This “MANAGER’S GUIDE: Work Responsibilities & Psychology (Course)”

discusses the issues faced by managers and the responsibilities which they must master.”

The Course | Management issues are often a priority for most business executives. Examples of questions on the minds of these executives include: “Where can I find management talent to run the company?” or “Is there someone already working for the company who can be developed as a manager?” In short, business executives need management talent to run their organizations effectively, but this talent can be hard to find. In fact, for various reasons, professional management talent is scarce. This course aims to help in this regard, by training people so they are able to fulfill this need. The purpose of the course is to assist people in increasing their management competencies, and thus, ensure success in team lead, management, or executive roles. This course will help management students to notice what’s important about the various responsibilities which manager’s have. It will provide the students with an understanding of the management functions. Further, the course provides a psychological insight into management, an often understudied and underutilized perspective. This course will help aspiring managers prepare for the task of management, as well; it will help managers already in the field, who would like to add theoretical and applied ideas to their knowledge base.

This course is divided up into five sections: the introduction to the course, the recruitment of employees, the everyday responsibilities, the evaluation of performance, and the professional techniques. These five sections will provide both theoretical and practical insights, which are applicable to the management role. In the course, you will get information regarding various common management topics, including:

Why the management profession is unique among the professions.
Differences between external and internal recruitment.
The limitations of the unstructured interview.
Conducting a structured interview.
The purpose behind authentic job previews.
How to best perform various responsibilities, including: delegation, motivation, mentorship
Setting goals, and using reward and punishment to guide behaviour.
Looking for and preparing an understudy.
Assessments And their Role in Shaping Performance.
Assessing employees objectively.
The reason, the process and the problems of performance evaluations.
The levels of communication.
Communicating and collaborating with Human Resources.
Responding to a problem employee
Leading a team effectively
What are strategic alliances, why are they needed, and what are the benefits.
How are strategic alliances forged?

The goal of the course is to help prepare you with the quick insight necessary to succeed in the management role. The ideas presented were designed to help you to enhance your practice.

Course Curriculum

INTRODUCTION

Lecture 1 – Course and Instructor Introductions

Hello, and thank you for registering in “A MANAGER’S GUIDE: Work Responsibilities and Psychology”. In this lecture, I will introduce the course and explain why the course solves a shortcoming in today’s management training. Also, I will talk a bit about my knowledge and experience and why I decided to create this course.

This course provides a “business” and “human” understanding of management practice in the workplace. The purpose of the course is to help make you a better manager. I will provide you with knowledge on the specific work responsibilities, which manager’s must perform. Knowledge will be provided on how to recruit employees, how to perform everyday responsibilities, how to evaluate performance, and how to apply advanced management techniques.Further, throughout the lectures, explain psychological techniques, which a manager can use to better their performance and the psychology behind certain management functions. As the psychological nature of the profession can sometimes be ignored, this guide aims to expose certain flaws, misconceptions and truths about the practice. The course delivers knowledge applicable to aspiring managers, first time managers and to experienced managers who are looking to improve their skills.

Many concepts are presented with a focus on the psychological perspective, an often-overlooked perspective in today’s management literature. If you ever take a look at something like the project management body of knowledge, the modern leaders are not always taught to lead from a human perspective, but from a generated science of procedures and documentation that don’t provide you with the quick insights into human behaviour that you need to progress, and heck, even just to survive in today’s organizations. Therefore, this course fills in psychological gaps in traditional management training.

I decided to create this course because I my diverse background exposed me to the various work responsibilities and psychology inherent within work, life and project endeavours.

As part of my career, I’ve worked as a: manager of two businesses, IT Support Administrator, Web Developer, Computer Technician, Computer Sales Associate, director and project manager of several independent films. In terms of my educational background, I hold a Bachelor’s Degree (in Computer Science and Psychology). I am also an Associate (Information Technology) member of ASTTBC, where the Board recognized that my academics are at an Applied Science Technologist level. In addition, I have also studied Electronics Engineering Technology.

Lastly, in this course, you will find both practical and theoretical concepts that you can immediately apply to your practice. You will gain useful insight that will ready you to act and react professionally in today’s fast paced and complex management environment.

Lecture 2 – The Management Profession Is Unique Among The Professions

Many workers across many different industries would like to be a manager. Workers desire to become a manager, because the role has been associated with many desirable things, including; power, prestige, achievement, freedom, authority, a good income, and a professional level position. From this list, it may seem that management is similar to many other good professions. However, management is not like other professions. It is unique among the professions. One of the key differences between management and other professions has to do with what these professionals have to deal with on a daily basis. Whereas many technical and creative professionals are focused on their specific skills and specialized tasks, managers are focused on interpersonal interactions and concepts, which are psychological in nature. For example, managers must deal with concepts such as: insecurity, respect, conflict, and powerlessness. These concepts are psychological in nature. As you can see, managers have unique circumstances among many professionals as theymust deal with and solve psychological challenges.

The level of professionalism that workers achieve, can vary dependent upon the profession we are discussing. If, for example, the profession is critical to the health, safety and well being of the public, then the standards can be very high and a professional association usually regulates this type of profession. If the profession is in a domain, which is not as vital or critical to the health, safety and well being of the public, then the profession may not be professionally regulated and as a result, standards can vary. This latter situation often applies to the management profession. As a result, there are many managers, which are not as professional as professionals should be.Thequality of a manager should be a consistent and quantifiable thing. After all, the purpose of the professional title is to denote a certain consistency and quality level that has been achieved. Unfortunately, research has shown, that there is alack of a standardized level of quality in the management field. To understand this further, let’s look at a comparison between software engineers and managers. In software engineering, we have workers who design and implement things according to strict codes, efficiencies and rules. Most of these workers are very capable, and most of the bad ones never practice, as they are unable to fulfill the entire stringent academic, licensing and experience requirements necessary to become a software engineer. In comparison, many managers are unskilled, yet they are still able to practice their profession. Unlike software engineers, many are bad, and only some are good. There are a few factors, which have created this situation. First, whereas many professionals practice their skills, management skills are often not practiced. Second, many managers do not work towards a professional license. Third, sometimes it is expected of managers to also perform the work they used to do before the promotion, thereby taking time away from their development as a manager. Fourth, many managers do not undergo any mentorship program, and as such, do not develop according to a plan. Fifth, many are simply throw into the management role into a pass or fail situation, without any training and preparation. As you can see, there are many factors, which work together to harm and limit the professionalism of many people as they go through this profession.

