priority in most companies.
Apparently, quite a few managers still perceive they need to be a bully, a boss, or an overlord. Problem: Quite the contrary is true. Perhaps it might help if we looked closer at a few key words. Consider “administrating,” a word derived from the Latin administratio — a compounding of “ad” (to) and “ministratio” (give service).
An administrator, therefore, is someone who is there “to give service,” not to bully or boss others around.
And the term “manager” comes from the Italian word maneggiare (to handle – especially a horse). When you think about handling horses, yes, one needs to show firmness, but also a lot of caring, understanding, and respect. Paying attention to a horse’s needs and seeing things from the horse’s point of view are key to great horse-handling.
Managers – can you believe 40 percent of you are making life miserable for your workers? As the Management-Issues piece points out, the financial cost of doing this is staggering!
I really like what Chris Watkin, UK head of talent management at Hay, says about the survey results: “The message for managers would seem to be: Teams respond better to support than to coercion.”
Filed in Training, Motivation, Management, Team Building, Workplace, Corporate Culture
We have a large public sector in the UK (although getting smaller!) where promotion “into management roles” doesn’t necessarily correlate with management skills. Combined with being constantly imposed targets to achieve- often from Central Government - the bully seems to rise to the top.
David,
I have to concur — and the REAL question probably needs to be “what can we do to break the cycle?”
And most certainly, getting moved to a different level in an organization certainly requires a different level of thinking, but as you point out, that requirement is overlooked way too often.
- Dan
Great post, really enjoyed reading it, thankyou!