Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8A
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Sunday, Fobruary 1,1898
Executive managers get failing marks in ‘people skills’
-Today’s hottest executives
seem to be, at least according to
published job requirements, man
agers who are “coaches, with
1 strong skills in motivating oth
ers,” and are “team players” suc
cessfully juggling participation
on both functional and cross
{ functional work teams. Their
value to their companies as com
petent producers and bottom-line
wizards is a given. What really
sets them apart from the rest of
the pack is their ability to coach,
motivate, and breathe life into a
work force that otherwise would
be demoralized, fragmented and
living a life of quiet desperation.
Kind of makes you think that
we have suddenly developed a
crop of warm, friendly managers
who like nothing more than
developing and grooming their
subordinates to bring them along
to the next phase of their careers,
doesn’t it?
Not so, says a group of people
encircling these Executive
Managers. An analysis of merged
data from Lominger’s VOICESO
360° feedback from 6,000 raters
identifies the following as the
bottom-rated skills of today’s
Executive Managers: motivating
others, developing others, pick
ing the right people to get things
done, celebrating success and
i sharing credit, negotiating deals,
communicating skillfully and
, being a team player.
Corporate America may think
they have a cadre of people-moti
vating managers impacting the
work force, but, at least accord
ing to those people with whom
they interact on a regular basis,
their “people skills” leave a lot to
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be desired. In fact, while they
may be salivating at the thought
of closing the sale, balancing the
books, or getting things done for
customers, the data clearly sug
gest that Executive Managers
could benefit a lot from learning
how to manage and coach their
own employees.
This gap in desired and actual
competencies is not very unusu
al. In fact, according to Dr. Mary
Michaels of Drake Beam Morin,
a New York-based career man
agement consulting firm, “Most
organizations today recognize the
need to develop competencies
critical for the future success of
the organization. However, few
provide the structure, systems
and processes-in-place to support
and measure true development.
Just because someone is an
excellent manager does not nec
essarily mean they know how to
develop their people. This needs
to be learned.”
So what do you do if you sus
pect that you have some skills
that need improving? And who
do you get to help you?
When casting around for a
career coach, one of the prob
lems may be that there are more
people in need of development
plans than there are Human
Resource professionals available
and willing to help create them.
Drake Beam Morin is working
to fill this “training gap” via a
new “Developing Strategic
Competencies” program, sup
ported by LEADERSHIP
ARCHITECT® tools developed
by Lominger Limited. According
to Michaels, this process helps
employees identify and develop
competencies and prepares man
agers to be developmental coach
es. It includes modules such as:
changing business and career
realities, assess your competen
cies and values, analyzing your
alignment, create development
goals and action plans, plan on
the-job follow-through, career
stallers and stoppers and becom
ing a developmental coach
“While some think that cours
es and books are efficient ways
to develop competencies, others
insist that they can only be
learned from on-the-job experi
ences,” notes Michaels. “What
the research on development
actually indicates is that no one
experience or tactic is sufficient
by itself.”
According to research con
ducted by Lominger, develop
ment is most likely to occur
when you combine a real under
standing of the competency and
a motivation to develop it with
“stretch” experiences putting
yourself in new and demanding
situations plus seeking out
appropriate role models, getting
feedback, analyzing your suc
cesses or mistakes, and attending
courses or reading relevant
books.
Some of the best tips and sug-
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"""business"
gestions, according to Michaels,
are things that can be done
immediately to generate quick
results, such as:
• Give feedback on a regular
basis, not only during annual
reviews
• Integrate a review of growth
in competence during appraisals
and spend as much or more time
on a discussion of development
as in evaluating last year’s per
formance
• Remember that positive rein
forcement is still the best method
of changing or sustaining behav
ior
“Whether you are an executive
manager with a lifetime of expe
rience or a fast-track Generation
Xer, enhancing your people
development skills can have an
extremely positive impact on
your career,” concludes
Michaels. “I’m always quick to
advise clients that they don’t
want to get caught thinking that
an employee with a paycheck is
automatically a motivated
employee.” (ARA)
For further information call
Jennifer Schaefer at (513) 985-
9038.
Courtesy of Article Resource
Association; www. aracopy. com;
e-mail: info@aracopy.com
WEB from 7A
Such self-sufficiency also
pleases Linda Peterson, who
manages a web site for the
Hazelden Foundation, a chemical
dependency counseling center in
Minneapolis. “When we started
out, we just wanted a web pres
ence, and we found that the site
we set up was much more limit
ing than we wanted it to be,” she
explains. “It was harder than we
expected to add new material; we
couldn’t work with it freely.”
Enter CIS. Working with
Peterson, Arndt and his crew
refined Hazelden’s web presence
to give Peterson full control. She
can easily access the site and add
and edit, all while remaining a
self-proclaimed “non-computer
person.”
Self-sufficiency is precisely
what Arndt has in mind. “The
highest costs involved [in web
sites] are not design and develop
ment, but maintenance. When
clients control the database and
the ongoing maintenance them
selves, it keeps their costs way
down.”
All of which fits perfectly with
ClS’s tenet that content is king.
After all, while graphics are eye-
catching and entertaining, the
content and service offered by>a
web site is the ultimate determi
nant of its success.
Luckily, companies don’t have
to choose form over function, or
vice versa. CIS frequently works
in conjunction with creative/mar
keting departments to develop
database management systems
for state-of-the art web sites.
“We working more and more
with ad agencies,” Arndt says. “A
lot of what we do fits well with
what they are doing. There’s not
a lot of overlap.”
In our information driven soci
ety, this is good news for busi
nesses and web surfers alike.
And, the options are just getting
better, according to Arndt. “The
biggest change in recent months
are improvements in the way we
can do things,” he notes. “The
tools we use have gotten better,
more efficient. Server software,
for example. Also, [the public’s]
approach has changed. People
are treating the Internet more as.a
legitimate software development
platform.”
Courtesy of Article Resource
Association, www.aracopy.com.