Lecture 3 – Chapter Summary

I decided to create this course because my diverse background exposed me to the various work responsibilities and psychology inherent within work, life and project endeavours.

If you ever take a look at something like the project management body of knowledge, the modern leaders are not always taught to lead from a human perspective, but from a generated science of procedures and documentation that don’t provide you with the quick insights into human behaviour that you need to progress, and heck, even just to survive in today’s organizations.

Knowledge will be provided on how to recruit employees, how to perform everyday responsibilities, how to evaluate performance, and how to apply advanced management techniques.

Throughout the lectures, I explain psychological techniques, which a manager can use to better their performance.

Workers desire to become a manager, because the role has been associated with many desirable things, including; power, prestige, achievement, freedom, authority, a good income, and a professional level position.

Whereas many technical and creative professionals are focused on their specific skills and specialized tasks, managers are focused on interpersonal interactions and concepts.

If the profession is critical to the health, safety and well being of the public, then the standards can be very high and a professional association usually regulates this type of profession.

If the profession is in a domain, which is not as vital or critical to the health, safety and well-being of the public, then the profession may not be professionally regulated and as a result, standards can vary.

Managers have unique circumstances among many professionals as they must deal with and solve psychological challenges.

Many managers are unskilled, yet they are still able to practice their profession.

RECRUITING EMPLOYEES

Lecture 4 – Internal or External Recruitment

As part of the business operations and projects, managers will need to recruit people for different positions. One of the first decisions that will need to be made has to do with whether the positions will be filled with someone from within the company, or someone from outside of the company. There are advantages and disadvantages with each option. If the manager recruits internally, this has the effect of motivating the employees as they see there is opportunity for advancement and change. However, the disadvantage is that there will be no new skill, talent, and ideas added to the company. If the manager were to recruit from outside, there will often be a great amount of selection to choose from, and company can then benefit from a rang of new ideas, knowledge, talent and skill which the person would bring with them. However, the disadvantage may be that they may need time to adjust to the company processes and perhaps some training. Overall, in order to compete and stay up to date, the advantage may go to recruiting externally.

Lecture 5 – Sources of Error in Unstructured Interviews

Organizations recruit their employees with either a structured or an unstructured interview process. Though the structured interview process has many advantages, often times, management and human resources will use the unstructured format. The problem with this is that there are a lot of potential sources of error, which arise out of the use of the unstructured interview format. Understanding the possible errors will do two things. One, it will prepare one to conduct a proper structured interview. And two, it will provide insight into human decision-making. Now, I will describe potential sources of error.

Weak Intuition – People believe that they have a good intuition, but they may have weak intuition. However, let’s look at an example of how poor human intuition can be. In some countries, marriages can fail up to half of the time. Considering that many interview their potential spouse for up to a few years, and then get the decision wrong, how can human resources make good decisions after only a short interview?

Job Relevancy – Some questions, which interviewers ask are not relevant to the job, and do not provide the interviewer with a way to judge the potential of the candidate in that position. For example, the interviewer may ask, “What are your salary expectations in five years time?”

Primacy Effects – I have heard notions that the information, which is presented first during an interview, carries more weight than the information, which is presented last. Making periodic judgments about the candidate, perhaps after every question, and then averaging the results, would make a more valid evaluation.

Comparison Effects – Comparison effects has a lot to do with judging by differences or by contrast. Sometimes, managers will judge a job seeker’s interview based on the performance of the previous candidate. It is likely that a job seeker will be judged more poorly if they are interviewed right after an excellent candidate. Conversely, it is likely that a job seeker will be judged to be better than they are, if they are interviewed right after an awful candidate. The manager should space out the interviews in order to reduce this effect.

Emphasis On Negatives – People tend to place a greater amount of emphasis on and weight to negative information. It is unfortunate, but it seems that positive and negative information are not treated equally. This can be seen in job interviews, where job seekers will gladly provide ten positive answers, but will afraid to provide one negative answer. Their fear is that one negative response will likely cost them the job. Their concerns are valid. In order to get an accurate picture of the candidate, a manager could employ computer-based interviews. It seems that people are more honest with computers and more willing to share negatives through this medium.

Interviewer-Job Seeker Similarity – It seems that interviewers will evaluate a job seeker that is similar to them, higher on the ratings scale, over a job seeker, which is dissimilar. Being like the person interviewing you is an advantage, and again, seems to be based on luck.

Job-Seeker Appearance – The appearance of a job seeker will influence the score they will receive from the interviewer. This is also known as the appearance bias. A lean applicant will receive a higher score than an overweight applicant. An applicant which dresses well will receive a higher score over one that dresses poorly. An applicant who is attractive will get a higher score over an average or unattractive candidate. These things are unfortunate, and expose human faults in hiring.

Physical Cues – There is a correlation between non-verbal communication and the ratings, which an interviewer assigns. Basically, a lot of communication is non-verbal. Rather than making decisions on substance and knowledge communicated, decisions can be made on non-tangible and invisible forces. With the application of a structured interview, this effect can be reduced.

In my talk on the errors with unstructured interviews, I hope it has become clear as to how many different possible errors there are with the process. Decisions on hiring should be based on facts, evidence, analysis, comparisons, and the use of expert judgment; not things such as eye contact and attractiveness.

Lecture 6 – Conducting A Structured Interview

Lecture 6 – Conducting A Structured Interview

What is a Structured Interview? Also, how does a structured interview differ from an unstructured interview? Many HR professionals would profess to tell you that they know these answers, and that they apply the best choice in their practice. However, many are only partly right. A structured interview, is one in which

The same questions are asked of all of the applicants.
A standardized scoring system is applied to each question.
The questions are specific and related to the job.

While many HR professionals do in fact ask all of the applicants the same questions, and therefore assume they are doing the structured interview process, they sometimes forget to satisfy the other criteria. They either don’t score each question independently on a ratings scale or they don’t ask questions that are specific to the job, or they don’t do both. Also, in doing unstructured interviews, the HR professionals are also subject to certain errors that are common to unstructured interviews.

