Being the boss of people is one of the most challenging aspects of management. People are the one-eyed jack, deuces and jokers in the deck. They are wild cards pure and simple. No two people are the same. And no one person is the same on different days. Just as children don’t come with “instruction manuals,” neither do employees. I often would drive home from work and complain to myself, geez these are supposed to be adults, yet they behave like children. At least children have the excuse of not knowing any better. The good news is that some common characteristics exists among us and for the observant boss, these are not all that difficult to identify.
Of course, there are employee management systems and employee development programs to help naïve bosses like me to get past this reality. But if I had a nickel for every team building exercise I have implemented my kids college fund would overflow. Staff retreats, incentive programs and holiday bonuses are all but short term fixes for the long term emotional challenges the humans we hire as employees possess.
There are new books on leadership published virtually every day. But, the issues haven’t changed in a thousand years. The workplace requires humans to do certain tasks so that the business can provide services or products and ultimately earn profits. Businesses are businesses for this reason first or they wouldn’t stay as businesses.
So we focus on teaching the more ambitious humans how to lead. We believe that arming them with enough tools, physcological training and incentives will help them deal with the daily emotional maze that comes with a workforce.
Sometimes it works. More often than not, not so much. When you factor in that most people rise into management because they were high achieving employees (and in many cases, individual performing high achievers), its no wonder so much effort is required to turn these doers into people facilitators. It is an Everest like challenge with many many casualties along the way.
Choiceology Blog 