Discover Two of the Biggest Management Mistakes

Large companies are failing at a rapid rate. Many are laying off employees, selling their various divisions, and grasping at straws to stay afloat, financially. However, most are completely missing the life boat right in front of their faces because they are far-sighted and not paying attention, or simply ignorant of its presence.

There are two big mistakes companies make that sabotage their own success:

1. Promoting from within without providing management training.

2. Hiring experienced managers from the outside without providing ground-level training.

Time and again, CEOs and business owners fail to see the elephant in the room because they don't want to take responsibility for their leadership deficits.

Promoting from within is always a great thing, IF the employee being promoted is 1) highly qualified in company culture, job requirements, and people skills and 2) provided proper and extensive training for the new position.

Directors and managers love go-getters, those who are self-motivated, quick learners, intelligent, and can pretty much learn the job on their own. These are certainly great qualities of the candidate being considered for promotion.

However, managers fail to recognize that these qualities don't necessarily translate into great people skills or management knowledge.

Learning the job on their own is a dereliction of managerial duties and responsibilities. It's like a football coach recruiting an experienced baseball player who is at the top of his game with a track record of great success, but failing to teach him about football. This highly qualified and motivated individual will soon discover his inability to perform at the same or higher level because he is not given the proper training to succeed in his new role.

I once consulted with a company that had 200 employees. The business wasn't doing well, and was facing potential lay-offs within the next year if things didn't change. The president and his executive team were scrambling to find ways to cut costs, eliminate overhead, and streamline processes. They chopped and whittled the budget down to mere peanuts and couldn't figure out how in the world to regain their footing as the once world-class leader they used to be.

Upon evaluation, I quickly discovered that there were great people in bad positions. The employees were unsatisfied, unmotivated, under-utilized, and over-worked. Many of them were fulfilling roles they were promoted to but felt ill-equipped to perform.

Others were brought in from the outside, in management positions, but didn't have the first clue how to do some of the most basic tasks of the operation, even though they had been with the company 5+ years.

After having one of my "get real" moments with the president of the company, I shared with him strategies to switch things up internally and how to create a "SPORTS TEAM," using my methodology for winning.

Here are the key components of my SPORTS TEAM Methodology:

S - Support

P - Promote

O - Own

R - Respect

T - Trust

S - Strengthen

T - Train/Teach

E - Empower

A - Adapt

M - Motivate

When a leader (coach) develops his/her team, it starts with

1. Training outsiders from the ground up. You can't supervise a janitor if you've never cleaned a bathroom or mopped up urine on the floor.

2. Training insiders by incorporating their gifts, talents, skills, and expertise into management training. Teaching them how to supervise, manage people, and building from the ground up is key to their success and key to building a strong team.

To learn more about my methodology and how you can have us come and train your management team, be sure to visit our PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS.