Managing People in The Business World by Dr Ram Lakhan Prasad - HTML preview

What Do You Feel About Your Work?

There were times in my work life as an administrator when I too had certain feelings about my work. These could be translated as my attitude, my opinions, my ideas, my expressions or my comments that contributed to my effectiveness, efficiency or otherwise in working with people. 

There were a few moments when I

• Felt like being absolutely responsible for productivity at my work station but there were other times when I did not care much but just rolled along with colleagues.
• Felt like communicating with my people but there were times when I did not want to talk to anyone.
• Provided coaching, motivational advice and some suggestions to people when performance problems arose among the workers.
• Gave praise freely when it was earned by my workers but there were other times I totally neglected this important performance appraisal responsibility.
• I was intimidated by what my workers and superiors really thought about me but other times I did not care about it at all.
• Sought new ideas and innovations and used them whenever possible but often this vital duties was overlooked and maybe neglected.
• Respected and honoured the knowledge, skills, talents and strengths of the people who worked for and with me but sometimes these could not be promoted.
• Followed up with precision to be certain that commitments, goals and standards were being met by everyone but when I did not I felt somewhat guilty.
• Was sensitive to the needs and feelings of my colleagues and other workers but there were moments that this managerial responsibility was neglected.
• Was not worried or used the knowledge and good information of the employees who knew more about things than I did.

When the computer technology came about and many of my employees could not keep pace with the revolution and technological changes, I woke up to my responsibility and organised appropriate training and development courses for them. However, when I found out that there were ill-prepared employees who had limited ability to use the equipment I either transferred them to do other duties or terminated their services.

One of my other managers had different idea about the situation. She prompted the employees to get more involved with the modern equipments. Thus learning became the top priority and she created a supportive environment with good with good trainers, training needs analysis and training materials and tried to make those employees gain competence in whatever field they were good at. I now feel guilty that I was not able to support her when she set up an extra weekend or after hours retreat or one on one teaching and learning environment. When she was successful in retraining the workers and reforming them to the needs and wants of the organisation I got totally behind her and produced results that brought excellent results, productivity and profitability to the organisation. I learnt a lot from my non co-operative attitude.

Therefore, I felt I was a smart manager who made my mistakes worthwhile by being magnanimous enough to first admit them, then strong enough to correct them and maybe intelligent enough to profit from the process.