The Right Man for the Job
Posted: July 29, 2009 | Amanda Fildes
The other day I was talking to a colleague and friend of mine who was lamenting about one of his team members being ineffective when dealing with the customers. He complained the team member, let’s call him Chris, wasn’t responsive enough, didn’t convey confidence when communicating to clients, and caused several of the customers to call the business owner anyway to follow up their needs. Despite having been a valuable member of the team in a different role for the past few years, my friend was puzzled as to why Chris wasn’t performing as he had in the past.
So I ask this friend of mine. . .”did anyone ask Chris if he wanted to work with the customers.” The dumfounded look I received in return didn’t surprise me that much. Neither did his response “well. . . no not exactly”. It didn’t surprise me because I have encountered several managers, team leads and business owners that don’t always take the right approach when pairing team members with roles.
Each individual has a set of professional skills competencies paired with a set of personality traits. Taking a look at how they think versus just what they are good at will help you optimize their performance and maybe even unearth some strengths neither knows exist.
Finding out how your team members like to be managed is another way to help them excel. Is frequent feedback important to them or do they fear being micromanaged? Does the individual need specific instructions or do they thrive when executing open ended projects? Understanding and adapting to an individual’s preferred management style is part of being a responsive and effective manager.
One of the biggest mistakes mangers make is not asking their team members about their role. Understand what tasks they enjoy and which they dislike and, more importantly, why. It is equally important to understand the aspirations of the individual. Understanding the individual’s goals helps you identify roles that support the goals and fulfill the team member. In the case of Chris, asking this question might have prevented my friend from assigning him to a customer management role. He would have found out that Chris isn’t comfortable when dealing with the customers and really wanted increased ownership and accountability in his previous role.
In this current environment of hiring freezes and layoffs, it is more important than ever to get the most of your team members and do more with less. Helping individuals reach peak performance by being an effective manager will help you get closer to that goal.
