Brian's Introduction

By Brian Walsh (Founder & CEO of Entrepreneur.co.za)

In most of the sections under ‘HR’ I talk about what is essentially ‘managing people’. Knowing what your outcome needs to be is one thing. Getting a team of people to achieve it is completely another thing altogether.

Learning to effectively manage people is a critical task for most entrepreneurs, not just in the workplace, but as a whole. I learnt about this in an environment where my teams were not being paid - we were part of an organisation called ‘Junior Chamber International’ and we undertook various projects to help the community and raise funds. This was the ultimate challenge in management – getting results from people who were not being paid.

The fact that people are being paid should never be the primary reason that they work. Effective management should expose the emotions associated with achievement and success as the primary underlying motivators. Managing people is about knowing how to get the best out of them. Good managers know each individual in their team, and know their strengths and weaknesses – they match people in their teams to complement each other and produce better results.

So what makes a good manager? Well, I believe there are three primary keys that make a good manager:

A manger likes and understands people – many managers should not be managers. Although being a manager of people is a job and a way of earning money, in truth, being a manager should be a passion. You should like people, believe in people (even when they don’t believe in themselves), understand people (especially how they react emotionally), and be passionate about making people better.

A manager should plan – planning is the primary tool of management. One of my favourite statements is, ‘if you don’t know where you are going, how you are possibly going to get there?’ Managers should plan and involve their teams in the planning. Not only is this important to achieving your ultimate objectives, but it helps to monitor your progress and identify steps that may have knocked you slightly off course. In doing this, you can easily make corrections and ensure that you stay on track. Another great by-product of planning is a sense of achievement at completing the tasks one at a time. This helps motivate your staff and yourself on the journey to you ultimate outcome.

Managers should lead from the front, middle and rear - what I mean by this is that yes, you should set an example, but you shouldn’t be the best performer and in order to rally your team, you need to be in the middle and sometimes even pushing from the rear. Your job as a manager is to get a team to perform, and that is the ultimate success. Lead from within rather than simply from the front.

dd