Alan Curless & Associates Ltd.
In this sense, managing people is both an easy and a difficult matter. It is easy because it means using skills that we have developed all our lives. It is difficult because we fail to recognise the complexity of the situation in which we find ourselves, and often apparently simple situations involving two people can be incredibly complex - just think about a marriage or relationship. Each of these skills is a tool in a toolbox which we call experience. The problem with our toolbox is that we often don’t realise the range of tools which we already have available to manage people. We tend to stick with a comfortable few tools that we have used for years. We have got a hammer in there and a screw driver, maybe a couple of chisels. Unfortunately, using the same tools again and again without maintenance tends to blunt them. And of course, when our tools don’t work we either smash the machine, call in a specialist, or simply walk away with the job half-finished.
Being an effective manager means taking stock of your toolbox, bringing out tools that you have not used for a while, or that you may have used in the wrong way, and sharpening the tools that you have been using.
Our task is to help you bring out new tools, bring out tools that you have not used for a while and sharpen up the tools you have been using.
No consultant, book or training course will change anything in a major way unless you want it to.
What Is Our Role?
Our role is to help you consider some of the issues involved in managing people in a small or medium size organisation or unit of a large organisation. Our style will be different to many others in that we design our courses to help you realise how much you already know, rather than wasting your time with irrelevant information.
What Is Our Target Market?
We are aiming our courses at people working in small manufacturing, retail, service organisations or the public sector but in small management units which employ up to 50 people.
What Is The Range Of Activities We Can Cover?
Managing is not a specialist activity. As the speed of change in the world increases, specialist skills become obsolete quickly. One of the major conflicts over the next 10 years is likely to be the conflict between specialist and generalist.
Many of the accepted tasks of a manager are seen as planning, directing, controlling and organising. In the face of sophisticated employees we can see a need to develop new resources and skills.
Managerial resources consist of qualities such as:-
The Ability to Learn: learning is the way in which you increase your resources of knowledge, skills, ability to cope, conceptual grasp etc. It involves you in the effective organisation and objective setting.
The Ability to Communicate: whilst not strictly speaking a resource, communication is the way in which you maximise your use of other resources outside of yourself.
The Ability to Manage Effort: this involves good negotiation, presentation, dealing with stress management. We will help you look at some of the ways in which you can manage your physical self and surroundings in order to release more effort.
The Ability to Manage Time: our task will be to offer you pathways through which you canmanage time more effectively and release more time for yourself and the organisation.
Specific Courses We Can Offer
- Learning to learn
- Communication
- Negotiation and working with conflict
- Presentation skills
- Stress Management
- Time Management
- Recruitment and Selection
- Performance Appraisal
- Delegation
- Team Building
- Leadership
All these courses can be tailored for your organisation's needs.