An organization
is a voluntary aggregation of individuals who have come together with the aim of
fulfilling common objectives. A cricket team is an organization, so is
Microsoft. It is not an office building, nor is it composed of office furniture,
or transport. It is really the
people in the organization who are the organization. No amount of management
initiatives, meetings, hi-tech equipment or jargon can get around this hard
fact. For managers to be effective, therefore, they have to manage people to
achieve the objectives of the organization. For managers do not actually do
work; their work is to plan how to achieve organizational results by training,
developing and motivating their team,
people all!
Staff development has to be manager-driven: Three reasons:
i) No training is value–free,
it is colored by the values, attitudes and assumptions of their trainers, on
which organizational objectives are based. Any incompatibility here will result
in confusion.
ii)
Full cooperation of line managers is essential,
because for both on-the-job as well as off-the-job training, his commitment is
essential. His effectiveness is based on how well trained/ developed his
subordinates are.
iii) The organization must have a learning-culture
built right into the basic approach to doing business. Staff (and personal!)
Development is so obviously part and parcel of managerial and leadership skills
that we will not touch upon it further in the ensuing 52 modules, one for every
week in a year.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is an Organization?
2. Why is staff development manager-driven in an organization?
