 Build
your people and teams
by Dr. Robert A. Kemp
This is my fifth leadership article for
MRO Today. The first article opened the series and established
my five leadership lessons. Subsequent articles covered:
• "You must be up front and
objective oriented."
• "You must be up-to-date and
farsighted."
• "You must be service
focused."
In Lesson 4, I’ll show you how
building your people and teams contributes to the leadership process
by building a learning organization.
Most thinkers agree that people are our
most valuable asset. Moreover, we know today that teams accomplish
much of what we do in the supply management process. Our leadership
goal is to increase value by building our teams. That goal depends on
better people. You get them by training and development, or by outside
hiring. Outside hiring means that we depend on someone else for
training and pay for that.
While some argue that professional
development is an individual responsibility, effective leaders know
that meaningful human development that supports and facilitates
organizational goals is an organizational responsibility. Leaders that
establish organizational goals for professional development can set
standards for annual developmental progress, budget adequate support,
and inspire and reward their people and teams for exceeding
objectives.
Self-development, job success,
advancement, leadership and mentoring are all tied together. Each uses
and reinforces the other. Similarly, we know that our hectic
professional and personal lives will become even more difficult in the
future.
This increased complexity makes
self-development and professionalism more important, but equally more
difficult. Every individual and department should have a spreadsheet
showing annual organizational expectations, individual objectives and
progress. Progress in professional development cannot be left to
chance.
It must be an organizational process
with leadership.
The table below suggests how programs
for training and development should be shared by individuals and
leadership.
The difference between effective change
leaders and just leaders is how they build and inspire people in their
teams. Effective leaders provide the tools, time, training and other
needed resources to build and empower their people and teams to do
great work. Leaders must be involved with and support programs that
build people and teams.
| Training
and development are organizational skills |
| Type of
developmental activity |
Level
of responsibility |
Comments |
| |
Individual |
Leadership |
|
| Orientations, general
and functional |
Attend and learn |
Develop and present |
Important for all new
people and as an as-needed refresher |
| On-the-job training |
Learn by doing (with a
work schedule) |
Develop plan and
ensure that it works |
Everyone has a goal |
| Job rotation |
Help develop the plan
and work it |
Formalize the plan and
ensure that it works |
Leadership is a team
effort |
| Self-training, such as
reading programs, professional programs and college courses |
Develop plan for
support by leader |
Approve plan and
provide support |
Plans should support
company goals |
Formal training
programs (in-house or outside); opportunities include graduate/
undergraduate degrees or professional certification programs |
Earn participation,
work with leaders to be in programs and learn |
Develop the
curriculum; establish relationships with institutions and
professional associations |
Programs should be
developed and budgeted annually or even longer for selected
people |
| Mentor programs |
Seek them out and use
them |
Encourage mentors to
work with people |
Leadership uses the
system to ensure program progress |
Robert Kemp is a consultant, speaker
and the former president of the Institute for Supply Management. He
can be reached at kempr@mchsi.com.
This
article appeared in the December 2001/January 2002 issue of MRO Today
magazine. Copyright 2002.
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