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Tips for Successful People Management
By Yoorna Trahnaia
First of all you have to know the behaviour of people in general to be able to manage them properly. There is no university or school in the world that teaches you all the techniques about how to deal with people. Good managers differentiate themselves by developing the talent to deal with people, which is essential to achieve success or to survive. They are the ones who quickly learn from people and situations. They stand out in the crowd by the way they solve major problems. A good manager will approach the problem and will not walk away from it.
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Good management is also about making the right decision at the right time. Keep in your mind that good situations create further good situations, bad situations create further bad situations and some situations create chain reactions. Important to know is that in management you can’t talk about everything that’s in your mind. So, keep your mouth shut when you think you’re going to say too much. Also be grateful to people who are honest and loyal. Their replacement is very hard to find. When punishment is necessary emotions should be avoided. Many people don’t know that they are punishing themselves when punishing their people. Remember that you can influence people but you cannot change people. Also you have to trust them but this does not mean that you do not have to control them. Control is essential and be careful with people who always take things personally. When you make a mistake (when you wrongly criticise somebody, for example), don’t be afraid to apologise.
As a people manager, you should keep in your mind that you have a social responsibility but remember that the lenient you are with people the more difficult it is to manage them. The more professional and stricter you are the better it is. Strictness here, however, does not mean that you should be a dictator, but that you should be firm and consistent in your decisions. Another fact is that managing out of devotion is better than managing out of duty. It is important to keep a professional distance from the employees. Wider the distance the more the respect, other things remaining the same.
Undermining (i.e. bossing over) should be avoided. That is why requests are always better than direct orders. When you request somebody to do something instead of ordering them, there is always an option to re-request without losing your authority. It is important that the employees understand management decisions. So, communication is essential, whether it is through meetings, person-to-person, verbally, in writing, or via newsletters. While managing the males you can find that they focus more on money and positions for themselves, whereas the women are more devoted to the business. They are likely to regard the business as their own family, and thus work for it with similar loyalty as they have towards their family. But women will take less risk.
When managing people with high integrity, remember that integrity does not necessarily go hand in hand with productivity. People who are high in integrity are mostly not productive, whereas people who are productive are not necessarily high in integrity. A good manager should always keep this in mind and try to strike a proper balance.
Corporate parties are necessary but they do not improve people’s motivation except for the ones who organise those parties, as it is beneficial for their personal reputation.
Successful management commanding good respect from the employees can only be earned by a chain of right decisions and fair decisions and regularly showing interests not only in the work but also in the individuals who do the work. When you value people, you might become a manager on whose shoulders employees would like to cry when needed. The highest level of people management is reached, for example, when though you fire somebody on the spot, this employee will shake hands with you and thank you for having worked under you.
(Trahnaia is a pseudonym used by a foreign investor in Nepal who likes to describe himself as a developer, investor, financier.)
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