A Final Word

I hope you found this book practical and interesting. Lots of ideas have been presented that remind me of a committee the American Management Association formed to define the word “management.” It decided that “management’ is a science and an art. It went on to explain that the “science” of management is “concepts, theory, principles and techniques.” And that is what this book has presented from many sources.

The committee defined “art” as the application of the concepts, theories, principles and techniques. This means that your job is to select those ideas that you can use or adapt to your own situation.

If you are a line manager, look for ways of doing a better job of planning and conducting performance appraisals so that you end up with a “performance improvement plan” that you and your employee have developed together. Also, study the chapter on coaching and see what athletic coaches and others say are the characteristics of an effective coach. Choose those attributes that will help you get maximum performance from your employees.

If you are a human resources manager, analyze the forms and procedures of your performance appraisal program. Be sure you build into the process the objective of improving performance and not just making decisions on merit increases and promotion.

If you are a training professional, work with the human resources manager to develop a program for training the line managers to implement the program effectively. This means teaching them how to appraise, conduct an effective interview, develop a “performance improvement plan,” and coach for improved performance.

Don’t forget to complete the “posttest” (following Chapter 6) to challenge your opinions on performance appraisal and coaching, whether you are a line manager, a human relations director, or a training professional. If you did the pretest, compare your answers to see what you learned and/or just changed your mind.