So how should an interview be administered? After the introductions, the interview will begin with a description of what will happen at the interview. The interview will be a bit stressful to many candidates. Not only will the interviewee have to answer difficult and unforeseen questions, but also he or she may have to do this in front of a panel of people. In addition, everything they say will be recorded and analyzed, which adds a further layer of stress. By identifying this potential stressor, and notifying the candidate ahead of time of the process, especially of the fact that things will be written down, the candidate will be able to better prepare for the challenge. After the description, questions will be asked of the candidate. The type of questions includes skill testing questions, disqualifier questions, or hypothetical situational questions. The most difficult of these to create are the situational questions. The best way to approach creating these, are from logs of real world incidents, which have occurred at the company, which are reworded such that they can be compared with the hypothetical answer that a job seeker would give. After the job specific questions, there should be a bit of time allotted to check out whether or not the person may be a fit for the company. To figure out organizational fit, ask the job seeker about their vision, their goals and objectives, and compare those with those of the company. This should be enough to gain a complete picture. Hopefully, every question has been scored, and then the scores can be averaged to produce a final score to serve as the basis of comparison to other candidates.

Lecture 7 – Offering An Authentic Job Preview

During a job interview, there should be a point at which the manager will talk about the job and offer a preview of the job to the candidate. The manager will be faced with a decision, either to be authentic and offer a realistic and honest job preview, or to promote the job by making it seem better than what it is. Many managers do not like the prospect of losing a good candidate that they begin to feel the pressure to advertise the job as being better than it is. The problem with this is that once in the job, eventually the employee will discover that there is a difference between what was advertised and reality. The employee may begin to feel dissatisfied with the situation in which they are now in, and their motivation, and consequently their performance will decline. Though they may be blamed for poor performance, the reality is, the person who created this situation was the dishonest manager. As such, it is very important to offer candidates a realistic job preview during the interview process. There is a risk of losing a potentially great candidate, but at the same time, it is likely that a great candidate that is attracted with a dishonest preview would show poor performance or leave the organization. As part of advertising the job honestly, this does not mean that only the faults are described. An example of a good way to state a negative is by combining it with a positive. For example, a manager could say “Though working on the assembly line is strenuous and physically demanding, the compensation is excellent.” Authentic assessments lead to employees which are more motivated, and that stay at their job for a longer period of time.

Lecture 8 – Chapter 2 Summary

As part of the business operations and projects, managers will need to recruit people for different positions.

If the manager were to recruit from outside, there will often be a great amount of selection to choose from, and company can then benefit from a range of new ideas, knowledge, talent and skill which the person would bring with them.

The problem with the unstructured interview format is that there are a lot of potential sources of error.

Job Relevancy – Some questions, which interviewers ask are not relevant to the job, and do not provide the interviewer with a way to judge the potential of the candidate in that position.

Primacy Effects – I have heard notions that the information, which is presented first during an interview, carries more weight than the information, which is presented last.

Comparison Effects – It is likely that a job seeker will be judged more poorly if they are interviewed right after an excellent candidate.

Comparison Effects – It is likely that a job seeker will be judged to be better than they are, if they are interviewed right after an awful candidate.

Emphasis On Negatives – Job seekers will gladly provide ten positive answers, but will afraid to provide one negative answer.

Interviewer-Job Seeker Similarity – It seems that interviewers will evaluate a job seeker that is similar to them, higher on the ratings scale, over a job seeker, which is dissimilar.

EVERYDAY RESPONSIBILITIES

Lecture 9 – Manager’s Responsibilities

Despite those who think it would be nice to be a manager because it would allow one to avoid doing the actual work, this is not an insightful opinion. Managers have a lot of work to do. Managers perform a wide array of tasks and have many responsibilities. They do things such as plan, hire, fire, mentor, supervise, train, and so on. As part of planning, they assess direction, set priorities, and organize resources. As part of hiring, they find people who know how to do the work. As part of firing, they remove people who are not effective. As part of mentorship, they guide those that are less experienced. As part of training, they teach skills and behaviours. This is just a short list, and is only a small representation of what they do. In addition, the list of tasks is diverse. Besides the basic tasks, there is also the act of managing itself. Managing involves providing direction, however, doing so too often will create a dependency on the direction. As such, the goal is to grow the confidence, skill and behaviour of the employees so they are able to direct themselves and accomplish things without constant monitoring and input. The next few lectures, discuss various management responsibilities. The priority of the course is to guide managers in their profession, so some of the lectures in this section highlight the psychological considerations, and some focus on the practical everyday aspect.

Lecture 10 – Delegation

Delegation is an effective tool. Delegation deals with assigning a task or a set of tasks for an employee to do, tasks which a manager previously did. So how does one delegate? Well, it involves guiding, supervising, and training an employee to do a particular task. If this process is not followed, and the employee is simply assigned something to do without the right input, then the employee could fail miserably. In the end, the manager will be blamed for poor delegation practices. Delegation is also useful to the manager, not just to the employees. By splitting the workload, the manager can then use the extra time gained to focus on higher-level leadership needs. But what do the followers think about delegation. Some see delegation as a manager who wishes to offload some of their work onto others. However, others see its true strength, which has to do with how by the act of delegating, the manager is showing confidence in the employee that they can handle new tasks while also training that employee for the future. Therefore, delegation has a very important role in the organization.

Sometimes the followers will try to pass off their workload to the manager. They will make statements such as “I am overwhelmed by all the work, and need some help.” Or “I’m too busy to do all these tasks.” or “I don’t know how to do this.” Or “ I haven’t been trained on this procedure.” A manager must be careful not to take on responsibilities from subordinates, because they can quickly add up and take up all of the manager’s time. If not careful, the manager could spend the entire working day doing other people’s work, rather than working on their own responsibilities. The manager could end up in the position of failing to manage. In short, delegation has many benefits, both for the manager and the employees. However, the manager must be careful as to which direction the delegation Is happening, and control the upward delegation such that it does not take up all the manager’s time.

Lecture 11 – How To Motivate Employees

We often hear the word “motivation” in today’s social and at work conversation. Unfortunately, we do not hear it used in a positive way, such as “Wow, he’s so determined and hard working.” What we usually hear has something to do with laziness or people in society who don’t have enough motivation. At work, if the employees do not have enough motivation, it isn’t because they are lazy; it is because the manager doesn’t know how to motivate. Motivation requires that the wants of the individual, be matched to opportunities available within the organization. To lead effectively, a manager must be a motivator of people, and as part of this, it means that the manager must provide what the employees need by searching for and figuring out how to align what the organization can provide to match those employee needs. The manager, must look for opportunities within the organization, and if possible, attempt to make a connection.

Some managers think that telling employees what to do is what motivating employees is all about. They say things like “Do this, because I’m the one in charge.” However, using power and authority to get people to do some action, is not the same thing as them doing it because they want to. These managers need to learn, that it is a more effective strategy over the long term to work with motivated employees than without. In addition, they need to learn that pushing employees to accomplish tasks is actually more difficult than having a motivated employee that pushes himself or herself and constantly renews their energies towards tasks. The managers need to learn what it is that motivates employees, and then align those interests to organizational goals and opportunities.

