Principle

I want to talk about “If I put a person into a job and he or she does not perform, I have made a mistake. I have no business blaming that person…….”

The responsibility of a manager is selecting employees who are excellent at some specific fields among a host of people. Because of some short-term external reasons, the person’s performance as not good as the manager e’s expectation is acceptable. However, from relatively long-time observation, the person still perform unsatisfied that is the manager’s mistake because he or she did not choose the competent person.

During my college years, I have a part time in a language teaching school. In China, kids learn English every early (although the learning outcome is not good as students in other countries). The school I worked held an English corner every weekend in the bookstore building to attract more kid to have classes in my school. The managers chose an unapproachable person with no expression and smile on the face to promote the project!! An obvious mistake!! All the kids are afraid of the teacher because she seems strict. The manager told us she major in English and graduated from a reputed university. So, she believes she would have a better performance after a period of training and practice. After training time, she really improved, but not as good as which the manager supposed. Therefore, the manager made the mistake.

Actually it also demonstrates another principle in the text---“the one don’t”. Giving new people new major compounds the risk. Taking a lot of time and money to training green hands is really risky because you cannot sure the person have huge prudential for the work or not. The new people also need time to adapt to the new working environment and organizational culture. So the best option for a manager is put a high-level new comer first into an established position where the expectations are known and help is available.

Reference:

Drucker, P., (2006), Classic Drucker. United States...