A management trainee's first assignment

CENLEAD CEO Dr. K. Kuhathasan conducted a program on 'How to shine as a management trainee.' Here are excerpts from his address.

Your first assignment as a management trainee is indeed an achievement. With a job, however, comes responsibility. People will rely on you to complete tasks, meet deadlines, and generally display willingness. If your job is not challenging, tackle the tasks with willingness, and you will find that you will be given more interesting tasks. Having a job is an honour. You will make new friends, learn new skills, and have money to spend.

The first year

The first year of your employment as a Management Trainee is a critical period. Students with limited work experience must cope with (compared to school) longer hours, fewer vacations, more responsibility and pressure to perform, and difficult team members and bosses.

Basically, you must learn what is expected of you at work. You must try to display your talents and impress others. You must display who you are how talented you are.

Your first job

Your first job can have a strong impact on the rest of your career. Challenge, or how much responsibly and chance for personal growth your job offers, is related to future job performance and career success.

When choosing. Assignments and placements you should weigh a job's challenge more heavily than more obvious shorter-term considerations such as salary and location. If you have a job that seems unchallenging, you should try to acquire additional responsibilities.

Your boss

The quality of your working relationship with your immediate supervisor will affect the amount of support you get, your job satisfaction and performance, speed of promotion, size of bonus, and annual salary.

The nature of the boss-subordinate relationship in the first year establishes a pattern that persists and sets an important trend in the development of the future professional advancement.

This relationship also affects your career mobility in the complex game of executive chess.

You should avoid taking a position under a boss who is ineffective and commands little respect. Such a boss will provide too little challenge, training, or advice.

The longer you stay in this relationship, the more difficult it will be for you to be noticed and to move to more prominent positions.

And, if your're talented, an ineffective boss might block your promotion and upward mobility.

Support your boss

Since your boss evaluates your performance and is the most important influence on your immediate future with your organisation, find out the criteria your boss will be using to evaluate your performance.

Never speak negatively about your boss to others, nor should you undermine your boss. Do everything in your power to support your boss and to make him or her look good.

Socialisation

Socialisation is the process by which the organisation teaches trainees appropriate attitudes and behaviour.

If your bank is successful in its socialisation on efforts, its employee will be highly motivated, satisfied, innovative, and cooperative.

Work experience

Progress in a career depends on your personal characteristics, credentials, intelligence, motivation, knowledge, career planing and decision - making strategies.

But your career progress will also depend on the experience, or work environment, to which you are exposed. You may learn about three aspects of the work environment: (1) the first year, with its early socialisation and training experience (2) various assignments. (3) Your career paths.

Vision mission and goals

By exploring your interest in the following areas, try to understand the vision, mission and goals of your bank.

* What are the overall goals of the bank?

* What are the specific goals of the action program?

* What resource does the bank currently have at its disposal?

* What strategies are currently implemented by the bank?

* What issues are important to the bank?

* What is the public's perception of the bank?

* What is the perception do corporate constituents have about your bank?

* What organisational unit will be responsible for managing various activities?

* How will issues be monitored and analysed?

* What strategies will be used to measure your performance?

The following skills and characteristics can help you to shine and excel in your field.

* Leadership

* Oral communication and presentation skills

* Written communication skills

* Planning and organising

* Information gathering and problem analysis.

* Decision making.

* Delegation and control.

* Self-objectivity (being aware of one's strengths and limitations).

* Disposition to lead (a willingness and desire to lead others in new directions).

Special skills

For many years, the organisations have been trying to identify the specific skills that are related to managerial job performance.

The following are a few that researchers have identified across several different organisations. You, may have to master these skills professionally to achieve name and fame and shine as a Management Star!.

* Job knowledge: Knowing the facts about equipment, materials, and the work process, as well as the relationships among all parts of the work operation. Example: Knowing about personal computers and software programs.

* Oral communication: Verbally presenting information to others in such a manner that the information means the same to everyone. Example: Communicating work objectives to all members of a work team.

* Persuasiveness: Influencing others who have different viewpoints to reach agreement on an acceptable plan of action. Example: A committee member explaining a position on future group actions.

* Problem analysis: Determining why a situation does not confirm to standards and deciding what to do about it. Example: Determining why a group of products has failed final inspection.

* Cooperativeness: Working easily and well with others in group projects. Example: The interaction of members of a strategic planning committee.

* Tolerance of stress: Continuing work performance in adverse or hostile circumstance. Example: Multiple projects coming to completion at approximately the same time.

* Negotiation: Arriving at mutually acceptable joint decisions. Example: Agreeing with a supplier as to a mutually acceptable price for raw materials.

* Assertiveness: Clearly and consistently expressing a point of view on a topic being discussed. Example: Individual performance review with a subordinate who has a deficiency in work activities.

* Initiative: Determining what work activities must be pursued and starting them.

A strong Corporate Culture is the cornerstone of a successful organisation. It is something unique to an organisation. Established practices and accepted norms have proved to be the foundation of successful organisations. Organisational Culture simply explain how things are carried out based and built on the foundation of established practices and accepted norms.

In other words, organisational culture refers to the values, beliefs, traditions, philosophies, rules, systems procedures and leadership traditions that are shared by members of an organisation. It is the collection of shared beliefs, values, accepted communication practices and management policies that fosters a feeling of belonging and binds the members of an organisation to together.

It is this unique and distinctive features that distinguishes it from other organisations and offers a special identity, recognition and place. Be a part of your organisation.

Finally, closely observe the functions, actions and activities of your seniors. You can easily observe that managers are smart people.

Try to learn the following practices from your senior managers:

Managers work long hours.

The number of hours worked tends to increase as one climbs the managerial ladder.

Managers are busy.

The typical manager's day is made up of hundreds of brief incidents or episodes.

A manager's work is fragmented.

Given manager's high activity level, they have little time to devote to any single activity.

Interruptions and discontinuity are the rule.

Adopt the following resolutions to make your work more interesting and challenging:

. Work is a fundamental element of my life, an activity essential to all aspects of my life.

. Improvement in work will improve all other aspects of my life.

. Work is not just a means to an end. My work can and should fulfil and satisfy me at the deepest levels.

. I possess unique capabilities and talents from which I can create something of lasting value.

. The responsibility to improve my work rests first and foremost in my own hands.

. Work occurs in three basic dimensions: doing, developing and discovering.

The key to success in any endeavour lies in organising when and how to emphasize and mix the three dimensions of work.

Final tips

Have a realistic understanding of what lies ahead.

Understand your career goals, career anchors and personal strengths and weaknesses.

Accept responsibility for managing your own career.

Identify and improve

on the factors that contribute to success.

Never lose sight of the fact that solid performance is the foundation of career success.

Seek challenge in your job.

Develop a good working relationship with your boss.

Cultivate a network of friends and allies.

Make major career-related decisions with care.

Treat the early socialisation period as an important learning experience.

Plan ahead for potential career opportunities (and problems)

Continually re-assess your present standing in the organisation, as well as your goals and possibilities for the future.

Seek a balance between your personal and professional lives.