To be able to motivate employees, the manager needs to know what they want. Only then will the manager be able to come up with a solution or some sort of offer that can be used to enhance that employee’s motivation. People want different things. Some want to keep their job. Some want a promotion. Some want to be better than others. As a result, wants lead to different actions, which are visible. The employee might work harder than others. Or the employee might be very competitive. These are clues that should be analyzed so as to determine the wants. If the manager is not able to motivate employees, then this should become a very big concern. Unmotivated employees create troubles at the workplace. They may not show up, or they may quit their jobs, or they may simply be ineffective in their role. On the other hand, motivated employees offer the company their creativity and are productive. To maintain an edge over the other companies, it is the manager’s responsibility to motivate the employees.

Lecture 12 – Setting Goals and Using Reward Or Punishment

Increasing employee motivation is one of the responsibilities of the manager. A manager can accomplish this by having the employee set goals. After the goals are achieved, the next step would be to reward the employee for the accomplishment. Reward should also be used in times when the organization needs the employee to go beyond the call of duty and perform extra work. The psychological principle that I am describing is called “operant conditioning”. As applied to management practice, this principle states that employees will perform behaviours, which they are rewarded for, and will avoid behaviours for which they are punished. Since there are two options, there are those that believe reward is most effective, and those that believe the use of punishment is more effective. Those that believe that reward is more effective, argue the use of reward, unlike punishment; works over a longer time period, does not cause any feelings of resentment, and involves the reinforcement of good behaviours. Conversely, those that believe that punishment is most effective, argue that it is very effective at behaviour modification, and also serves to set a public example for the other employees. Regardless of who is right, I believe that there are risks associated with the punishment style. What if the punishment does not “fit the crime”? For example, punishment can be so light that it will not have any effect, or so harsh, that it will cause resentment and cause other problems. When using the punishment technique, a great deal of care must be employed so that it is used at the appropriate level of severity fitting the original problematic behaviour. Also, punishment needs to be explained and justified.

Lecture 13 – Providing Mentorship

The new generation is different from the old generation in many ways. As applicable to leadership, one critical way they are different is in the views regarding authority. The new generation does not like to be told what to do. This presents a problem for management. The act of managing itself could create resentment among the followers. A good solution for this is the adoption of the mentorship model. Instead of directing people as to what to do, the mentorship model allows for a new dynamic between the manager and the followers. This dynamic allows the manager to lead, but it is done while also focusing on the development of the employee. As part of the mentorship, guidance and insights are provided. On top of benefitting the employee, this also helps the organization achieve its objectives. Other people within the organization see managers, which mentor others, in a positive light. By developing people, the manager’s reputation is enhanced.

Lecture 14 – Look For And Prepare An Understudy

In regards to career advancement, one important aspect is sometimes overlooked. It has to do with preparing someone to fill in the role of the manager, so that the manager can be promoted to the next level. If there is no one available and trained to do what the manager does, than the executives will not be able to promote the manager to another position. The solution is to look for an understudy. A good time to start looking for one is after the manager has mastered all of the responsibilities of their own job. Only then, will it make sense and also be possible to teach someone effectively. Next, will come the decision as to who to select to be the understudy. A good person to pick is a worker who is both good at their job and ready to take on new challenges. To train this individual, it will be required to delegate portions of the management job from time to time. This must be done on an ongoing basis, such that, the understudy will then not forget how to do different aspects of the job. When they are ready, it will be time to have a meeting with upper management. At this meeting, present the understudy, and explain your thoughts on them being ready to manage and also of being management material. Only say this if it is true. Do not falsify or exaggerate. There will then be a risk that the understudy will be promoted to another position, but the risk is smaller than the risk of the manager not having a replacement available which would allow the manager to be promoted.

Lecture 15 – Chapter 3 Summary

By the act of delegating, the manager is showing confidence in the employee that they can handle new tasks while also training that employee for the future.

A manager must be careful not to take on responsibilities from subordinates, because they can quickly add up and take up all of the manager’s time.

To lead effectively, a manager must be a motivator of people, and as part of this, it means that the manager must provide what the employees need by searching for and figuring out how to align what the organization can provide to match those employee needs.

Pushing employees to accomplish tasks is actually more difficult than having a motivated employee that pushes himself or herself and constantly renews their energies towards tasks.

The extrinsically motivated people do things because they are concerned with what would happen if they were to perform poorly, or because they believe they will gain some sort of reward.

Those that believe that reward is more effective, argue the use of reward, unlike punishment; works over a longer time period, does not cause any feelings of resentment, and involves the reinforcement of good behaviours.

Those that believe that punishment is most effective, argue that it is very effective at behaviour modification, and also serves to set a public example for the other employees.

Instead of directing people as to what to do, the mentorship model allows for a new dynamic between the manager and the followers. This dynamic allows the manager to lead, but it is done while also focusing on the development of the employee.

If there is no one available and trained to do what the manager does, than the executives will not be able to promote the manager to another position.

EVALUATING PERFORMANCE

Lecture 16 – Assessments And Their Role In Shaping Performance

Lecture 16 – Assessments And Their Role in Shaping Performance

There are three questions that I want to answer in regards to assessments of others by managers. “Does the manager’s treatment of the employees affect their performance?”“Is there a link between the performance of the employee and the preconceived notions a manager has about the employee?” and “Are the managers objective in their assessment of others?” These three questions can help clarify the problem that manager’s face in regards to staying clear and objective, and the potential benefits to the management practice of attempting to be as analytical and positive as possible.

First: Does the manager’s treatment of the employees affect the employee performance? The reality is that managers tend to treat employees based on what the managers perceive the employee’s abilities to be. This can be a bit problematic. If a manager perceives a worker to be good, it actually impacts that workers ability to do work, and that worker ends up performing better than if they were perceived to be bad at their job. Let’s consider an example. One manager was advised that he had the best performing employees in the company. The other manager was told he was assigned average and below average employees. The truth is, they both had employees of equal abilities. The manager, who believed he was in command of the better employees, treated the employees in such a way that he managed to get much better performance on the project than the other manager. What had happened, was that in believing to have superior employees, the manager had actually communicated more, delegated more, demanded more, and pushed harder; all of which resulted in a much more successful project. The manager’s beliefs, as to the quality of the employees, led to treatment, which impacted employee performance.

