Managing People Successfully during Pandemic
Thoughts expressed by our alumni, Mr Naseer Hussain, Project Manager-Valient Business Media, (PGDM, January 2013 Batch)
At the outset, I would like to thank IMT for this opportunity and the platform to share my views. I am very grateful to the entire team involved in this initiative.
My career has seen a remarkable growth after completing my PG course from IMT and the kind of confidence and knowledge it has equipped me with is praiseworthy. I have been able to work with some fine corporates like The Adecco Group right after the course. My current job role is focused on international business development and project management. Today I am leading several Business Development Teams for Oil and Gas sector, EV sector, Mining and Healthcare. What IMT has done, it has boosted my career and helped me develop apt managerial skills to lead several teams.
At this stage I lead the discussion with the ministries, government officials, Fortune 500 listed companies and industry experts. Working and collaborating with the stakeholders is a key focus area in my current job role and having a clear market insight is a prerequisite. I have been involved in several projects organized by the ministries of Morocco, Guyana, Sudan, Portugal, Egypt and more regions and my dealings have been with renowned names in their respective industries like ExxonMobil, Hess, Shell, BHP, Worley, Schlumberger, Wood Plc, OCP, Boliden, Metso, Caterpillar, Accenture, Nokia, Dassault Systemés, Abbott and many more.
In the current scenario the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many organizations to operate in a different manner and for the line managers it has been a testing time to lead their teams and drive the output. I have been able to drive the output from my team almost at par with what it was before the pandemic. My entire team has been working remotely till date from different locations and with internet outages in many places, yet we have been able to deliver. Managing people is not an easy task especially when you have several teams or a larger team size as each individual comes with his own set of traits be it the behavior, culture, skillset or any other thing but the key is the human touch and leading them rather than managing them. Synergy plays a key part and doing tasks together yields higher output instead of ordering your subordinates to do the tasks. Assigning tasks is important, at the same time a plan to achieve them is equally important especially when the interaction has been reduced to minimum during the current pandemic. As a leader your objective is to lead everyone and achieve the set goals. It is during the testing times where the impetus should come from you to boost the morale of the whole team.
Things that I follow –
- Appreciating team members for even smaller achievements.
- Keeping team members at ease and letting them have enough space to perform.
- Acting like a leader and not micromanaging things.
- Listening to all of them and not shutting anyone out. Many of the inputs from my team members have been instrumental.
- Addressing their grievances immediately so that their focus is on the set goals.
- Sharing the credit of success with the team members.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer. They do not purport
to reflect the opinions or views of the Institute or its employees.
