The linearity of our education and training undermines the supervisory, management and leadership capability of organisations.

My chosen trade is that of a human potential development practitioner in the workplace context. Consequently, I often find myself in conversations that critically look at how team leaders, managers and executives could better utilise the talents of men and women under their
stewardship. On many occasions this happens on the back of observations of some
organisations’ ineffectiveness and avoidable inefficiencies that result in dysfunctional team setups.

My personal view is that these dysfunctional setups happen partly as a result of the
personalities of individual managers but in the main, the cause is the linearity of our education and training.

In South Africa, we are given the choice to develop in the
humanities or the sciences. As each student progresses from primary through to tertiary levels, each stays with their specialist choice. If one decides to pursue studies in engineering,
accounting, psychology, etc., that’s all one will know, one’s specialist area. This begs the questions, where, when and how do those people who specialise in specific fields outside of humanities get to appreciate and work through key theories of human behaviour dynamics?

The irony of our education and training approach is that as soon as the engineer qualifies, she gets allocated a team with whom to work. And the psychologist gets to work alone âˆ' as a specialist who people go to once things have gone awry. 

Do you see the irony? The person who has never been trained in the use of language ends up with people to lead. The person trained in human behaviour dynamics sits behind a closed door in air-conditioned consulting rooms with no team to manage except their receptionist.

The converse is also true, you do get a behaviourist who is great with people but is as blind as a bat when it comes to numbers. How does he balance his financial books? Stories abound of trust accounts that don't add up with lawyers and failed professional practices. These are often due in a big part to a lack of accounting and mathematical skills of the owners.

Back to organisations’ ineffectiveness and avoidable inefficiencies. Most of these problems come about as a result of a lack of schooling on how to get through to people in a way that excites, inspires and motivates them to willingly and ably go about their work. Those in charge often rub people the wrong way but expect right results. Anyone who has been exposed to people dynamics 101 could tell from a distance that if those in charge had been exposed to the basics of how to get through to people, some challenges could be avoided.

Of course there is always the possibility that people skills development happens as a result of one’s social environment.This could be as a result of a family business, interacting with a huge family with many siblings or relatives, or in leadership roles in church, community and even in school. 

I believe some countries’ education and training is such that everyone up to undergraduate level studies humanities and sciences alike and only specialise thereafter. This ensures that all citizens appreciate their national and global history of people, way of life, and art, while at the same time developing technical skills necessary to solve humanity’s problems.  In this way, people learn and develop a sense of how to always integrate science and art to produce sustainable and innovative solutions. People are better informed by the time they have to decide which area of study to specialise in.

In our case we become Cyclops, the one eyed giant in Greek mythology, as we jealously ply our trades in our areas of specialisation. This blinds a lot of otherwise very bright people to the importance of practising simple universal courtesies that win the minds and hearts of people. If our education and training approach were integrated, no one would regard exercising these courtesies as being warm and fuzzy.

The situation for us is worsened by our cultural upbringing. Our gender, race, ethnicity, language, and economic disposition keep us apart so much that we become interpersonally illiterate in encounters with each other. The workplace becomes this first place where people have to cooperate with others in order to realise work goals and objectives. This poses challenges to those in charge but illiterate in people skills to get diverse members of teams to value each others' differences. 

I started my career with one of the key industry players here in KZN. I was fortunate that the company invested a lot in training team leaders, foremen, supervisors, and executives in the art of leading people as a way of making up for lack of formal training in people skills. Interestingly that was still in a very autocratic social setting, where control and command was the only way. Things were easy then: seasons were predictable, markets were stable, people were receptive and did not question authority. There was only one source of information and ‘truth’. That situation, however, was short-lived, and things changed.

Organisations now operate in a democratic, open society and in a digitally connected environment with multiple sources of information, high awareness of basic human rights, where authority is questioned and challenged more. I would expect organisations to invest more in empowering their ‘people in charge’ with competencies that will allow them to be effective in executing their responsibilities in this new order. However, many a business doesn't do this because of the assumption that because this person has this qualification they should be able to manage and lead without a problem. Sorry I’ve got bad news for you, the person is only qualified in only one area of knowledge or technical specialisation with minimal or at worst no skills in leading people and managing things around them. This is all because of the linear nature of our education and training from primary to tertiary levels. This undermines the supervisory, management and leadership capability of organisations.

It is not difficult to tell an organisation that invests in building this capability from one that doesn’t. They spend less time on unnecessary and avoidable labour disputes, have high productivity levels and have positive workplace experiences.  Customers or clients feel the positive difference when
interacting with employees at various interface points. 

As you can conclude, building the supervisory, management and leadership capability depended on individual organisation’s appetite to invest in this skill. We hold the view that if the education and training of all professions included training in people skills, all organisations would fare better in the market place through appropriately marshaling energies of people under their supervision.

T:  083 2516704
musa@hrmatters.co.za
www.hrmatters.co.za