Second: Is there a link between the performance of the employee and the preconceived notions a manager has about the employee? This is an interesting one. Is it possible that our internal and hidden beliefs could affect the performance of others? This idea was explored in an experiment conducted by Lenore Jacobson and Robert Rosenthal (1968) with teachers and school children. This experiment reveals some interesting notions about human behaviour, which is relevant to management practice. The experimenters informed the teachers that some children from the group would likely develop intellectually faster than the rest of the children, throughout the rest of the year. The teachers, now believing that some of the children would develop faster, actually treated those children differently. They treated those children with more care, with more attention, and with more encouragement. By receiving this special treatment, the children actually studied harder, and did in fact develop intellectually faster than the rest of the class. This was shown as they had received higher verbal scores and IQ scores than the rest of the class. This goes to show that, in being treated better, the person will perform better. When applied to management practice, if a manager were to criticize an employee, it is likely the employee will do bad work. On the other hand, if the manager was to act with more care, with more encouragement, it is likely the employee will offer better performance. In conclusion, the performance of the employee is linked to the original belief the manager has about the employee.

Third: Are the managers objective in their assessment of others? It would be nice if the answer were yes, however, there are subjectivity factors which often get in the way of objective assessments. So what does this mean? Well, let me rewind a little bit. A common problem that people face has to do with how their perception of others, affects their behaviour towards them. For example, if one believes another to be capable, they will look at that person more favourably. However, people are subject to biases, which mean that the assessments are not objective. Unlike the average person, managers are supposed to use a professional approach that is analytical and objective. Even when they do this, they are still subject to factors, which alter their perception of the employees. I’ll give two examples of possible factors.

One factor is the “horns effect”. Assume that the manager has a very important task that needs to be accomplished. Assume that the manager assigns this very important task to an employee. Now consider how the manager would view that employee, if they were to fail atthis very important task. The manager would be quite unhappy with the employee, and would perceive them to be incapable and a poor employee. The employee is now said to have horns. Whatever they do from now on, even if they were to then do a good job, it would not likely be visible and recognized. Even if the employee had a history of good achievements, they will no longer be recognized at the level they should be. Had the manager been more objective, and used recorded logs and evidence spread out over a longer evaluation period, the manager would have recognized that, even though the employee did not achieve the all important task, the employee was a good performer overall. Another factor is the “halo effect”. Assume that a manager assigns a very important task to an employee. And now, assume that the employee succeeds at this all-important goal. Now, the manager will think that employee to be absolutely amazing. Even if that employee were to have performed poorly in the past, they will now be seen in a positive light. The manager is now blinded by the halo of the employee having succeeded at the very important task. These effects show that human behaviour is not always evidence based, but can be affected by subjectivity factors. By being aware of these factors, managers can plan to be more objective in the assessment of others.

Lecture 17 – Performance Reviews

In this lecture, I discuss performance reviews. From time to time, informal performance reviews are useful. Informal performance reviews, can be something as simple as “I think you’re doing an outstanding job.” Some managers are quiet in this regard, and do not offer informal performance reviews. They do not believe they are needed. However, this is not the case. Many employees are self-conscious, and do not know where they stand in the eyes of management. They could use some feedback. Suppose a manager offers a good opinion to an employee. Could this not give that employee peace of mind that they are doing ok, and then allow them to more comfortably and more effectively produce work at the organization? In fact, the productivity of many employees would be enhanced with only just a bit more communication with their managers. It is also necessary to do formal performance reviews. Suppose it is time to let an employee go. Would it not be helpful to have documented performance records over time, which could be used to justify letting an employee go? Would this not prevent the organization from being liable in the event that employee takes legal action?

The review process has some positives, but also some negatives. One of the main problems with the review process has to do with how it makes workers feel. For many workers, it is unpleasant. This is because; the review process is confrontational, placing the managers against the workers. As the managers make judgements, they are on the offensive; and the workers, are on the defensive. Now imagine if the performance review included information on contributions made throughout the year, as well as, the main accomplishments. This type of discussion would only serve to motivate the workers, and it is likely that, after the review, the workers would go on to perform better.

The manager should pay careful attention to ensure the performance review is an accurate portrayal of performance. Sometimes, when it comes to judgments, biases are introduced. For example, sometimes an employee will rate himself or herself at a much lower level than what a manager would rate them at. At other times, the opposite effect will take place, where the employee will rate him or herself strongly in an area in which they are weak. Again, the main goal of the performance review is to gain an accurate assessment of performance, which is then used as a platform towards goal setting for better performance down the road. After the performance is assessed, a discussion needs to happen not simply about the problems of the past, but also what actions will need to be taken to improve the performance from that point on.

There is a problem that can occur during the performance review, that I’d like to mention. Some managers rate the performance of all of the employees within the range of average to excellent. They do not use the lower part of the performance range. This may be due to the fact that they dislike entering into a conflict with the employee about an unacceptable performance level. They may think it easier to just accept things as they are, and move on. This is problematic, because the employee may think that things are fine the way they are. In addition, what is going to happen when that employee goes back to work, and tells the other colleagues of the great performance review that they have received. The other colleagues will probably feel that if a poor performer is being rated at a good or at an excellent level, than this reduces their own performance efforts and renders their efforts insignificant. This will definitely reduce the morale of the colleagues, and potentially their performance as well.

Further, now consider that it is time to lay off some workers. How can a manager justify who to lay off, if everyone has received acceptable performance reviews. If everyone is the same, there is no way to select the person to lay off. If one is chosen, and laid off without proper formal justification, then the company could be held liable for favouritism. In short, well thought out performance reviews will improve employee and therefore company performance. As for poorly thought out reviews, these will be demoralizing to the employee and can affect the performance of the colleagues

Lecture 18 – Reasons For Performance Evaluations

There are many reasons why performance evaluations are done. Two reasons, which are sometimes overlooked, are “feedback” and “training”. The performance evaluation process is a tool to gather information from the employee, such that it can both be used to generate feedback, but also to design an ongoing training regimen throughout the next evaluation period. After all, a key goal of the performance evaluation process is to improve employee performance for the benefit of the organization. Unfortunately, employees have a different view of the evaluation process. They go in with an expectation of a score they’d like to receive, and when they don’t receive it, they are surprised. Say an employee expects an “excellent” score, but receives an “average” score, they may end up being unhappy with the results, and this may impact their performance throughout the next evaluation period. For this reason, performance evaluation is not about providing feedback simply at the time of the evaluation; a good manager will have provided some hints, or some informal feedback verbally throughout the evaluation period leading up to the performance review, so as to avoid any unexpected surprises.

