Reflections on Management Paradigms

<strong>Reflections</strong> on Management Paradigms
still valued, its meaning has shifted dramatically.
Today, a loyal professional is viewed as someone
who adds value every day, takes personal
responsibility for self and career development, keeps
relevant colleagues, including HR in the loop with
plans, finds and grooms successor, in order to move
on to a new role or level within own organization or
outside.
It is hard to believe that only a few decades ago,
organizations chose not to invest in people for fear
of losing them to competition. Now, it is exactly the
opposite. You'll lose talent if you don't provide them
with the opportunity to learn and grow. In fact, HR
departments in leading organizations now proudly
proclaim that they help employees improve their
CVs. They also state that every job has an expiry date!
Leadership practices aligned to the laws of nature
are more likely to be sustainable. No self-respecting
and aware employee would likes to stick to one job
for too long. It is therefore important to
acknowledge the need for change and plan for staff
turnover. This not only ensures having continuous
inflow of new blood into the system, but also creates
a motivating and challenging environment in which
people don't get the opportunity to fall into their
comfort zones.
What gets rewarded gets done. This often-used
phrase warrants serious reflection. It has been a
long-held tradition that employers, in their desire to
attract talent, inadvertently play on human
weaknesses. These include: security of tenure, desire
for status and attractive compensation packages. As
People come – people go
a result, terms like 'golden handcuffs' became
fashionable. Instead, we ought to, “Reward reliability
and execution of strategy AND those who are honest
about failures. Recognize and promote emotional
intelligence, and make every leader face up to and deal
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with failures, lack of effort or dishonorable behavior.”
Why retain managers who are not adding value? No
wonder such employers suffer dissonance when they
find managers hired on this basis, ill-suited to
meeting the challenges of the rapidly changing and
increasingly competitive business environment. Such
companies find themselves over-managed and
under-led. They end up becoming unresponsive to
customer needs and inflexible.
The message is loud and clear: Focus on
employability, by investing in your people. This way
you will build their capacity to deliver and contribute
value. As the word spreads, others seeking growth
will be attracted to your organization.
Managers and leaders today need to constantly
reinvent themselves. An attitude of responsibility,
flexibility and commitment will make your enterprise
more adaptive, competitive and resilient.
To this end, build an enterprise culture. This demands
a high degree of daring and risk-taking, combined
with a vital dose of wisdom and emotional
intelligence. How do you find such people? By
playing on their strengths that match yours! Look out
for people who will help create and nurture a hightrust
and a high-performance culture where
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.Excerpt from The Business General, by Deborah Tom & Richard Barrons published
by Random House.
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