I have recently had the opportunity to interview many prospective sales people as candidates for entry level sales positions which has brought in candidates from many different industries and professions. I shockingly discovered through my process of interviewing that many of the applicants experienced bad management /employee relationships in their past jobs that resulted in resentful attitudes or quitting. In any case it seems that there are a lot of supervisors or managers that are not properly trained to manage other people leads to unsatisfactory production and low profit margins. Sometimes companies have are forced to hire inexperienced management personnel or they do not have the time or resources to properly train them. So how do companies remedy a bad management situation? Well it obviously starts with reassessing and retraining of management and supervisory roles. Most times it is better to get an opinion and a fix from an unbiased outsource, this has two benefits in that the outside source can provide the unbiased judgment and it takes the burden off you and/or your company being perceived as the bad guy.
In addition to my role as a sales consultant I have been practicing leadership and team building training for several years. Team building exercises are a way of realigning, restoring team values and re-establishing effective communication channels not only between management and the teams but between teams (co-workers) as well. For Example I had the opportunity to facilitate a “Cultivating team a Atmosphere” program for one the veterans associations management teams. They seemed to have interdepartmental issues – dissention, total communication breakdown with different management styles ECT. They were looking to quickly repair a breakdown and dysfunctional situation immediately. As the participants came in the workshop room to choose their seating you could see the division among the personnel. “The Cultivating a Team Atmosphere” workshop is a one day team building workshop with exercises and teachings to help overcome any obstacles that are inhibiting a productive and harmonious workplace. The participants were lead through various exercises that uncovered and resolved some very long standing issues. After the first break, one of the top managers who sat in on the leadership workshop took me aside and said that she was pleased that we had made some breakthroughs in a short period of time. It usually does not take more than a half a day to start uncovering and resolving communication issues and collaboration problems that can be easily remedied. Once you have people together and take them through a few exercises they realize and then are open to discuss their errors and problems at hand and be able to resolve them in a focused and non- threatening environment.