What Can Management do?

To be sucessful you have to figure out what the company is doing, what its wants and needs are, and then figure out how you can make a valuable contribution.

Your manager is reponsible for hiring people, developing people, managing tasks, managing budgets etc. In the process of doing this, they will be exposed to much of what is going on in the company. The manager should feed back appropriately to the staff.

In terms of personal development, I've always believed that the staff "own" their personal development plans, but that managers can have valuable input into them.

Probably most importantly, is timely feedback. Managers owe it to their staff to give them contructive feedback on a timely basis. This is what helps people move from average to excellent performers.

James

it's hard to set goals and grow if management can't give you a measurement of you and your teams success :) Too many job descriptions do not specify exactly what acceptable downtime is or what good customer service entails... 24hour response? 48 hour? 2 minute?

Quality feedback is timely and specificly tied to an event that can be measured.

One of the early lessons in my supervisory career was that some people perform better and are happier with MORE structure. This was quite shocking to me personally when I first realized this. When I first accepted a supervisory position, I thought Ihad this magic supervision "key" that would fully unlock the potential of all employees by freeing them completely to do their work. This worked wonders for some people, but others had much difficulty and a second negative culture developed thinkingthings were "crazy", "unclear" and "unorganized" in their new state. We began to have a big separation between the people ecstatic about being free of the "Dilbert" style of working who were really doing some amazingly positive things and then the resentful contingent that seemed to be putting forth their energy to destroy whatever gains the team made. My first pathetic attempt was to get rid of the "negative people", but at the depth of me failing to understand what was happening, I had a lucid moment when I realized this was my fault as a supervisor. They weren't bad people, they just needed to know how to be productive, have it measured, and get good feedback. The lack of structure was destroying their ability to know where they were inthe process and work towards goals.

It's counterproductive to give people more freedom or structure than they are ready for, as you were saying, we all grow and learn over time and what structure is needed today does need revisited on an ongoing basis and changed as appropriate. Less is still definately more IMO with structure, but when it is needed, and useful to the employee, it is usually appreciated.

I think the word: "empower" was a great thing at the time, but it unfortunately sometimes meant people were getting dumped into impossible situations without the necessary resources, structure, or support to succeed.

the issues relating to individuals in the department regarding employee development, there is an alternate responsibility that front line management must handle effectively for the good of the department.

In any organization, there are inevitablyconflicts and disputes in the arena of responsibilities, deliverables, and performance measurement on a departmental level. An effective Manager is well versed in the capabilities of his department and it's limitations. When an issue of reductions in force raises its hoary head, a Manager without solid understanding of his department's value cannot effectively articulate the case for exepting it from RIF. Likewise, in good times, when capital expenditures funding does become available, Managersmust be able to present the needs of the department in a clear and compelling manner. Otherwise, the department will not receive adequate funding.

Suffice it to say, front line Management must also be the department's advocate in the arena of corporate operations. When it is done well, employees are happier, better trained and equipped, and gain a higher level of "esprit de corps". A department viewed by mahogany row as being effectively led and having bottom line value will gain internal prestige and all the perks that it entails.....