PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

1
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

• Session 6
• WHY MANAGE PEOPLE?

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THREE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

• Organisations are about people
• Management assumptions about people often lead
  to ineffective design of organisations and this
  hinders performance
• People are the most important asset, and their
  commitment goes a long way in determining
  effective organisational design and development.

3
WHY MANAGE PEOPLE?
McGregor (1960) argued that the individual in
American Industry existed in a state of partial
dependence
Authority, as a means of influence, is certainly
not useless, but for many purposes it is less
appropriate than persuasion or professional help.
Exclusive reliance upon authority encourages
countermeasures,minimal performance, even open
rebellion.

4
HANDS-OFF MANAGEMENT

• (1) expeditor/barrier destroyer/facilitator
• (2) on-call expert
• (3) diffuser of good news
• In short the middle manager must
• practice fast-paced horizontal management not
  traditional, delaying, vertical management
  (Peters 1987)

5
WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY, IT IS US
You have to ask yourself what you see, what you
really see when you look into the eye of a
front-line employee. Do you see a
neer-do-well that needs that span of control of
1 to 10 prevalent in your organisation, thatll
rip you off if you turn your back for more than 3
or 4 nanoseconds? Or do you see a person that
could literally fly to the moon without a
face mask if only you would just train the hell
out of them, get the hell out of their way, and
give them something decent to do? (quote from
Tom Peters business evangelist, Business
Matters, BBC Television)
6
SUCCESS IS A PEOPLE FACTOR
You watch human resource policies now, move in
British firms, from being a sort of backwater,
theyre the people who do the paperwork, to
being a much more significant piece of strategic
thinking for the firm because everybody is going
to compete for people in the 1990s. In fact the
quality of people is going to make a bigger
difference than the quality of products or the
quality of services. (quote from Rosabeth Moss
Kanter, Business Matters, BBC Television)
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MEGSONS SIX ISSUES

• (1) The way we think is the ROOT cause
• (2) Our models of organisations are too limiting
• (3) We have no purpose
• (4) We have no vision or sense of mission
• (5) We lack the resolution to delegate
• (6) We have no values or philosophy

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ELEMENTS IN RELATION TO PEOPLE MANAGEMENT TODAY

• Models for organisation design are too limiting
  for our needs
• Little attention is paid to the concept of
  design from an organisational perspective
• Distinct lack of resolution to delegate within
  organisations
• Managers lack any form of systematic thinking
  about core value and philosophy.

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THE MISSION STATEMENT

• Gives a purpose to the organisation
• It should answer the question What are we here
  for? or
• What is our basic purpose?
• Defines the the boundaries of the business in
  which the organisation operates
• Ideally, should be no more than four sentences.

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MANAGERS LACK THE RESOLUTION TO DELEGATE

• They do not treat their subordinates as they
• expect to be treated by their bosses.
• Managers expect obedience from those who
• work for them
• Managers expect loyalty from their subordinates
• without considering their needs and wants
• There is a need to empower subordinates so
• they see themselves as equals

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ORGANISATIONS HAVE NO VALUES
People are the most important asset we have.
They want and need to grow. Without growth
interest wanes and talents waste away. With
growth interest flourishes and talents develop.
People really do care, they do exquisite work
it is designed to make them grow. In other
words, personnel growth is the engine that
drives organisation performance.
(Megson in describing the guiding values and
beliefs at Digital 1988)
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CONCEPT OF DESIGN IN ORGANISATIONS

• The organisation has to conceive an approach
• to satisfy the attainment of the following
  factors
• The goals and purposes for which the
  organisation exists
• Patterns of labour division and coordination of
  different units within the organisation
• People who will do the work.
• (Galbraith, 1977)

13
THE ROLE OF POLITICS IN ORGANISATIONS

• Bedeian (1980) suggests that there are four
  common causes why people resist change, they are
• (1) Parochial self-interest
• (2) Misunderstanding and lack of trust
• (3) Contradictory assessment of the impact
  change will have
• (4) Low tolerance for change
• Organisational politics is the means by which
  many attempt to resist or affect change.

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CONCLUSIONS

• If people are the important asset, effectiveness
• is related to
• How managers perceive the individual
• How people relate to one another
• How we get the maximum contribution
• How we go about changing from a situation which
  is seen to be ineffective to one which ensures
  higher standards of performance