Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

Being a staunch Hockey fan, the start of the exhibition season reminded me of some excellent ways managers can offer encouragement and training for their employees.

What is the purpose of any exhibition game in any sport? To get the players used to competition again and to get a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the players before they start playing games that really matter.

With our employees, we need to learn how to create circumstances that not only show where they are at as far as understanding their job, but to create those scenarios in places where they have more room to be able to fail without destroying themselves or the company or department.

One way this can be done is to make a list of the things that the majority of employees need to learn and start them at the easier tasks that need to be mastered, but offer high possibilities of success. Start them at the lower ones and let them work their way up.

This creates a sense of accomplishment and builds their confidence to encourage them to reach up to the next area that needs to be mastered.

Obviously some of this can be done with training and various strategies that prepare the worker for their job and the company culture. But when it comes down to it, performance in the real world with real customers is where it is discovered whether they will make it or not with the company.

Just like in Hockey or any sports league, we need to create the equivalent of an exhibition season to allow our workers to work on their "game," so that when that which really matters challenges them, they will have a series of victories and the confidence to face whatever comes their way.