Articles By: Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, and youth leadership. For more information visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

The Dynamic Role of a Manager

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The Dynamic Role of a Manager

Your role as a contemporary manager is ever-changing. Many of the traditional day-to-day tasks have been improved or eliminated by technology, and perhaps in that respect the job of a manager has been simplified.  

However, the global business environment has created quite a different managerial role. If you read or access any source of daily news, you are bombarded with information about organizations that are dealing with consolidation, mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing. These major strategic decisions are forcing organizations to consolidate technologies and functions, merge culture, and deal with generational diversity issues. As the current workforce continues to change and evolve, all of these directly impact your current role as a manager.  

As John Naisbett discusses in his recent book High Tech/High Touch: technology and Our Search for Meaning, as a business community we are intoxicated by the power of existing and emerging technology and the perceived impact it has on success. However, these ongoing changes mean you must now be highly skilled in interpersonal communication and human development if you are to get your job done effectively. John Naisbett reminds us that more than ever we need to place as much emphasis on people as we do technology.

In addition to an ever-changing global environment, many people have come to expect and demand much more out of their jobs. They have a different set of expectations for what they should derive from their work. For instance, people are demanding more and more non-monetary rewards from their employers. Research documents individuals are looking toward their work as a major source of fulfillment as it relates to their self-esteem, sense of accomplishment, personal challenge, and involvement. Studies have also shown the average employee tenure is at an all time low, which is a huge indicator that individuals are not getting what they need from their positions. There is a direct correlation between individuals staying or leaving an organization and their relationship with their manager.

The challenges facing managers today include creating an environment, a climate, and a culture where your people can satisfy their personal needs and achieve personal goals while accomplishing organizational results. If the individuals within your organization are not fulfilling their needs, are not made to feel as an important part of the organization, and/or are not committed, work and results will be given a low priority. Your employees will devote only the minimum amount of effort needed to get by or choose to move in another direction.

The basic desire to achieve and accomplish exists within most employees as they want their work to hold meaning. Therefore, you must discover ways to reshape relationships within your organization to create a climate of personal growth and contribution. As a great manager, you must discover new methods to channel the energies of your workforce, new ways to communicate, and new ways to help your people become motivated. We are in an exciting business era, one in which our people knowledge must match up with our technical knowledge!

Contact us to learn more about how your role as a manager is every changing and how we need to place as much emphasis on people as we do technology.  

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Committing to a strategy of sustainability includes a commitment to developing and growing your employees, making sure your business processes are sound, and your business is environmentally sustainable. And when all these components are in alignment, businesses report seeing some of the best results in their organization's history.  

Creating a sustainable business does not have to be difficult or require huge resources. Building a sustainable business is a process that can have huge benefits each step of the way. The two most common questions we hear from companies are:

• What does sustainability really mean?
• More specifically, what does sustainability mean to our company?

As with most things in business, sustainability is a process. A process, when taken step by step will not feel overwhelming and will provide results sooner as opposed to later. Sustainability in concept means the same thing to every company, but in implementation can and should be quite different. So where does an organization start?  

The first step in the process is to define what sustainability means to your organization. As with any strategic initiative the overall objectives need to be defined to create purpose and guide rails for the journey.

The next step is to create a sustainability framework. A framework will help the organization take the overall objectives and get very specific about the desired reasons and outcomes. A framework will help identify how the initiative, will be structured inside the organization, and help identify task forces and cohesive teams for implementation of the plan.

What You Can Do

The third step in the process is to identify an organization's unique business case. How will the company benefit when this strategy is implemented? What specific projects and results will be generated based on your organizations definition of sustainability? This is the step where the rubber really meets the road. In this step an organization can clearly see how implementing a strategy of sustainability is time and effort well spent because this step identifies the ROI. The next steps of the process really look at three things: assessment, culture, and implementation. After an organization makes the commitment to a journey of sustainability, they need to assess where they really stand. What are they doing well now and what needs to be improved? Most often the employees or contributors of an organization know the answers to those questions better than anyone. Senior leadership just needs to take the time to ask.

Business sustainability is a project that is never finished, as what you accomplish today will propel your organization successfully into the future. But the future only holds new questions. Creating a company culture of sustainability will go a long way to being prepared and ready to answer those future questions and potential challenges. Invest in your employees and the culture of your organization, as the culture you create today will drive your future success.

Contact us to learn more about how sustainability can make sense for your business. 

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