Lecture 19 – Performance Evaluation Process

In this lecture, I’m going to talk about the process of evaluating employee performance.

Performance evaluations actually have multiple purposes. They aren’t simply a tool to determine who will be kept on staff, and who will be terminated. They are used to determine who will be promoted, and who will not. They are also useful for providing a bit of training and for providing feedback. Initially, the manager will need to decide on what the real purpose of the evaluation will be. Next, the manager will need to gather some information from other contributors, such as in 360-degree feedback, where the peers and direct reports also provide information. This is because the manager will only typically see around 35% of the employee’s behaviour, and thus, will not be able to see all aspects of the employee’s behaviour. Thus, the manager needs to gather information from multiple sources.

Another technique to employ includes the documentation of critical incidents as they happen. This information helps the manager to come up with proper performance ratings. The documented evidence of critical incidents can be used to justify the performance score provided. If the employee created problems, then a detailed log of these can be used to justify a lower score. Documentation is also useful for another key reason. The manager is not the most objective person in the world, and as such, it is good to help make the process a bit more scientific. For example, it turns out that manager’s place more emphasis on recent behaviours in an evaluation period, than on all behaviours as they occur throughout the evaluation period. So say someone performs really well at the end of an evaluation period, and another person performs well mostly at the beginning and somewhat throughout, then the person who only performed well at the end will be the winner. The person that didn’t show their best work at the end, though they offered decent performance throughout, will not be seen in the best of light. If documentation had been produced, and reviewed, the more consistent person who had an overall higher level of performance, would have been seen as better.

Lecture 20 – Problems With The Performance Evaluation Process

When a manager rates the performance of an employee, it is often assumed that the performance of the evaluator, or the manager, will be good enough that it will lead to reliable and consistent evaluations. However, there are problems with the performance evaluation process, which need to be understood. For example, a manager does not usually get to see a full picture of the employee behaviour. The managers are usually only exposed to a small sample. This is because, managers are often busy with their own tasks, and other employees, and as such, can only allocate a very small fraction of time towards supervising any one employee. As such, the managers, do not have enough information to make good performance assessments. Many employees are late, work slowly, do low quality work, or manipulate and bother others; but the managers often don’t see such problems, as these tend to happen when the manager is not around. In addition, memory is fragile, and many of the things, which the manager learns, are often forgotten. The tactic, which many managers employ, is to form general impressions of employees. They create for themselves two models, what a good employee is, and what a bad employee is. Then they contrast and compare whether or not the employees fit into one or the other of these models. Again, though this can be an accurate process, memory is fragile. It is best to combine this process, of using a general impression and a personal model, with the keeping of accurate performance records throughout the entire period that the employees are evaluated in.

Lecture 21 – Errors in Performance Evaluations

Evaluation of performance is an important topic for almost all workers. Evaluating performance requires a manager that can be objective, and that uses information from critical incident logs to make judgments. Now, as objective as professional managers believe themselves to be, there are errors, which are made in regards to the ratings given to employees on performance reviews. Managers make mistakes, and when it comes to ratings on performance evaluations, they do so surprisingly often. I will discuss several of these types of errors, including; the distribution error, the halo error, the proximity error, and the contrast error.

First, the distribution error: Some managers rate all employees on the low end of the scale, some on the mid range of the scale, and still others will rate all employees within the upper range of the scale. In these instances, the managers are only using a portion of the ratings scale, which is not representative of the reality. Why does this happen? Well consider the manager who rates everyone favorable, in the upper range of the scale. Say they rate all employees between seven to ten, on a ten-point scale. This manager may have done this because he or she may be uncomfortable offending the employees or uncomfortable in engaging in confrontation.

Next, the halo error: This error occurs when a manager focuses on one attribute or ability, and that focus obscures and clouds their view of the employees other abilities. For example, the manager may think an employee to be very intelligent, and because of this, the manager may automatically attribute to the employee other positive qualities such as commitment. However, the employee may be uncommitted and a bit lazy.

Next, the proximity error: The proximity error is a surprising type of error. As the performance evaluator rates the worker on different dimensions, it turns out that the rating given on one dimension or attribute, can influences the rating given on the next dimension or attribute. The evaluator seems to rate workers on different dimensions that are physically close to one another on the score card, or group the scores so one dimension is rated close in value to another dimension. The ratings given are done simply due to their proximity on the rating scale, rather than the overall impression the rater has for the different dimensions.

And lastly, the contrast error. It turns out, that managers tend to base their judgements by contrasting and comparing one employee versus another. Rather than being analytical and objective, and evaluating the performance an employee based on real information and data, the manager will often judge an employees behaviour by contrasting it with the last employee met. So say the employee goes to a performance evaluation right after someone very good has been evaluated, then the score given to the employee is likely to be a lot lower than they would normally receive.

Lecture 22 – Chapter 4 Summary

If a manager perceives a worker to be good, it actually impacts that workers ability to do work, and that worker ends up performing better than if they were perceived to be bad at their job.
Managers who believe that they have superior employees, will actually communicate more, delegate more, demand more, and push harder; all of which will result in more successful projects.

The distribution error: Some managers rate all employees on the low end of the scale, some on the mid range of the scale, and still others will rate all employees within the upper range of the scale. In these instances, the managers are only using a portion of the ratings scale, which is not representative of the reality.

The halo error: This error occurs when a manager focuses on one attribute or ability, and that focus obscures and clouds their view of the employees other abilities.

The proximity error: The rating given on one dimension or attribute, can influences the rating given on the next dimension or attribute. The evaluator seems to group the scores so one dimension is rated close in value to another dimension.

The contrast error: Rather than being analytical and objective, and evaluating the performance an employee based on real information and data, the manager will often judge an employees behaviour by contrasting it with the last employee met.

If a poor performer is rated at a good or at an excellent level, than the colleagues will probably feel that the decision reduces their own performance efforts and renders their efforts insignificant.
A performance evaluation is not about providing feedback simply at the time of the evaluation; a good manager will have provided some hints, or some informal feedback verbally throughout the evaluation period leading up to the performance review.

Many employees are late, work slowly, do low quality work, or manipulate and bother others; but the managers often don’t see such problems, as these tend to happen when the manager is not around. The manager will only typically see around 35% of the employee’s behaviour, and thus, will not be able to see all aspects of the employee’s behaviour.

