April 25, 2007
Amazing as it might seem, Duncan Fletcher's resignation as England cricket coach has highlighted a key business issue that not enough companies take into account.
That's according to Guru's favourite business pyschology firm OPP. Never slow to jump on any bandwagon that might happen to be trundling by at the time, the company thinks employers need to understand the impact a significant crisis - such as a management failure - will have on their people.
An OPP expert opines:
A senior manager might resign in the wake of a disastrous event, the way Duncan Fletcher has, but the impact on the team will still be considerable.Some individuals will attribute a failure to their own shortcomings, even if it has little or nothing to do with them, while others will seek to blame others wherever possible.
OPP (which sells personality tests) is advising businesses to ensure they understand the personality types and motivations of their employees so that they can ease the blow of bad news as much as possible.
Tools such as psychometric assessments (available to purchase from OPP) allow organisations to better comprehend how their people will react to bad news, OPP ventures.
The expert concludes:
Handled properly, even a major failure can lead to re-energised people who are motivated to bounce back from the defeat and prove their abilities.
However, Guru thinks yesterday's newspaper reports and pictures of Freddie Flintoff and co "re-energising" themselves in a late-night Caribbean bar is not really what the expert means.
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