Mastering people management

Mark Thomas

Mastering

People

Management

Mark Thomas

Second edition

Mastering

IFC

MASTERING PEOPLE

MANAGEMENT

Build a successful team – motivate,

empower and lead people

Mark Thomas

Second Edition

Published by Thorogood

10-12 Rivington Street

London EC2A 3DU

Telephone: 020 7749 4748

Fax: 020 7729 6110

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.thorogoodpublishing.co.uk

© Mark Thomas 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic,

photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without the prior permission of

the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition

that it shall not, by way of trade or

otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or

otherwise circulated without the

publisher’s prior consent in any form of

binding or cover other than in which it is

published and without a similar condition

including this condition being imposed

upon the subsequent purchaser.

No responsibility for loss occasioned to

any person acting or refraining from

action as a result of any material in this

publication can be accepted by the author

or publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library.

PB: ISBN 1 85418 328 1

ISBN 978-185418328-6

Cover and book designed in the UK

by Driftdesign

Printed in India by Replika Press

Special discounts for bulk quantities

of Thorogood books are available to

corporations, institutions, associations

and other organizations. For more

information contact Thorogood by

telephone on 020 7749 4748, by fax on

020 7729 6110, or e-mail us:

[email protected]

THE AUTHOR iii

The author

Mark Thomas BSc (Econ), DipPm, FIPD is a Senior Partner of Perform￾ance Dynamics Management Consultants, an international business

consultancy specializing in change management, human resources and

executive development. He also holds the post of Assistant Professor

at the Tias Business School in Holland.

Prior to Performance Dynamics he worked with Price Waterhouse

Management Consultants where he advised on the organization issues

arising out of strategic change. His business experience encompasses

mergers and acquisitions, privatizations and major restructuring initia￾tives. He currently manages a wide range of client assignments from

business planning facilitation and organization reviews through to a wide

range of executive development activities encompassing internal

consultancy skills, team building and leadership development.

Previously he held a range of management roles in the information tech￾nology and food industries where his experience involved all aspects

of organization development and human resource management.

Mark’s work focuses on strategic change management and executive

development. He facilitates business planning and top team events and

runs a wide range of organization transformation programmes. He

works throughout Europe, North America, Australia and the Far East

and is a frequent conference speaker and writer on organization and

human resource issues, having contributed to a number of books on

organizational change. He was also previously Programme Director

for Management Centre Europe’s Strategic Human Resource

Management Programme, and is currently Programme Director for a

leading UK Mini MBA seminar. Mark’s experience covers financial

services, telecommunications, manufacturing, transport, information

technology and local and central government. His clients include many

major international and global corporations.

iv MASTERING PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

Mark was educated at the University of Wales and the London School

of Economics and is a visiting faculty member of the University of Tilburg

and their Tias Business School. He is also a Fellow of the UK Institute

of Personnel and Development.

As well as writing many articles on business issues his books include:

• Gurus on Leadership (Thorogood, 2006)

• High Performance Consulting Skills (Thorogood, 2003)

• Supercharge Your Management Role – Making the Transition to

Internal Consultant (Butterworth Heinemann, 1996)

• Mergers and Acquisitions – Confronting the Organization and

People Issues (Thorogood, 1997)

• Project Skills (Butterworth Heinemann, 1998)

• The Shorter MBA (Thorsens, 1991)

He can be contacted at www.performancedynamics.org

Icons

Throughout the Masters in Management series of books you will see

references and symbols in the margins. These are designed for ease of

use and quick reference directing you quickly to key features of the text.

The symbols used are:

Key Question Guide to Best Practice

Action Checklist Key Learning Point

Activity Key Management Concept

We would encourage you to use this book as a workbook, writing notes

and comments in the margin as they occur. In this way we hope that

you will benefit from the practical guidance and advice which this book

provides.

CONTENT v

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

What is management? 2

You are a manager! Welcome to the world of people management 2

Projecting versus attracting strategies 5

So what is management really all about? 9

The classic functions of management 10

But things are changing 13

Managing in the knowledge era 14

Adapting the process of managing to the knowledge era 16

Two classic approaches to managing and leading

in today’s organization 19

Task, team and individual model 22

The situational approach 24

Leadership: the most valuable attributes of a leader 25

Will managers become extinct? 31

Characteristics of the knowledge era and the worst

of the old world managers 33

CHAPTER TWO

Mastering yourself 38

Getting in shape for the future 38

Insecurity as a daily phenomenon 39

Action plan 40

Developing a personal brand plan – what

is your brand value worth? 41

Drawing a life line chart 44

Conducting a personal SWOT analysis 46

vi MASTERING PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

The seven essential questions in your personal brand plan 48

Getting support for your personal brand plan (PBP) 48

Eight key activities to assist you in developing your asset base 51

Action points 52

Getting balanced – how to take control and manage

yourself and your true value 56

Assess your management skills 58

Identify areas for development at work 64

CHAPTER THREE

Mastering performance management 68

Managing performance 68

Influencing people 75

Some basic influencing styles – their strengths and downsides 77

Classic influencing styles in detail 78

Effective delegation 85

CHAPTER FOUR

Mastering face-to-face communications 90

How to really listen 91

Six fundamental questions to ask yourself

to improve your communications style 92

Listening and communicating to others – some basic rules 95

Applying classic questioning techniques 100

Action point 101

Understanding the impact of non-verbal communications 103

Action point 104

CHAPTER FIVE

Mastering role reviews and coaching techniques 108

Appraising your people 108

Action points 112

CONTENT vii

Conducting a role review and performance

management meeting 113

A quick summary guide to running successful role reviews 118

CHAPTER SIX

Mastering poor performers 122

How to deal with poor performers 122

Managing poor performers – a quick route map 123

Agreeing performance targets 124

How to give negative feedback successfully 126

Receiving feedback 129

The ten golden rules of feedback 129

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mastering team management 134

