Posted on 02/21/16 at 12:00:00 AM
In many years of experience establishing quality management system in various organizations globally, I learned one thing which is very crucial, that the people will make your organization succeed or fail.
Good management and leadership are required for an effective deployment of quality management system. If you don’t have the right people in the management, then regardless of the good design of the quality management system and the talented people you have, it will not be successful. On the other hand, if you don’t have the right people on your team, the job will not be done according to the requirements.
Having and keeping the right people on your team makes all the difference in running a productive and successful quality cultural organization.
It is a lot more important than having people with the right skills. The right person is someone who has the drive, the motivation, and capabilities to get the job done well and grow.
Getting the right people is a continuous process; from hiring to developing them by providing the correct training, repeated exposure to consistent environment, and empowerment. These ultimately will lead you to your successful business.
Hiring the Right People
The process of having the right people in your team started from your hiring process. Creating a clear and specific job description and qualification requirements will definitely help the hiring manager shortlists the candidates, by matching the requirements of the job to the abilities of the person.
When interviewing, you should pay attention to how they will work with your team, how they will solve problems, and how driven they are. While technical skills are important and some knowledge level is required for each position, these skills are a lot easier to learn than to change someone’s character and conduct.
Your workforce’s skills change over time, and so does your business and customer needs.
Getting the right people into the right jobs is key to your company’s growth and crucial to success, more important, even, than your strategy.
A star employee may no longer be right for its current department. A top engineer who gets promoted to be head of engineering might be a lousy manager.
Before assigning an employee for the project, managers should ask these questions to the employee; what they are good at, what they are not good at, what they love about their job, what they dislike about it, what they think can be improved?
By utilizing your knowledge resulting from the above questions, you would certainly be able to select the right people for the right job.
It Takes Time for Training
Italian proverb says “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, you feed him for his lifetime.” These statements represent the needs for you to not only just “take” time to train, but should consistently “make” time to train your employees.
Most people tend to do things in a certain manner over and over again. We know that children, benefit from a consistent, positive behavior and environment. All aspects of a kid’s self wellness, including relationships and social interaction, tend to flourish in a good environment where consistency is an essential part of the daily lifestyle. It similarly happens to adults too.
We are all creatures of habits, and consistency and repetition is a part of who we are. Only that the reasons we develop habits that involve doing things in a consistent manner can vary considerably on a person by person, case-by-case basis. Regardless the reason is; we can use the principle of consistency to train people to have the job done the way we envision it.
Consistency actually strengthen and reinforce connections in the brain. That explains why consistency and repetition is so often in situations that involve learning or training.
Time, consistency and repetition are generally the fundamental building blocks for any successful learning and training process.
Progress is achieved through training, consistency, and ability to improve the repetition process, like steps in a staircase. Progressing one step at a time is a proven method towards achieving success.
Know that Repetition and Consistency are Everything
Repetition of things has an obvious effect on us. Remember learning your multiplication tables at school? We have to repeat things more than once for them to finally stay in our memories. Our short-term memories are unfortunately short-term and can forget something in less than a second. Repetition is one of getting things into longer-term memory and hence is a key method for learning.
Repetition creates a pattern in our brain, which eventually creates the comfort of familiarity. It can also lead to understanding. What at first may be strange, after repeated exposure becomes clear and understandable.
Repetition is important for companies bringing new innovated process where employees have to follow or introducing new products to the market where users may initially unfamiliar with the product or its usage.
Imagine if the Stop signs came in pink squares, purple triangles, or green circles, depending on the fancies of the town and its residences. Can you imagine the traffic jams and accidents that most probably will be caused by that inconsistent signs?
Repeating design elements and information and consistent use of type, graphics, words, terms and definitions within a document shows the readers where to go, what to do, when to do and helps them navigate your operations safely and effectively.
Therefore, a well-designed and implemented quality management system will ensure consistency of your business operations.
People Empowerment
Every successful executive understands that their employees reflect their leadership skills. Because they set the example, each employee subsequently represents the strengths and weaknesses of those who govern their position.
Empowerment refers to increasing of the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people that enable them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. By empowering your employees, it will enable them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of confidence, and to recognize and use their resources to the fullest.
Empowerment will eventually lead to the employees’ ownership which will ensure the job well done.
Successful executives recognize that their employees represent the heart of the organization, and that, without their ownership, dedication and work satisfaction, the customer experience would fall off.
Getting the right people is not a one-time process, rather it is a cycle to continually developing them to be ready for their tasks.
Further employee encouragement and engagement by allowing staff to discuss issues they have observed and share ideas with the management will lead to creativity, innovation, improvement, their own satisfaction, and ultimately the satisfaction of your customers which means your profitable businesses.