For Gabriel Ginebra's first blog post, In Praise of Incompetence Management, please click here

You probably chose to read this because you think you are surrounded by incompetent people. It’s true. But you must know from the start—this is my twofold approach in this story—that if you deem more than a quarter of the people around you as incompetent, then you are the most incompetent of them all.

But there’s no need to worry too much about it, because everybody is to some degree incompetent. This idea is extremely practical so long as you include yourself in this category of imperfect people. It is said—and it is also one of my principles—that you must work with what you have.

The great deeds of mankind were not accomplished by a handful of geniuses, but by a bunch of incompetent people. Albeit, incompetent people with a bit of luck, a bit of coordination, and a bit of management. The difference has much to do with how people are managed.

All managers want to manage their staff well, but we must admit that very few do. Declaring that we want people to be the primary asset has become common, but with no real follow-up in most cases. We say, but we do not do.

Goodwill does not result in good management. If we do not learn to manage people, we will be haunted by continual conflicts that we lack the skill to solve. I’ve seen good-natured directors hated by their employees, and others who are not empathetic at all yet have a huge emotional-towing capacity.

I want to help you in the process of turning your good intentions into effective management habits. Managing people requires a specific and rigorous professional approach. There are rules to managing people well. They are neither many nor complicated, but they are difficult to apply because they call into question our management methods and, even more, how we are as people.

Following the rules does not guarantee success in managing people, but not following them guarantees failure. It is essential to follow the principles of science; however, learning is not consummated until it is converted through practice into a personal art.

I want to be very specific and avoid the big concepts and new paradigms of leadership that promise to solve all our problems in one sweep. Specificity is needed because managing people well is not an abstract challenge. It is a very concrete endeavor requiring the patience of an entomologist or, better yet, that of a mother with her children. The typical intellectual, theoretical approach is not suitable here.

In the spirit of small-great remedies, we offer four small-large proposals that will change how you deal with people management.

Four Laser Tips to Improve People Management

1. Dedicate one afternoon per week to be with your staff.

2. Next month, take those who depend on you out to dinner, one by one.

3. . For each one of your employees, create a file of their shortcomings so that you can work on resolving them.

4. Accept that an employee does something important better than you, and admit it in public.