People Power

Safaraz opens the series by turning the focus on the most important aspect of any organisation =, its people.

He discusses the importance of the willingness to learn and unlearn and echoes the thoughts of Alvin Toffler:’ the illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.’

Safaraz admits that his attitude to experience has got him into trouble. He thinks that it is overrated, and that experience needs to be relevant, and people have to keep learning. He believes that what someone has done in the past may not be relevant to the present situation.

In fact, Safaraz says that in some circumstances, experience can be a barrier because it can stop people from learning a new way of doing things.

Adrian Kibbler makes the observation that: ‘you can teach an old dog new tricks, but the difficulty is often getting them to unlearn old ones.’

He believes that structured courses are only a small part of how we learn accounting for about 20 per cent of the proves with the remaining 80 per cent shared between experience from doing and learning from others by watching and seeing how they work.

In recruiting people, the three major qualities that he looks for are skills, knowledge and behaviour, believing that a willingness to learn is essential.

Getting the best out of people is more about helping them to become better at what they are good at rather than focusing upon weaknesses.

Safaraz says that often people lack confidence and do not realise what they are good at. He says that in recruiting someone for a job it is not uncommon to realise that they may be much better suited to another vacancy within the organisation.