A Time-Aware Team

SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT is dependent on many things, and there is genuine difficulty in putting them in any sort of rank order. Successful recruitment and selection is, however, certainly one of the key ones, and many other things are, in turn, dependent on it.

Management is usually defined as achieving results through other people (rather than for them), and in a commercial organization the objectives toward which you must work and the ultimate results are primarily economic. It is thus different from the things you do— your executive role—and you are dependent on how well your people perform for the overall results for which you are held responsible. If you recruit the wrong people, nothing else you can do may be able to make up for this, and results will suffer.

Given people of equal technical ability, then one factor that will condition their success, making it either better or worse, is their productivity; time management affects us all. Recruit time-aware people and your team will perform better.

Finding the right people is a skill. Most of us are not inherently able to look people over and make an instant and correct decision as to whether they will perform well or not, however much we might like to think we can. Curiously, people are very myopic in this area, so selection must be a systematic process. It is rather like completing a jigsaw puzzle: gradually, from the application form, interview, observations, and references, you put together a sufficient picture on which to make a judgment. It is never complete, and you need to be aware that most people are putting on their very best face throughout this process. They are unlikely to turn out better than you think and may well be just a little less good.

Whatever other characteristics you demand (and leaving the considerable complexities of this on one side), consider adding time management skills. Candidates will display some—or should. Are they on time for the interview? Has any deadline for the receipt of applications been met? Is their application form legibly and completely filled in (avoiding time being wasted in checking)? You may want to ask them questions about how they organize themselves. I do not suggest this is easy, that there is any one magic question that will ascertain whether people are good in this way or not, and you may not be able to be certain when you make an appointment that the candidate does have the right characteristics in this respect or not. But to ignore it is irresponsible, and if you are, or succeed in becoming, a good manager of your time you will find it permanently frustrating to be surrounded by people who, whatever their other good characteristics, are a time utilization nightmare.