The List Of Pages
Subject : Self-Management In Organization
Self-Management
in
Organization
Preface:
Developing a work environment and supervisory culture that promotes self-management helps employees meet new challenges and take responsibility for their professional development. Self-managing employees also provide benefits for managers:
Self-managing employees are employees who can:
Unfortunately, not only do many organizations fail to cultivate self-managing employees, but they also fall into the micromanagement trap. From a human resources perspective, the result is a staff that comprises dependent employees who defer to management for even minor decisions and wait for explicit instructions before undertaking new tasks. From a strategic standpoint, the outcome can be devastating: an organization so weighed down by procedures that it stagnates.
Organizations that value self-management, by contrast, intelligently their own human capital for innovation, leadership, and growth.
Change supervisors" attitudes
The first step in creating a self-management culture within your organization requires a shift in the attitudes of supervisors. To create an organizational culture in which self-management can thrive, supervisors in your organization should view their role as one of coaching rather than directing.
Directing:
Too often, supervisors perceive their primary job function as one of issuing directives rather than coaching supportively. The impact on employee relations is almost always negative, because this attitude communicates mistrust or, worse, disrespect.
The reality is that most people want to excel at their work, and they can, if they"re given opportunities to make decisions, exercise judgment, and build on experience with the help of an encouraging coach.
Unlike a traditional manager, a coach views employees as the ultimate sources of knowledge about their own roles. After all, the person who works daily on a project tends to be intimately acquainted with the details of the work. It makes sense that the employee"s perspective and insight should be valued and consulted. At the same time, the employee"s supervisor has more experience and expertise, which is also valuable, and should be available to the employee as a resource.
Self-disciplined employees aren"t cultivated overnight. Staff members who have been accustomed to close supervision aren"t always prepared to manage themselves. Just as supervisors may need to adopt new attitudes toward those that they manage, your employees may also need to adjust their own views.
Employees need to think of themselves as significant contributors to your organization"s long-term goals. Only those who understand the overall ives and their roles within these will be willing to assume the responsibilities and rewards of self-management.
Setting clear expectations yields positive payoffs for organizations, including:
As your organization makes the shift to a self-management culture, its disciplinary and incentive systems should be evaluated. Many organizations send conflicting messages about self-management by punishing initiative and rewarding rule-based behavior. What are your systems communicating?
If your organization has historically focused more on disciplining employees than rewarding them, you will need to establish ways to recognize and applaud self-managing employees. As a positive behavior to be modeled, self-management is a workplace value that should be encouraged, and employees who take initiative should be celebrated and rewarded.
Just how self-managing employees are rewarded will differ from organization to organization. Be sure that your organization:
Self-managing employees require less oversight, so they improve productivity by reducing the need for continuous supervision. But that"s just the beginning. By seeking out opportunities for growth and professional development, self-managing employees foster an environment of creative problem-solving, innovation, and personal accountability that strengthens the organization"s strategic advantage. Although you can"t train your employees to manage themselves, you can cultivate an environment conducive to self-management through support, recognition, and rewards for employees who take initiative and exhibit self-discipline.
About the author Michele Shauf, Ph.D., is a business consultant specializing in organizational change, strategic communications, and training.