Darryl Poonan and Force Migration
By Samuel Lartey
I moved in search of the right career, for personal development and professional placement. After the first 30 days of work, I decided to take some time off to reflect on my output, productivity and effectiveness on the new job before journeying into the second month. I decided to book an appointment with my immediate supervisor to undergo a feedback and coaching session. Fortunately, my boss gave me the audience and scheduled me (and promised it would be a regular weekly One-On-One meeting).
Having gained this opportunity I had to think through all the questions I neededto ask Darryl. I have always said to myself, that, one of the easy ways I can grow is to always ask for help. What I needed to do was to plan what to talk to my boss about, what questions to ask and how to effectively listen to the memories and answers he would have for me for the short period worked.
I set my agenda on asking questions in relation to providing clarity and direction on my job, promoting and encouraging diversity, effectively managing performance, team focus, and how to treats people with dignity and respect.
Then came this long awaited meeting schedule time. I presented myself to my Boss, Mr Darryl Poonan. He welcomed me, asked what I would want him to do for me. Darryl started simply by saying that all he requires of any employee is the flexibility and desire to deliver. He said all team members can be likened to the FORMULA 1 race game drivers. All have the same cars with the same characteristics and inputs but the difference and the determination of the winner is by the uniqueness of the driver. He said that a man's greatness consists in his ability to apply the proper application of his powers to the things needed to be done. Darryl set my minds thinking.
He continued to say that we must all lead our teams by communicating in the language of the people. Our teams must feel us and we must be part of them. He said to be positive on everything is better than negative on nothing.
His desire is always to attract and retain the right people, drive and recognise high performance, manage sub-standard performance, develop leadership and other competencies. He would continually improve operational integrity, ensure that systems and processes are appropriate and in place. He desires also to provide guidance and support to the business' strategic objectives, continually improve the infrastructure (people, environment and technology), effective management of costs and resources. Personnel satisfaction and business profitability are his two cardinal desires.
He therefore ensures that personal development plans are in place for key people. Strive to make his function the centre of excellence, he ensures that people are provided with challenging career opportunities and facilitates the attainment of personal career aspirations.
In terms of task development he influences the raising of performance standards, encourage the use of formal processes to correct or exit poor performers. He identifies skills gaps and training needs through team analysis, develops competency matrices for key performers. He ensures his teams are provided with effective training and development solutions for the operations cadre. Darryl would implement effective reward and incentive schemes that would ensure that operational successes are recognised and celebrated.
Darryl develops a strong culture of effective communication, drives a culture of leadership excellence. Communicate with all team members. Encourages his teams and cheers them up to higher levels.
What caught my attention most about Darryl presentation was when he got to the point to explain his concept of Forced Migration. He said one can have all these laudable objectives, aspirations, attitudes, skills and capabilities, but implementation can be a great challenge. Teams, colleagues and subordinates can cause you to move into areas that you do not desire to be. He mentioned that having managed various teams on various international background and cultures, he has come to realise that in most instances one of the easiest ways to implement your leadership strategies is to forcefully migrate people from what they are comfortable at doing which you know would not help you achieve the team objective to what you have which you are sure would develop the team.
Darryl Poonan is the head of Operations in Stanbic Bank, Ghana. He has transformed great leaders in his two years stay in the Ghana office. He trained in the Republic of South Africa and has managed several businesses in his career.
He concluded by saying that Samuel, it does not matter that you are a new team member of my team, what is important is I would encourage you to be inspired, motivated and involved. Try as much as possible to make an improvement, no matter how small, everyday.
