Managing People - Why Is It So Difficult?


Managing, supervising, being a team leader is the hardestjob in the world and I'll tell you why.Imagine what it's like to drive a car. You turn the key tostart the engine, select drive or the gear you want andpress the gas pedal. The car then moves off and if you wantto turn you rotate the steering wheel to the right or leftand to stop, you press the brake pedal. All this was quitedifficult when you first learned to drive but its easy now.

If I asked you to drive my car, you might take a short whileto get used to it, but you'd immediately be able to drivedown to the supermarket and get me some food.

However, if I was to tell you that my car was different fromany other you'd driven then I'm sure you'd have a problem -"You don't start it with a key there's a little switchsomewhere. When you engage forward gear it might go backwardand if you turn the wheel left it might go right butsometimes it goes left. And the gas peddle is what stops itand the brake pedal makes it go faster but not every day.You'll get used to it in time; I've lived with it foryears".

Managing people is pretty much like this, every model isdifferent and you need different skills to "drive" each one.Just because pressing the gas pedal on one model makes it goforward, doesn't mean to say that the next one will be thesame; it might, but it might not.

The problem arises because we "learn" on certain models andthen find to our annoyance that the others are different."Why can't they all be the same" we scream in frustration."

Human beings are the most complex and complicated pieces of"equipment" you'll ever have to deal with. Many of them havesimilarities but every one of them in this world isdifferent and they all work in a slightly different way. Your job as a manager is to get these complex humans workingas efficiently as possible, there's no one around to showyou what to do and there's no instruction manual.

What also complicates the relationship between the managerand the team is this - Human beings are totally driven by their emotions.

When managers face a problem with one of their team they tryto solve it logically and then they wonder why it all goeswrong.

Imagine that one of your team announces - "I'm leaving thisjob, I've found another job doing the same thing and it paysmore money." You realise that you don't want to lose thisteam member so you approach your boss and agree an increasein salary. However, when you offer the increase in salarythe team member turns you down.

So you think logically -"What's wrong with this person, why are they leaving?"They might be telling you that they're leaving for moremoney however that now doesn't seem to be the reason. Itmight just be that they're leaving because they feel youjust don't care about them.

I've seen this happen so often with the good guys in a team.Because they're one of the high achievers who don't give themanager any problem they get left alone too much. Whathappens then is - they feel that the manager doesn't careabout them so they leave.

Managing people is a hugely difficult job, a degree inpsychology would help but if you haven't got that then click the link below.

Discover how you can generate more business by motivatingyour team!Alan Fairweather is the author of "How to get More Salesby Motivating Your Team" This book is packed with practicalthings you can do to get the best out of your people. Visit http://www.howtogetmoresales.com