Published Articles - Madhav Mohan - The Leader : Mentoring Services, Mentoring Workshops, Mentoring products- Articles / Audio / Video/ Posters, Lectures

People: your greatest resource

Booklet Authored for The Week, June, 26th, 1994

Take a look at the various products and services that we are familiar with. Say, a TV. The TV that we so regularly watch is sleek and attractive in looks and performance. But, behind this is the long story of high-technology parts, components and processes - all coordinated, controlled and molded together by the skill, dedication and innovation of workers, supervisors, managers and dealers. In short, PEOPLE.

So, ultimately, whatever product or service that you may undertake, people play the crucial and most important part. Sometimes, people band together informally. At other times, they work together within an organization. Broadly defined, an organization is an environment that brings people, machines, materials and money together to produce something of value. And people are the most important part of any organization.

It is clear from experience around the world, over centuries, that the behavior of people within their organizations hold the key to their own success and to that of their organization. The quantity and quality of interaction among its people have a vital bearing on the final results. According to management thinker James L. Hayes "…In an organizational setting, no one person can be completely responsible for any results implicity, and of necessity, all effort is team effort."

One example of such team effort often quoted by management specialists is the orchestra. Each musician in an orchestra plays a different instrument. It is the conductor who combines and harmonizes the music produced by the different musicians. The musicians are the people in an organization of which the conductor is the leader. Not only must the musicians master their respective instruments, they must also understand their fellow musicians and what the conductor is trying to achieve. Otherwise the orchestra will only produce a cacophony of noise, not music.

In a way, the entire organization can be visualized as a large team. But in practical terms, teams are better viewed as being small - departments or sections. The importance of team work in any business, more so the small business, can be illustrated by the following passage typed on a typewriter in which the letter 'a' is defective.

"One day the Managing Director decided to fill a meeting of all staff to inform that a new machine had been ordered from Germany. Many staff members arrived late for the meeting because the Office Manager had not made the time clear to everyone." The end result is much the same for an organization in which teamwork is absent.

And most important requirement for teamwork is interpersonal relationship. Such a relationship is said to exist when people respond to each other over a period of time with care, understanding and patience. If continuity disappears, the interpersonal relationship also, in all likelihood, will cease.

Successful relationships also depend on the individual having a strong self-image. To be successful in any endeavor, more so in business, it is important to understand the importance of self-image, especially in leadership situations, and the considerable power such a self-image wields over one's emotions and perceptions.

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V.K.Madhav Mohan - The Leader : Mentoring Services, Mentoring Workshops, Mentoring products- Articles / Audio / Video/ Posters, Lectures