It is a common practice to review job titles when browsing through professional social media sites or reviewing business cards exchanged at a recent work function. At the same time, it has been proven over-and-over that business titles do not always reflect the quality of the professional profile of the individual holding a title. More often than not, managerial designations are given to individuals to fulfill a business gap and not always based on the individual's merits.
While there are exceptions to the rule, effective managers are expected to have the experience and education to master the managerial trilogy properly; ability to manage people, process and change needed to run a business, or execute and complete a project efficiently. Any manager can be great at mastering one of these trails; however, the strength in one area does not guarantee success in managing any of the other two. Let's explore this idea in more detail for further clarification.
People Manager. – Having the responsibility to lead a team of staff is a tall order. It takes a manager ready to deal with unpredictable human behaviors, personality challenges, workplace politics feud, and schedule changes due to people's last-minute notices announcing they cannot show up for work. Effective people managers need to be prepared to deal with all of these challenges while meeting senior management business objectives and expectations. An effective people manager should act as a mentor, a tutor, and a "tough-love" supervisor for all staff under their supervision. It is highly recommended that people managers benefit from attending business training tailored to how to manage themselves and how to effectively manage others in the workplace.
Process Manager. – Process leaders are great managers to oversee business functions. They have a keen perspective to identify areas of improvement, deficiency gaps, and outdated business practices. Effective process managers are known to take this information and produce creative and innovative recommendations for results-oriented solutions. These kinds of managers tend to be great with process flows and decision trees. However, they often present shortfalls with people skills to deal with staff and the challenges faced by people managers. Knowledgeable process owners tend to make great process managers given their deep understanding of the data they manage. Process managers should be exposed to methodologies designed for process improvements. Six Sigma is a great framework to educate individuals in this line of work.
Change Manager. – No business is insulated from changes and disruption. Whether it happens at the beginning, half-way through, or at the tail-end of the business life cycle, companies are expected to go through changes. If adequately managed, changes can be good and even necessary for business evolution. Efficient change managers closely monitor the business for behavioral anomalies, anticipate changes, design, implement, and run a successful change management strategy to steer the company through turbulent times. Deficient change managers tend to overlook critical details in the process and the people they manage. As a result, they rush through changes, do not communicate with their teams, and allow staff to assume what might be going on. This kind of environment allows for uncertainty and speculations at the workplace. Eventually, poorly implemented changes drive the business to lose talented resources and key customers. Successful change managers are great communicators, deliver concise messages, do not ignore what's happening, and listen to their team's reaction to the changes. Effective change managers are strongly recommended to undergo leadership training and coaching to educate them on how to properly implement changes without causing severe damage to the business they were entrusted to lead.
When you find someone with the ability to master all three components of the managerial trilogy, hire him/her, do not let them go. These kinds of resources will be an asset to any organization.
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