In today's economy, businesses are barely able to make their shareholders happy. So, they rely on cost cutting measures, downsizing, reengineering, whatever you want to call it, to reduce the costs, with the idea of improving profits. Some managers believe that eliminating management/employee training on soft (people) issues can have additional cost savings. The idea is this training has no direct value to the company and its bottom line. The author believes eliminating the training will only aid in straining the company and its financial performance.
In the article by Luthans and Stajkovic, they quote a manager at Boise Cascade as saying, "Capital and Machinery make it possible, people make it happen". (1999) What that manager was saying is people make the difference. The performance advantage of the future will be people, not technology or machines. The people doing the work have a greater effect on it being accomplished and expedited than do the machines they use to complete the tasks. However, those same people cannot even begin to reach their potential without additional instruction in the areas of organizational behavior (OB).
One of those most basic ideas behind OB is effective communication. As Cottringer alluded to in his article, managers who are not trained with effective communication skills will be able to fulfill the company needs, nor their employees. (2000) Managers will become a roadblock for communication between employees and upper management. This is just referring to verbal and written skills. The problem has been forced upon the manager by the constant downsizing of departments within organizations. (Keil, 1999) Reading people, a much more difficult undertaking, requires advanced training and skill. The key is to gain consistency in how the managers relate to their employees and managers, so a relationship develops. This will become an important task for the manager as his role to share the company vision is called upon by his management.