PROFESSIONAL TECHNIQUES

Lecture 23 – Communicating And Collaborating With Human Resources

When a worker is promoted to a management position, they will quickly find out that they now have a lot of new and different responsibilities, than those they were accustomed to. The new manager must learn new things in different areas, such as; hiring, firing, promoting, performance evaluations, wages, training, supervising, coaching, as well as many other responsibilities. This can be a bit challenging and potentially overwhelming. The best way to adapt to the new management role is to find people, which can answer questions. The best source of information is the human resources department. They have knowledge on all of the areas that a manager needs to be familiar with in their practice. Though the human resources department helps to provide people within the organization with information, what they’re most known for is the selection of candidates for the various available positions.

Usually, the human resources recruiter looks through and analyzes all of the applicants for a position. They then select a few, probably between three to four people, and recommend them to the manager of the department with the available position. This process of splitting up the selection work between human resources and management exists, for various reasons. Two principle reasons are: First, by having the manager make the final selection, the manager now has more at stake in the success of the candidate. After all, the manager was the one, which provided input, made the selection, and consequently, took some responsibility for the success of the candidate. Second, human resources do not have in depth expert knowledge of the processes within various departments of the organization. They often have to hire people for skills, which they themselves do not have. This is why splitting up the hiring process, between human resources and the actual department where the work will take place, allows the candidates to be evaluated by both the human resources generalist and a more skill specialized manager. As a new manager, human resources can be helpful in providing answers. But at the same time, it is nice to return the favour. One thing, which can help the human resources department, is job specific information on what goes on in the department. With detailed information on role requirements, and process descriptions, human resources specialists are then able to do their job better in the selection of future employees. Overall, there should be good communication between the human resources department and management.

Lecture 24 – Responding To A Problem Employee

As a leader, you will run across employees that exhibit various behaviours. Some of these behaviours will benefit the organization, while others will be detrimental to the organization. The employee could show poor performance, or their conduct may be inappropriate, or they may be aggressive. These are all problems, which need to be addressed. The leader must take action in response to a problematic employee. The situation must be made to work. Failing that, the employee must be disciplined, or even terminated.

So when is it appropriate, to make a poor situation, such as a poor performance, work. Well this comes down to the employee’s attitude. If, after meeting with the employee, the manager sees that the employee is unsatisfied with their situation and wishes to improve, then the manager can be justified in trying to make it work. However, if the employee is satisfied with what is obviously an unacceptable situation, then the manager should discipline or consider termination. Hopefully, it won’t come to this. Employees are not only quite an investment, but they have different qualities. What’s to say that the qualities of the next employee, though different, will overall prove to work better? As such, when possible, it is good to keep the employee, and develop the qualities they have. If it is not possible to keep them, then don’t be overly concerned. It may be of benefit to the employee to let them go. They may realize that they didn’t have the attributes, qualities or skills necessary for the position, and may go on to find a better-fit elsewhere. Some research has shown that 70% of workers, who are let go, go on to do a better job next time. This probably has something to do with the internal thinking or introspection, through which workers go through, after they are let go. They are then better able to strategize their career development.

Lecture 25 – Leading A Team Effectively

Teams are everywhere. They have become a pervasive part of the business world, and are seen as essential to business success. This is why leaders need team leadership skills. Now, it is not just enough to lead, but to intimately know and apply the mechanics or fundamentals of leading high performance teams. I will describe some of these processes shortly.

Before I jump into the complicated topic of how effective team leadership works, I’m going to focus on the basics. First, the team: What is it? A team is a group. The manager needs to do two things: build the group, and maintain the group. Throughout history, evolution of mankind happened as part of groups. Conflict existed within the groups, and between the groups. This is in fact, where leadership came from. People needed to survive these types of conflicts. So they needed to cooperate. And group cooperation required the type of organization only possible when a leadership presence is involved.

In today’s world, managers do much of the leadership. So how does management work? Well, most people assume that managers work mostly with one to one relationships, or with individuals. In fact, managers spend a lot of time involved in groups. Having group skills is now seento be of critical importance, and actually, it has become a standard by which managers are now judged. Further, in a typical team, there are now a wide variety of specialists with various skill sets. The skill sets are narrow and specific, often going far beyond the manager’s understanding of the subject. This makes the act of leading difficult, if one were to adopt a directive leadership style. However, being directive is not always the best approach. Instead of directing action, the leader should guide employees towards coming up with answers.

So we’ve ascertained that the manager works often in groups. Another way to describe a group that is working together to accomplish a goal is by referring to them as a team. And the leader will be responsible towards ensuring that the team performs to a high standard. There are many things to consider, but I will limit myself to two points. First, the team will need a leader that has the right background, or right experience. This leads us to the problem that many organizations create for themselves. Often, the executives of an organization promote a technical worker to a leadership position. This is problematic because the skills involved in leadership are different than the skills required of a technical specialist. Leadership involves things such as facilitation, communication, and conflict resolution. Technical specialties require things such as analysis, implementation, and research. The skills are very different. As a result, often times, the newly promoted manager, finds their new role so challenging that they begin to worry bout the security of their job. Second, effective teams are usually of a certain pre thought out size. If there are insufficient workers, say with a team of less than five people, then it can be difficult to complete tasks. If there are too many workers per team, say with more than ten people, it can be crowded, hard to communicate and organize, and again, hard to complete tasks. The manager must take into consideration how many people he or she will be interacting with, and how many people must interact amongst themselves, when choosing an effective team size.

As part of discussing effective leadership, I’ve discussed an approach to management, manager selection, and team size. But this does not actually describe the “mechanics”, “team process” or “behaviours” that are actually necessary to ensure the team functions at a high level of performance during a project.Leaders need to be cognizant of their behaviour, and how that behaviour needs to change as the team develops.Let me describe.

Throughout a team project, effective managers will need to make certain they display two critical behaviours at different times. They will at times exhibit both authoritative “guiding“ behaviours, and also, they will also exhibit helpful “assisting” behaviours. Guiding behaviours include activities such as preparing a list of things to do, starting the conversation, providing guidance, and talking about goals.Assisting behaviours include things such as hearing what team members have to say, recognizing team members, and pushing for team member involvement. As the team develops, it should be the goal of the manager to transition and move out of having guide or assist, and allow the team to take over. Even with both assistance and guidance from the manager, the team will not function effectively at the onset. Though they may have experience from past projects with others, and though they may have professional specialist skills, in terms of being able to collaborate on this newly formed team, they will not have sufficient knowledge and skill relating to the new team. As such, their productivity will be impacted, and it will be low. As the team works together, they will notice a discrepancy between what they expect will happen, and what actually does happen. Though they try hard, things don’t get done as quickly as they would hope, and they realize how challenging things really are. Their morale could drop. At this point, the manager must simply work with the team towards overcoming the difficulties. Over time, the team will discover how to work together, but until it becomes natural, the manager will have to offer both “guidance” and “assistance”. Once the team learns to work together, their confidence will increase. Once this happens, the manager should encourage more disagreement, as disagreement can help in troubleshooting and problem solving. As the team solves problems, the manager will no longer need to guide, but can just rely on offering assistance. The goal has been to allow the team to work towards and achieve self-reliance. As the team communicates more and more, they will then resolve things independently more often and on a more regular basis. With these newfound collaboration skills, they are able to work independently. This is the most important function of the leadership process, to help them build up knowledge, skills, confidence, purpose, goals and freedom to work as one.

