What is the value of management?

What is the value of management? I'm not talking about leadership, I'm talking about basic man-management, the art of making things happen through others. Unfortunately for many, whether it's through bad experiences or whatever, the answer is that there is no value and they perceive management as being personified by David Brent.

There will always be days when a manager leaves the office feeling like they've done nothing but be David Brent, but on other days you can leave the office knowing that good man-management skills have made a big difference to a team.

Why am I wondering this? I have a friend who, until recently, believed that management was worthless, pointless and a waste of time/money. He was having problems, but was sure that the resolution to his problems was anywhere but in man-management. Recently, I had him captive in my car as I drove him home from the golf range and I basically ranted at him, pushed things possibly further than I should have done, but also I gave him some simple things to try.

Two weeks later he's converted, suddenly the value of man-management is obvious to him. His man-management problems are receding quickly, he now knows what's going on with his website's development, has simple techniques to deal with keeping the accelerator down on progress and he's a different man. Fantastic. That's when the value of management really does get revealed!

Holidays

I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks. The second week of which was spent at Centerparcs. If there is an exemplar for excellent customer service and knowing their target market (families) and how to deal with them, it's Sherwood Forest Centerparcs.

I went as a sceptic, I come back as a convert. There are some niggles, particularly the somewhat stressful changing room arrangements for the pool, however in general it's a well oiled and well run machine well set up for families with a fantastic on-site team.

For us, this showed itself in two ways. First was the villa move when we awoke on Sunday morning to a sopping wet floor in my eldest son's bedroom. Secondly was the way the restaurants catered to our family with such ease. I guess the flood and the villa move showed their capabilities in their real light - they dealt with it professionally and quickly even on a Sunday morning and within 5 hours we'd moved to a new villa and the issue was behind us and they'd sorted every issue. Fantastic customer service.

Our sons enjoyed all their activities, there's a really sense of care and attention to detail that the staff have for the courses being run for children. And the afternoon that my wife and I had to ourselves was spent wonderfully in a coffee shop reading papers - bliss!!

Oh, and the two golf lessons have completely re-modelled my very amateur swing and I think I now have the basis on which to build a game, and it's shown me that lessons really are an important part of building up a decent game.

Back to work I guess!!