28 Jan 2010
The skills of you and your people are the difference between achieving your goals or not. Technical, people, management, organisational, marketing and other skills are needed by the human beings that work in your business. In this time of computerisation, electronic chips and technological wizardry, we can begin to think that the skills of our people are not as important as they once were. This is not true. No matter how good software and machines get at doing the “stuff” in our business, the key decisions and the key interactions between your business and the outside world are made by people.
So, if this be the case, what are the skills your people need to do what they have to do? Have you ever really thought about this?Could it be that determining what skills your people really need and then making sure they have every opportunity to acquire those skills, would bring marked improvements in your business and also a good deal less stress for you?
People make mistakes. We all do. But if one of your employees continually makes mistakes or they just don’t seem to fit into your organisation, perhaps it is a skill issue. Now you might say that “They are just plain lazy” or “They are just stupid” or similar comment. It is true that some people just don’t have any sort of work ethic and that other people do not have sufficient level of intelligence to perform their function. But sometimes these seeming flaws can be a skill gap. Don’t assume that your employees know that they must, say, turn up on time every day or that they must meticulously fill out their time sheet each day or that they need to be nice to customers. The life experience of some people and cultural issues in their background can mean that they don’t know that they are supposed to do these “obvious” things. Sometimes people need to be instructed as to what is acceptable and not acceptable behaviour and what the boss and everyone else at your business expects of them.
Of course, there are the technical skills that are needed to run the business. These are the skills that typically get more focus from a training perspective. But it is also very important to focus on some of the “softer” technical skills such as organisation skills and listening skills.
A useful exercise is to make a skills inventory and to also list the skills that you think are needed. This will show up your skills “gap”. You can start this process by thinking of one particular person or type of role in your company. My suggestion is not to start with the existing skills. Start with the skills you think the person or group of people should have in order to achieve the outcomes you want. Then look at the skills that your people do have and see where the gap is. But here is a warning. Don’t just assume that you know what these skills are. Make sure of your facts. It can be surprising what people can do and what they have learned to do in former occupations or in their hobbies or spare time.
A CEO recently said that managing growth needs a constant revaluation of the skill sets you surround yourself with. Is that what you are doing?
Wishing you easier business.
John M. Jeffreys