There are accessions when, despite having tried everything you can think of to develop a subordinate, he/she still seems unresponsive or unmotivated. This may not reflect the ability of the individual, but simply the fact that he/she is a square peg in a round hole. To continue whittling away at the peg is likely to do no more than produce a chip on the subordinate's shoulder.
Staff development requires a knowledge of each person in relation to the work they do, and others with whom they do it. It is only effective if it takes into account the total work context, including the elements which go to make up job satisfaction.
Consistently performing under par, absenteeism and high turnover can all be symptoms of low job satisfaction. However, although having the skills to achieve good results, and the recognition of success are both important in maintaining job satisfaction, they may not be enough.
Some recent research has identified strong and enduring attitudes towards work, based not on ability to do it but on preferences for the type of decisions and data that are handled in carrying out the work. Until they were tested, the subjects themselves were not aware of the basis of these preferences nor the implications for their careers.
How people end up in the careers they do is the stuff of anecdotes at the nineteenth hole. It can be as haphazard as accepting the first job that comes along for want of anything else to do, or as predetermined as fulfilling parental expectations under threat of disturbing the entire cosmic order if ignored.
Either way, people can find themselves in a job which they are quite capable of doing, but in which they are dissatisfied and unlikely to develop. This block may be an expression of what the researchers call 'decision preferences'.
The identify two distinct preferences:
1. Qualitative: associated with decision-making which is intuitive, based on 'gut feel' and an acceptance of handling risk and uncertainty.
2. Quantitative: associated with calculative with calculative decision-making, based on painstaking fact-gathering, analysis and a search for the one right answer.
Each person's preference for one or the other varies in strength, but endures throughout life and is not readily changed. It may even be linked to the structure of the brain, in that the left-hand side of the brain is believed to control sequential thinking, and the right-hand intuitive thinking, and it has long been known that individuals make more use of one side than the other in the way they habitually think.
One major manufacturing corporation was so impressed with the notion that its managers were only using half their faculties that it set up a series of in-house courses called 'Whole Brain Decision Making', as a means of improving decision-making within the corporation!
The real value of this to human resource management, and particularly development is to analyze job content on the same basis, and compare the results with the preference of the job-holder.
Job with high qualitative content are those dealing with people, team work, creativity and uncertainty, e.g.: architecture, management, selling, caring professions and teaching. High quantitative content is found in jobs requiring a high degree of precision and certainty, e.g. engineering, accountancy, assembly work, data analysis and laboratory testing.
A person with a high score for a qualitative decision preference is unlikely to feel very satisfied in a job with a high quantitative decision content. The problem may not be one of initial career choice, but may arise when promotion is made to a job with essentially different requirements, e.g. when a successful scientist is put in charge of handling people, or an effective social worker is required to control budgets and resources.
Staff development requires a knowledge of each person in relation to the work they do, and others with whom they do it. It is only effective if it takes into account the total work context, including the elements which go to make up job satisfaction.
Consistently performing under par, absenteeism and high turnover can all be symptoms of low job satisfaction. However, although having the skills to achieve good results, and the recognition of success are both important in maintaining job satisfaction, they may not be enough.
Some recent research has identified strong and enduring attitudes towards work, based not on ability to do it but on preferences for the type of decisions and data that are handled in carrying out the work. Until they were tested, the subjects themselves were not aware of the basis of these preferences nor the implications for their careers.
How people end up in the careers they do is the stuff of anecdotes at the nineteenth hole. It can be as haphazard as accepting the first job that comes along for want of anything else to do, or as predetermined as fulfilling parental expectations under threat of disturbing the entire cosmic order if ignored.
Either way, people can find themselves in a job which they are quite capable of doing, but in which they are dissatisfied and unlikely to develop. This block may be an expression of what the researchers call 'decision preferences'.
The identify two distinct preferences:
1. Qualitative: associated with decision-making which is intuitive, based on 'gut feel' and an acceptance of handling risk and uncertainty.
2. Quantitative: associated with calculative with calculative decision-making, based on painstaking fact-gathering, analysis and a search for the one right answer.
Each person's preference for one or the other varies in strength, but endures throughout life and is not readily changed. It may even be linked to the structure of the brain, in that the left-hand side of the brain is believed to control sequential thinking, and the right-hand intuitive thinking, and it has long been known that individuals make more use of one side than the other in the way they habitually think.
One major manufacturing corporation was so impressed with the notion that its managers were only using half their faculties that it set up a series of in-house courses called 'Whole Brain Decision Making', as a means of improving decision-making within the corporation!
The real value of this to human resource management, and particularly development is to analyze job content on the same basis, and compare the results with the preference of the job-holder.
Job with high qualitative content are those dealing with people, team work, creativity and uncertainty, e.g.: architecture, management, selling, caring professions and teaching. High quantitative content is found in jobs requiring a high degree of precision and certainty, e.g. engineering, accountancy, assembly work, data analysis and laboratory testing.
A person with a high score for a qualitative decision preference is unlikely to feel very satisfied in a job with a high quantitative decision content. The problem may not be one of initial career choice, but may arise when promotion is made to a job with essentially different requirements, e.g. when a successful scientist is put in charge of handling people, or an effective social worker is required to control budgets and resources.
