Enhancing Human Performance
Enhancing human performance requires a team of managers and supervisors that can perform as both a well organized administrator and have an in-dept understanding of peoples basic needs and behaviors. It is not enough; however, to just know them, the manager/supervisor must be able to put them to practical use in order to have a positive influence on the organization.
Understanding Behavior
Knowing why people behave the way they do on the job is the key to gaining their commitment to continuous improvement. The supervisor/manager must understand peoples needs in order to increase motivation and therefore meet the needs of the organization.
At work, people adopt instinctive modes of behavior that tend to be self protective instead of collaborative and open. This is why emotion is such a strong force in the work place, and why management reacts so fiercely to criticism. This leads to an unhealthy control-based environment and fosters fixing the blame rather than fixing the problem.
This type of environment causes people to leap to conclusions and fragment into small contentious groups rather than work as a team. Such behavior leads to highly political groups that fight rather than cooperate. The boss thinks that he/she is fostering healthy competition whereas it is having a negative impact on the long-term bottom line, and contributes to a high turnover rate.
Understanding Needs
Peoples needs go way beyond the basics such as, good working environment and adequate pay. The basics are fairly easy to deal with; it is far more difficult to deal with the higher order needs such as pride in work and sharing corporate goals unless the basic needs are met first. Peoples basic needs include salary, job security, benefits, and a good work environment. In some cases these tend to be demotivators rather than motivators. In other words they are not satisfiers, when you meet them, they have a very short half-life and it is not long before dissatisfaction sets in.
Satisfaction comes about when the higher order needs are met. Examples of higher order needs in the workplace include: progress to goals, accountability and responsibility, and personal growth. Satisfaction leads to trust and commitment.
Building Trust and Commitment
A companys most valuable asset is a committed employee. A manager/supervisor can build commitment and trust by paying attention to people at all levels of the organization, treating them courteously and respectfully in all situations, tolerating diversity and individualism and creating a blame-free continuous improvement atmosphere.
The quality and style that a manager/supervisor brings to the team is a major factor in building trust and commitment in employees. Clear decision-making and a collaborative style will do wonders for creating an atmosphere of trust and commitment. A key factor to remember is that; if you want to build trust and commitment in you organization, you must first learn to trust those who work for you.
Management Impact
How the manager/supervisor manages people has a profound impact on their behavior. It is crucial to modify and direct your management methods to suit different people and situations. Your goals must be to always encourage people to manage and motivate themselves.
How You Put This To Good Use On The Job? Managers/Supervisors need to develop skills and abilities for building greater performance into their employees jobs. What is needed is a framework and a model for helping managers/supervisors to develop the critical skills needed to build organizational and human performance.
ALERA Groups Mentoring for Improved Performance shows how to build greater performance in new employees. It goes beyond the traditional concept of new employee training to focus on developing a competent team. It shows how to conduct job analysis, define competencies, and use structured training to give new employees the skills and knowledge they need to perform effectively on the job. It shows how to build upon the initial competence developed in the on-job-training segment by using coaching techniques and follow-up.
For more information, visit the ALERA website at: www.aleragroup.com
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