What defines a good a manager? There are plenty of articles and papers that would like to give you all the answers.
However, what defines a good manager in one organisation, may not be the same in another.
There are a multitude of reasons for this. There are differences in culture – different ways of working are valued over others. Charles Handy, the leading authority on organisational culture describes four different types of culture: Power, Role, Task and Person. This begs the question of whether a good manager who flourishes in a Task culture would make as much of a positive impact in one that is more Power orientated?
There isn’t a simple answer.
However, data might be able to guide you in the right direction.
(This is the point at where many people run off and find a ppt presentation that needs to be tackled urgently.)
Data, people analytics, whatever you want to call it, can seem overwhelming. In fact, a recent study by Deloitte showed that whilst 70% of companies say the people analytics are a high priority, only about 9% understand how this can link to performance.
Data needs demystifying. But why should you bother?
As a Learning and Development professional, one of your many roles is to design and expand training and development programmes based on the needs of the organisation and the individual, and to identify training and development needs within an organisation through job analysis, appraisal schemes and regular consultation with business managers and human resources departments.
By collecting, and more importantly, using data, you can design training and development programmes that are fit for your organisation. You need to find out more about the organisation, it’s culture, it’s metrics and it’s people.
You can start by finding out:
Then find out more about your managers:
These were the questions that were asked by Sanofi China when they were looking to enhance the performance of their sales teams. By analysing and understanding their Regional Sales Managers in more detail they were able to identify the key behaviours the most successful RSMs had in common. Overall, Sanofi was able to identify patterns and discover the behavioural dynamics that make their teams tick – a function of their organisational culture and their company’s unique needs. They devised a Team Leadership program that was informed by this data and found that participants demonstrated a 2.3% higher sales growth rate in 2016 versus non-participants.
The more you can find out the more you can help to put together the training and development programmes that your organisation needs.
People analytics can have a significant impact on your role as a learning and development professional. Get those spreadsheets ready!
Jo Keeler, Managing Partner of Belbin, will be talking about people analytics and how to use them at the World of Learning Exhibition in October.