An introduction to team performance 134

Team development 136

How to start up a team building process 142

A strategy for day-to-day teamworking 144

Team working – processes 148

Recognizing why teams fail 150

Understanding your team roles 151

1. The company worker/implementor 152

2. The chair/co-ordinator 153

3. The shaper 154

4. The plant 156

5. The resource investigator 157

6. The monitor evaluator 158

7. The team worker 159

8. The completer finisher 160

Belbin team types summary 161

viii MASTERING PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mastering time management 166

Managing time 166

Action point 167

Managing your time effectively 167

Tackling ‘time robbers’ 168

Understanding your motivation 171

Planning and organizing your time 173

Minimize the effects of interruptions 174

Managing crises 175

Ensuring that efficient time management is maintained 176

CHAPTER NINE

Mastering meetings 180

An introduction to managing meetings 180

Techniques for managing meetings 180

CHAPTER TEN

Mastering the skills of assertion 188

The difference between passive, assertive

and aggressive behaviour 188

Behaving assertively 191

A quick guide to developing assertiveness skills 195

Dealing with unjust criticism 199

Eight essential tips in behaving assertively 202

Neutralizing anger 204

CONTENT ix

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Summary checklists 208

Are you a leader or a **** 208

Absolute don’ts for real leaders 211

Listening 213

Feedback 214

Delegation 214

A simple guide to managing performance 215

A short guide to making better use of your time 217

Managing people – a simple guide to assessing people 218

High performance team checklist 218

The key rules of assertiveness 220

Listening skills checklist 220

Blank

CHAPTER ONE

What is management?

2 MASTERING PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

What is management?

You are a manager! Welcome to the world

of people management

The classic problems

About five months ago Jean Simons gained a promotion to a new mana￾gerial role. She had been a top class information systems designer and

had earned a first class reputation as a technical specialist. It was on this

basis that her boss decided to promote her into a management role. Jean

herself was excited about the new role and the fact that it would provide,

at long last, an opportunity to manage other people. Yet within two months

of her appointment her team of six programmers and two designers were

experiencing all kinds of problems and frustrations, and were soon

complaining about Jean’s management style. Jean herself attributed these

difficulties not to herself, but to her clients’ ever changing demands, but

her team were only discussing one thing and that was Jean’s inadequate

people management skills. Relationships soon became strained and the

performance of the unit started to deteriorate rapidly. Jean had made

the transition from technical specialist and been welcomed to the world

of people management.

James is a great salesman – top seller for the last six years – but the day

we promoted him to sales manager proved a bit of a disaster. He has a

team of six people working for him but he still manages to outsell them

all, whilst in some cases their productivity has declined. His problem is

he just does not manage his team. James has to learn to leverage his

team and realize if he can get them working properly they will achieve

far more than his individual efforts.

Carlos is a brilliant thinker and produces some terrific work but the

turnover amongst his people is a real worry. Exit interviews with his people

ONE WHAT IS MANAGEMENT? 3

have identified a number of major problems with his management style.

Whilst people generally respect his technical capability and experience

they dislike his dominant ‘I know best’ attitude which results in him not

listening to people and irritating the hell out of them. He will delegate

work only to instantly be chasing people to see whether they have

completed it. He does not appear to trust his people to really delegate.

Maria is a great accountant but she fails to deal with the issues amongst

her team. She chooses to ignore the issues of poor performance and

time-keeping with the result that human resources have to get involved

at a later stage and we end up with much bigger problems. She just seems

more comfortable with the technical side of her role and chooses to ignore

the people issues.

Pierre’s 360º performance appraisal feedback is dreadful. It appears to

all that he is a real bully and has only one way to influence others, and

that is to dominate them. People have accused him of talking over them,

not listening, even shouting and banging his fist on the table!! I know

he gets results but if this continues we are going to have to do some￾thing about him. He needs to recognize he has a problem and I am not

sure he does at the moment.

As managers, the people skills we use on a daily basis are the major

foundation of our business and career success – such skills effectively

differentiate the superior leaders and managers. Yet most managers spend

little time reviewing or developing their people management skills and

practices. Today we work in complex organization and matrix struc￾tures where old levels of accountability are frequently blurred. We are

tasked with having to generate new business, solve complex problems

and look after an ever demanding workforce that has increased ambi￾tions and expectations. Matrix structures are often difficult to work in

and past levels of organizational accountability have often been surren￾dered to more ambiguous reporting lines. So the demands and pressures

on managers are increasing all the time. Yet these day-to-day pressures

frequently mean we have little time to stand back and analyze what it

is we are doing. Often daily pressures mean we keep running without

any reflection time. The danger of course is that we start developing

dysfunctional practices and habits, and in today’s competitive world this