I had a subject during my Master's on Personality Development. Needless to say the course began with the definition of Personality, Various forms of communication, How to write Official / Business emails etc., Later when I joined my first job and during my interactions with my friends who are now managers, it dawned unto me that precious six months were wasted studying just theory! We had a wonderful opportunity to experiment and to learn various things. Alas! no wonder Industry always complains about the Curriculum and Karam (work) Gap.
What have Tongue, Feet and Fingers got in common? They all have set of ridges. They are located at various positions. They all serve a Body. The best part is, all these ridges are unique, they do not match with anyone in this world. If you draw parallels, all of us who join an Organisation and share its vision to excel, are very different, in a special way. Our journeys, philosophies, experiences could be different and shape us in to an 'individual' that we are. We have our own Strengths and weaknesses. Having said that, When we join a company, we are joining a team. We are joining a company with a Mission and Vision. Which means a target is already set. You achieve it by playing to your strengths or minimizing your weaknesses and most importantly by being part of your team.
How do we know which strengths to use? To make your job easy, companies usually assign a set of competencies for each job. If you were to succeed in that job, you'll have to tune your strengths accordingly. Now, Managers have to think three fold with the given understanding that, they are done without emotional and personal bias towards self or any particular team member:
- About their own competencies
- About guiding their team members to align to team's targets whenever required
- About team members' areas of improvement and how it may effect team's performance
There are various tools available to assess one's Strengths or Personality - MBTI, DISC, Strengths Finder 2.0, Enneagram, Gabriel Institute Role Based Assessment etc.,
When you've identified strengths see if a common theme emerges and how you can nurture those strengths. Now, the tricky part of working on Areas of improvement. Unfortunately, there is one resource which is infinite in nature but never so particularly in Business context. While it is relatively easy to focus on your strengths, it takes conscious effort and hard work to overcome weaknesses. For working on Areas of improvement, Manager needs to have a high level view of the Business road map and team's weaknesses.
The nature of Business is extremely volatile and one should be agile enough to align with changing Business needs. So, according to me, it is a time consuming process to work on each team member's individual Areas of Improvement. Instead work on their strengths. Provide, timely, constructive, Formal / Informal feedback for weaknesses and provide all the support required by them to overcome them. Employees tend to get motivated to receive prompt feedback. It is like someone challenging you and then providing a chance to improve and work on it. Let each individual overcome their weaknesses through your guidance. All of us have weaknesses, so a Manager should focus on identifying team's common weak links and work on improving them.
For example, you get a new Project or identified an area to improve a process. Ask each of your team members, what do you think is a weakness of the team? Identify and freeze solutions. Ask your second in command to lead the project and you could be the Mentor for the team. If the Lead makes a mistake correct them. Ensure your work reflects the vision of the company and fits the bill.
In the end, Strengths and Weaknesses are like Yin and Yan. A Manager needs to work on Team members' individual strengths and Teams' collective weakness and vice versa.
Image credits: stocksnap.io
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