Management Coaching - Experience Needed
Many companies fall into the mistake of hiring someone who has managed people before, and assuming that, since they're an experienced manager, they don't need any more help. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that managers are human beings too, and just as cooking at home for a few years doesn't leave someone completely qualified to be a good chef (although it might well be a good start), being a good manager consists of more than having experience managing some people for a while.
Here is where management coaches come in. Management coaching can provide one of the most important elements of human resources: it can turn a mediocre manager into the leader of an all-star team. One-on-one training with some of the world's most elite coaches is a top reason that CEO's of Fortune 500 companies succeed, and they alone make it a multi-million dollar business. Even someone who has achieved as much success as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs knows that they don't know everything.
A similar phenomenon occurs in music. Great composers like Beethoven or Gershwin learned from others, even when they were already the richest and best-known composers in all the world. Even world leaders take personal coaching, so there's nothing for you to be ashamed of in taking management coaching. Make sure your management team is all that it can be.
So when you have decided that your company could use management coaching, the question is who should be coached. We would answer that anyone in a position of responsibility in your company regardless of division or number of people managed should be coached.
Anyone who makes decisions in management requires some coaching, because no one is perfect. All of us have to learn what we know from somewhere, and anyone in business needs to stay ahead of the curve. The old saying is more true than ever in the business world- you snooze, you lose. Without training, you lose your edge, your team's competitive advantage, and your laborers if your snoozing goes on for long enough.
If you have received good management coaching, then your teams will not be destroyed by single incidents, and bad days will not have carryover effects. Leadership is much more difficult than managing, and much more rewarding for your business. But leadership doesn't happen by itself. Management coaches can help you develop the leaders your business needs to be great.
Many companies make the mistake of hiring someone who has managed people before, assuming that since they are experienced in that area they do not need any more help. But that is wrong, as mere experience need not make a person a good manager. This is where management coaches come in and provide management coaching to help turn mediocre or poor managers into world-class leaders, thus making human resources most beneficial to the company. Fortune 500 companies spend millions of dollars employing the best coaches for this purpose. Since nobody is perfect, anybody making management decisions needs coaching and managers who receive no such training are at a disadvantage.
Published July 20th, 2007
Filed in Business, Management, Motivational