Lecture 26 – Forming Strategic Alliances

In this lecture, I am going to cover different aspects of the strategic alliance, including: what strategic alliances are, why there is a need for strategic alliances, what the benefits of the strategic alliance are, and how strategic alliances are forged.

Have you ever thought about, why for so many people, life gets harder rather than easier as time passes by? Is it age? Is it society? What is it? Basically, does it have something to do with the “person” or the “environment”? I think it’s the latter. I think it has something to do with the speed of technological evolution and how that impacts the working environment. As technology has rapidly advanced, many types of jobs have become more complicated. So the jobs are more difficult. In addition, with many industries experiencing slow growth or decline, now there is some scarcity of available positions to contend with as well. This results in high levels of competition, and too much competition, leads to challenges and threats. It’s not sufficient anymore to master expert skills. One must now also watch out for competitive threats. One key tool that has come to the forefront in the fight against this new dynamic is the “strategic alliance”. Strategic alliances are now seen as the solution to this difficult situation. They offer many benefits, including: they provide users with power, they allow the group to pool effort towards tasks, and they assign leadership to those in the alliance. When workers are part of a strategic alliance, they can get more done. In doing more, they gain influence. With the prestige and control accorded to them, they are then seen as leaders.

In today’s environment, becoming part of a strategic alliance is now a necessity. To become a part of a strategic alliance, it can be a bit challenging. You have to impress people. This can be accomplished by excelling at your work. You could also be nice and do things to help others. You could also try to take on more responsibilities. Having done, some or all of these things, you will be noticed. Bosses tend to seek out these kinds of workers. They’re considered “unique” and “special”. These “special” employees are then introduced to one another and made part of a “special network” that often spans across organizational units. There is also a more direct way of becoming part of a “strategic alliance”. Identify and pick the best person to create an alliance with. This is usually your boss. By boss, I’m referring to the person directly above you. Why are they the best choice? Well, the boss has more information than you, more authority, and more influence in the organization. It would be obvious if you attempted to become their friends for the purposes of having an exclusive strategic alliance. This matter requires that you act in a subtle fashion. Simply learn what issues they are having, what challenges they are facing, what keeps them busy, and what are their goals. The more information that you can commit to memory, the more likely it will be that there will be an opportunity for you to engage in dialogue that will lead to a “strategic alliance”. Once you are allied with your boss, you will automatically gain more “influence” in the organization. In addition, once allied with the boss, they will likely make links for you with others that are part of the strategic network. The alliance will provide you with a greater capacity to deliver expertise and resources to company challenges. With greater success, you will be relied upon more often, and this will further increase your influence to your advantage in the competitive game. And if I still haven’t convinced you about the importance of strategic alliances, then ask yourself these questions. Should a leader compete with and fight their way up the career ladder? Or should they attempt to make strategic alliances for a career advantage?

Lecture 27 – Chapter 5 Summary

When a worker is promoted to a management position, they will quickly find out that they now have a lot of new and different responsibilities, than those they were accustomed to.

Splitting up the hiring process, between human resources and the actual department where the work will take place, allows the candidates to be evaluated by both the human resources generalist and a more skill specialized manager.

Having group skills is now seen to be of critical importance to a manager, and actually, it has become a standard by which managers are now judged.

If there are too many workers per team, say with more than ten people, it can be crowded, hard to communicate and organize, and again, hard to complete tasks. The manager must take into consideration how many people he or she will be interacting with, and how many people must interact amongst themselves, when choosing an effective team size.

Leaders need to be cognizant of their behaviour, and how that behaviour needs to change as the team develops. Throughout a team project, effective managers will need to make certain they display two critical behaviours at different times. They will at times exhibit both authoritative “guiding“ behaviours, and also, they will also exhibit helpful “assisting” behaviours.

Over time, the team will discover how to work together, but until it becomes natural, the manager will have to offer both “guidance” and “assistance”. Once the team learns to work together, their confidence will increase. Once this happens, the manager should encourage more disagreement, as disagreement can help in troubleshooting and problem solving. As the team solves problems, the manager will no longer need to guide, but can just rely on offering assistance. The goal has been to allow the team to work towards and achieve self-reliance. As the team develops, it should be the goal of the manager to transition and move out of having guide or assist, and allow the team to take over.

Identify and pick the best person to create an alliance with. This is usually your boss. By boss, I’m referring to the person directly above you. Why are they the best choice? Well, the boss has more information than you, more authority, and more influence in the organization. Once allied with the boss, they will likely make links for you with others that are part of the strategic network. The alliance will provide you with a greater capacity to deliver expertise and resources to company challenges.

What am I going to get from this course?

Gain experience and insights into the management practice, that will allow you to base your decision making and actions on facts and on best practices.
Improve your practice as a manager through the use of professional techniques.
Become a more objective, insightful and effective leader.
Absorb interesting concepts, terminology and examples, which will improve your ability to discuss the profession with your colleagues and also your self-confidence.
Learn advanced techniques in areas such as team leadership and the formation of strategic alliances, which will prepare you for career advancement.
Make a smooth transition from a worker to a manager, and once a manager, have the knowledge required to stay there!
Become a better manager who is respected by subordinates, superiors and peers.

Who is the target audience?

Production Workers, Team leaders, Supervisors, Managers.
Students of leadership, management, and psychology.
Anyone wishing to become an effective leader or manager.
Anyone wishing to gain an insight into the responsibilities of a manager.
Anyone wishing to understand how psychology impacts the role.
Anyone who is likely to be promoted to a new management role.
A person who is a new manager and is undergoing training.
Management professionals pursuing professional development.
Production workers who wish to understand their manager’s role.
Business professionals who need to perform leadership functions.
Business professionals who wish to lead objectively and effectively.

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