5.2 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Develop Your People

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

How Well Do You Develop Your People?

How well a team performs often depends on how well you've trained and developed your people.  Individuals need on-going training and development to help them become more effective, and take on bigger and more significant challenges.  They need help learning new skills as the nature of their work changes.  On-going training helps people adjust to changing job requirements.  It also creates a pool of qualified and available people, who are ready to step into new roles as your organization needs them.  Companies often limit training and development to new hires and to people moving into new roles.

FIVE MAIN FACTORS RELATED TO DEVELOPING PEOPLE
Understanding Organizational and Team Needs	·        identify the best development opportunities ·        Hold regular one-on-one meetings with staff to discuss and understand people's developmental needs ·        explore their current performance, and identify areas for improvement ·        create a development plan to fill any skill gaps ·        prepare the team member to meet the challenges ahead ·        have a competency framework   for each person's role ·        conducting a training needs assessment   to identify the training and development that each person needs ·        understand these different patterns of motivation ·        assess individual needs, and provide training and development opportunities accordingly ·        Talk to people to find out what training they want and need ·        work with them to develop a personal training and development plan that helps them get this training, economically and efficiently
Leadership development	·        identify and develop competent managers and supervisors ·        have people trained and ready to fill new leadership positions ·        choose the right people to involve ·        track leadership potential from the very early stages of a person's employment ·        Talent management   initiatives will help you focus on and retain the best people ·        recruit top talent, and create a high performance culture ·        identify strong performers early on ·        reward the best and brightest on your team with appropriate promotion opportunities ·        promote people for their potential to succeed in the leadership role
Training and career development	·        encourage people to learn throughout their careers ·        know that learning is directly connected to successful performance ·        Look for ways to train staff on a daily basis through prompt and effective feedback ·        offer training courses and programs to help people develop the specific skills ·        do it in-house or send people to outside training ·        Communicate this attitude from the start ·        emphasize commitment to on-going professional development ·        Encourage people to come to you with training ideas and career development plans ·        Make career development a strategic objective
Managing knowledge	·        retaining and sharing organizational knowledge is critical to success ·        Managing knowledge is another great way to provide development opportunities ·        wealth of information that isn't easily acquired, except through experience ·        share ideas and expertise with one another ·        identify best practices ·        look for ways to work more efficiently with one another ·        find ways to inspire and innovate ·        Create simple ways of sharing ideas ·        Another powerful way to retain knowledge within your organization is through Succession Planning o   Identify people who can take over key positions ·        other ways including mentoring, preparing an orientation-type book or document, or even conducting on-the-job training ·        use feedback from exit interviews with people who leave the organization to identify training needs, develop people, and improve operations
Coaching and mentoring your people	·        support and encourage their training and growth ·        care that the staff improve their skills and develop a satisfying career ·        As a coach and mentor, the primary role is to help people better understand their positions ·        both the coach and the mentor can benefit from the relationship ·        think about own experiences and share them with others, you're also learning and developing yourself ·        willingness to support other people's development sets a great example for future leaders