What kind of people make up a business?
Let's take the cow again as a metaphor. The actions of a cow are directed by it's brain. The brain communicates these actions via the nervous system to the cells.
Leaders: people that make the plans what the cow should do in order to survive and grow. They are the brains of the company. They decide on the what and when.
Communicators: people that communicate the orders of the brain down to the cells, and the reactions of the cells back up to the brain. They are the nervous system of the company.
Workers: they are the guts, bones and muscles of the company. They process the food, move the body around and carry it's weight. They give off signals of compliance, content and malcontent to the nervous system.
Of course things are a little more complex, both in nature and in business. A body consists of various organs and other cell groups with specific functions. There are muscles, kidneys, lungs and the heart. In companies these individual parts often have a similar structure to the whole, consisting of a local brain, with local communicators and local workers.
Commonly in business the different groups of people are named thus:
Higher management: central leadership. one way outgoing communication.
Management: local leadership. two way outgoing communication.
Employees: workers. one way outgoing communication.
So now we are done with talking about the people that make up a business. Right? Well... not quite. There are more characteristics yet unrevealed. We can discover these via some additional questions:
What are good people to have?
Whom can you do better without?
Good people, common people and bad people
Let's look at the people first. There are many character types and traits, depending on which psychology book you happen to open. What kind of traits are important for a business? For which positions? Leadership, endurance, foresight, loyalty, self reliance, team-player...?
I won't attempt to echo any business school psychology texts working out detailed descriptions for each possible kind of position. Instead let's keep things simple. People make a certain contribution to the company. They do this with a certain attitude towards the work in a social enviroment. Thus there are three factors when it comes to employees. There is attitude, effect and social aptitude. There are three basic types of employees for each.
Effect
Future makers. These are the people that help the company to increase in value.
Steady rollers. These people maintain the value of the company. They keep it shipshape.
Failures. People that decrease the value of the company. They harm production and morale.
Attitude
Progressive people. These are people with idea's. They put in more effort than is required. They care about advancing the company.
9 to 5 people. People that put in the required effort, but no more. They do not volunteer idea's. The company is just a job to them, in order to eat and pay for housing.
Slackers. These are the people that do not care about the company. They put in minimal effort, if possible below requirement.
Social aptitude
High. People that are well liked and well connected. Often able to acquire positions well above ability. They often end higher than where they started.
Medium. People that are just part of the group. They get along fine with everyone. They progress at a steady pace through the hierarchy of the company, often settling just a few positions above where they started.
Low. These people lack the ability to present themselves well and connect with people. Or they just don't care. Often they are disliked and shunned. They could be either anti social loners or just awkward. Often these reside in their starting position forever.
Combinations
In each employee there can be any combination of these three characteristics. Do note, attitude and effect are not the same thing. A person with a thousand idea's that loves the company is not necessarily a future maker. Lets look at some combination examples.
-You can have a future maker who is a slacker and a loner. A brilliant scientist that is often absent and disliked. Could not care less about the company. Still when available this persons minimal efforts provide the company with the greatest new products.
-You could have a steady roller that is a progressive. Sadly the idea's provided are not worth much. Still the work done on maintaining the company is well worth the pay.
-Then you might see a failure, who just puts in the hours from 9:00-17:00. However with a very high social aptitude this person is able to convince everyone the job is important and gets done very well indeed.
Hiring and firing
Personnel gets hired and fired based on these three characteristics. Attitude is judged in the interview, and effect is judged from previous employment. Attitude replaces effect if there was no previous employment, or the effect of which can't be judged.
Social aptitude is often not judged consciously as a trait. Interviewers and managers are people, and often they just experience the other person, liking or disliking him or her. However this trait is at least as important as the others for getting hired or fired. It decides the favorableness or harshness of the judgment on the other two. Bad attitude and failure can gradually wear down the effect of high social aptitude during employment.
When it comes to firing, effect and social aptitude ofter matter more than attitude. This is because higher management often favors productivity above attitude. Futheremore, like and dislike are important factors in the willingness of a boss to fire you
So who gets to work where?
When it comes to higher management, management and employees, which variants are most represented where? You might be tempted to give a quick logical analysis. If you were an employee you could tell me higher management would of course be full of people with high social aptitude. Not necessarily skillful ones. If you are in higher management you could judge that employees are mostly steady rollers, with a 9 to 5 attitude.
If you ask me, well, i simply don't know. I have no figures, only logic and observation. The chances of getting hired for higher management depends a lot on your social aptitude. But the same goes for the position of common employee. The interviewer has to like you. Being effective is as important for keeping your job as employee as it is for a manager. Then there is this: you can only hire and fire the people that are there. Some companies have the luxury of being able to pick out the raisins from the porridge. Other just have to select all kinds. It is likely the different types of people enter, work in and leave a company equally spread over all levels.
This estimate is quite apart from any attitudes the lazy 9 to 5 worker bees might have towards the soulless incompetent management.
There is no need to look in detail at why people become employees, since this can be directly mapped on the needs, wants, attitudes and aptitudes of people and companies.
Now we can take a look at the customers. After that we could analyse what makes a good business and why some go under.
Next chapter: The customer
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