Try writing your own book on people management

While there are plenty of good books on managing assets and finances, when it comes to people you may be better off writing one yourself. As a manager, you know the subject fairly well, at least the complement of your direct reports. Your hunches about them cannot be much farther off target than the advice of famous, but distant, authors.

My boss is good at managing assets and in viewing the people side of business, he draws a parallel between the two. The idea was that people's agenda and self-interest are a reflection of the phase they are in, likened to the phases in the life cycle of an asset. Once understood, the right buttons can be pushed to make people perform at their best.

The asset life cycle spans from start-up to ramp-up where heavy support is expected. Similarly, much support, intense but short-term, might also be warranted during a turnaround or a restructure. Once in a mature phase a decision may be made whether to consolidate, spin-off, change direction to escape the diminishing return or inject productivity gain to stay in the game. In all phases, change is constant. There is hardly a time when the asset, or staff, runs on auto-pilot where neither support nor intervention is considered.

Whether you are a manager of a small company, a soccer team, or an army of assets, you are charged with the responsibility to support and intervene. Profiling people to understand what phase they are in, or should be in, shows caring. Giving support before they have to scream for it or intervening before things reach a point of no return, will set you well on the road to being a good manager.

Before you go out to buy books, see if perhaps you can write one.

Don Bhasavanich is councilor of the Thailand Management Association. His column appears on the first Wednesday of every month.