h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just a quick journal today, as I've been busy attending a training course.

It was on various management topics - how to recognise your management style and those of others; how to develop and motivate your team; what makes for a good leader; how to be assertive; how to delegate; how to manage conflict - that sort of thing.

I had to fill in lots of self-awareness questionnaires, which told me lots of things:

* My leadership style is supportive, rather than controlling

* I'm slightly more inclined towards managing the team rather than the task or the individual

* My motivation is balanced rather than weighted towards being assertive, altruistic or analytic.

I also learned what to do if I come up against people with different attributes to me.


So, have any of you done these things? Have you ever used these management theories to your advantage? Or is it all just mumbo jumbo?

Not done any management tests but did some kind of test years ago that ended up telling my I'm best at 'Abstract Analysis'. And I agree. Still do.

Years ago, I did some test when applying for a job that ended up telling me I was good at w*rking in a group, together with others, *and also good at w*rking individually, taking responsibility.

The recruiter spent a lot of time trying to explain to me how I couldn't possibly be good at both. To this day, I still don't get it.

[Amy P]

I have done loads of these over the years. My opinion is that they are all basically a load of dingoes kidneys

Never managed anything in real life -- I can barely manage my temper.

I hate it when my supervisors get sent on management seminars and training. The next 6 months are unbearable with all the paradigm shifting, proactive, six-sigma, ooh-rah B.S. Just leave us to do our jobs.

Deb

These management theories remind me a lot of education seminars.

Both are a monumental waste of time.

I also strongly suspect that it is nearly impossible for most people to answer self-diagnostics honestly. (Not you, I mean in general.) Most of the people in management I've known were inclined to tell me, in total confidence, that their main problem was that they were 'too nice'.

That wasn't usually their problem.

Yes, I'm thinking along the same lines.

This stuff is supposedly used to get us to change our natural behaviour so we can deal with difficult people or situations. Wouldn't it be easier to get the difficult people to go on a training course and learn how to become nice?

Well, if you used ...

I always found that pointing at the door and saying 'You've got 24 hours' worked wonders with underperforming staff. Does that make me a bad person?

Managers have to learn about this stuff, because there's no point in them learning about the stuff that the workers do - the workers do it so much better. And despite all the guff, the managers are better managers after attending these training courses. On the other hand, you're too practical to benefit from it.

I did have five whole years of being trained to deliver this sort of management improvement, whilst being in a position in education to help schools improve. Mind you, the trainers they found to train our team were the echelons of this type of management thinking. ie they were the professors who'd done the research, the people who'd come up with the process analysis first.

I guess I was very lucky to come up that close to these people. We were a very small group (12) who were brought together as a team for a specific purpose. Our mentors - for that is what these trainers became - were flown in from the States, headed University departments in the UK, were Chief Pyschologists and more.

I also believe that nowadays there are loads of people who offer this sort of training who are nowhere near as good. There's a whole industry evolved since then who peddle management training to the masses.

It's still better to have some management training than just think you have to be 'the boss' to get the best out of people who're working with you. Understand what it means to be assertive, rather than aggressive, or worse, passive aggressive. Get some really decent time management training. Find out about stress management, very important for your health!

I could go on and on, but you're lucky. I won't.

I'd love you to go on - I'm genuinely interested in what people's experiences are of this stuff.

I can understand that you need some structured methods for teaching. You can't just sack a pupil for being useless - you have to try and reach them somehow.

I agree - teaching's an art and a science. The problem with the theory business is - well, like what I'm suspecting of your management theories, they don't seem to make a dent in the thick skulls of people who aren't good at it, but don't realise it. Leading by example probably works better.

I taught for 25 years or so, in two states and three different countries. Every age from 5 to 75.Commercial schools, universities, public schools...

You know how much formal training I had? A 3-day seminar. Mind you, it was an EXCELLENT 3-day seminar...

On the other hand, I had the benefit of YEARS of observing good teaching. In fact, over the years, I've taken/audited courses in my free time, just to watch others at work. Picked up a lot of tricks that way.

I think common sense regarding your area of expertise has a lot to do with whether you're good at what you do or not.

Who was it that said 'common sense is despite, not thanks to, education'?

I don't know, Titania, but they sound pretty sensible to me.

Are they designed to get you to change your behaviour, though? I understood (generalising widely I know), that those sort of questionnaires were more about getting you to recognise your own styles, and use those best. Also to recognise other people's styles too, and be able to work with that variety, rather than having a right and wrong way. And to spot where you might be weaker, and develop ways of dealing with those.

I'll use me and Myers Briggs as an example. I usually come out as an INTJ. I recognise that my introverted style means I have to try harder in large groups, and that my almost instantaneous recognition of the most logical solution still needs to be explained and communicated to others. I remind myself to do the "small talk" introductory bit on the phone rather than launching directly into the reason I called. I have to make an effort to connect with people's emotional states.

In a team there are all sorts of people, and the worst teams are those composed of identikit "yes men". JFK's disasterous decision to invade the Bay of Pigs came about because no-body wanted to disagree with him. So it's very important that every team has an ess hol who doesn't give a toss about what other people think, and is prepared to speak their mind.

(I've had to edit this several times for the filther.....)

{to spot where you might be weaker, and develop ways of dealing with those}

That's what I mean about getting you to change your behaviour.

One of the assessments I did was to work out what my motivation is - the three types are 'assertive' (aggressive, thuggish, driven people), 'analytic' (bean-counting sticklers for rules) or 'altruistic' (people-hugging bleeding-heart liberals). We answered a questionnaire then plotted the result on a triangular-shaped graph - fortunately I ended up in a small circle in the middle, indicating I was flexible.

We then repeated the exercise, answering a different set of questions about how we would behave in difficult or stressful situations, to see how this affected our motivation. Again we plotted it, and it was pretty much bang on where I was before. My colleagues would shift from analytic to assertive or whatever, but I stayed put. I was quite proud of this until the lecturer told me that it was really bad. I thought it would be an advantage to be balanced and ice-cool in both situations, but apparently you need to somehow communicate to people that you are in a stressful situation, so they can read you.

One of the analytic type things I scored on, as I remember, made one of our mentors really happy. I came out as 'wayward' which seemed to hit their requirement for someone to feel happy to stick their head above the parapet and speak their mind when needed. I was being sent into some goddamn awful places mind, and they needed someone who'd actually feel able to speak out.

I don't think any of this sort of stuff is in anyway meant to change 'people' but it should alert managers to the strengths and weaknesses of their staff. Take for example a jolly, happy group, who plod along day to day getting stuff done in their own sweet time. They perform barely adequately. One person is due to retire, now, do the recruitment team look for a total clone of the outgoing staff member? The pool of staff might be very happy with such a replacement, but the managers would like someone with a bit more fire and enthusiasm who will bring new ideas to the workplace.

You may think this is total common sense, but I have worked with places who'd never in their wildest dreams considered such stuff.

Other teams might have lots of bright ideas people, but none of them wants to sit and finish off the details, so projects may be started but loose ends never get snagged off. It helps the team if they are made aware they need to collectively take care of these things before starting any more adventurous stuff. This is not to 'change' any of the individuals, but to highlight areas where they need to work on things that they'd not naturally seek to do.