Finding the right person…

 I know of a trainig institute, which had an excellent trainer. People held him in high esteem. His training sessions were most sought after. The Institute’s Director resigned due to some reason and the management was desperate to find a replacement. As the management was very imporessed with this trainer, he was appointed as the Director. Now, his time was spent more on administrative issues, managing people and organizig things he had not done before. He didn’t have the skills for the new assignment. More than that, he didn’t like what he was now supposed to do. He missed doing training for which he had less time now. He barely survived for a year before resigning. During the perid, the institute faced several problems including the staff turnover. It turned out to be a bad management decision. The institute lost a very good trainer and got a relatively incompetent manager.

The incident highlights far reaching consequences of poor management decisions. Such decisions are common, despite plenty of guidelines and management theories on human resource management. The unfortunate part is that the people who take decisions are seldom held responsible. It is only the people who are victim of such management decisions are often accused of not delivering the goods.

True, management decisions are not always easy. There are compulsions because managers are also part of a larger system. But managers have a huge responsbility. In matters of recruitment, promotion or assigning roles to people, the criteria should be relevance of experience, competence, skills and attitude. In a nutshell, managers should adopt the attitude of ‘finding the right person’ for different positions. Each position is important, no matter what the level is –  a driver, a secretary or a unit head/director.