A “Five Finger Management Practice" to effectively engage, enhance and retain talent. To drive growth, profitability and innovation!
Diversity is paving the way for gaining competitive advantage in today’s globalizing economy. Every advantage is followed by a challenge to get it done right. Diversity is no alien to this concept because including diversity is one key aspect of organizational growth but at the same time managing diversity has its own challenges.
Globally talent is rife, retaining, engaging and enhancing diverse talent is important to drive innovation, profitability and growth. Like no five fingers in our hands are equal similarly no two employees are equal. Every employee has its own charm, need and way of getting work done. To solve every day’s challenging problems at work, we need to get these fingers together and pack a punch to the problem we are facing. The “Five Finger Management Rule” identifies these key employees and defines then in terms of our fingers! So we are able to knock out challenges as a team.
- Thumb: - Not aligned with other fingers, thumb impressions are still a valid form of signature in many growing countries. These kind of employees have a strong outlook, will leave a lasting impression on whatever they do. They can take more than anybody else, let them have what they want and create magic!
- Index Finger: - Pointers! They are ready to pin point good and bad around them. Very vocal about their opinion, they like fingering but when it comes to getting it done. Their focus lies in pin-pointing. Working and listening to them, on their pointers is the key because it’s hard for us to find what they can because that’s their focus!
- Middle Finger: - Tallest among all fingers. They stand tall among all other employees, easily noticeable. Growth agents by virtue, innovators with a creative outlook these are go getters ready for anything. Managing them is challenging leading them is a blessing because they will open the unexplored for you. However they can show you the middle finger anytime, let their energy flow because you don’t contain energy you harness it!
- Ring Finger: - Married to their work and the organization, these are your regular Joe’s! Coming to work on time and leaving on time, very disciplined, patient and organized. Since they don’t give more they don’t expect more, they will always be there for you. However like the charm of the ring fades away after sometime, they tend to slow down over a period of time from repetitive tasks and start taking things for granted. You open new doors for them and invite them in, being too pushy might just throw them off. So be careful you don’t want be a marriage breaker!
- Little Finger: - Shortest but the wittiest, have the ability to go places. You reach out to them during a crisis because they have the ability of a needle to sew things back together. None can do what they can because of their unparalleled ability to problem solve. Usually unnoticeable they tend to fit any and everywhere and get work done by hook or crook. Your future leaders are right in front for you. Hold on to them and don’t let them go!
For an effective leader the key is to identify and assign the right fingers to the right employee. Because beauty of building and managing teams of success is that you need to roll them together like you are folding your hand to pack a punch. Every fingers takes a beating, some take less and some more. Remember to recognize everybody because to gain competitive advantage you need to pack a hard punch!
Sidarth Tikoo
High five.
Love this one.
If you made it out of the blue : congrats.
If inspired by some analogy, let us know and thanks anyway for sharing.
You made my day.
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Thank you for your comment, it made my day! I do management hackathons every Saturday. Came up with this one on my own. I am always on a lookout for challenging management issues and am able to create models to resolve them out of the blue.
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Thumbs up.
Also cool to imagine you can use 2 of my favorite concepts to keep leveraging diversity the way you propose.
Mirroring and entanglement of two sets of fingers...R/L hand squads facing, as a mirror symmetry, so efficient feed-back or transmission processes in many coaching situation.
Or as asymmetric entanglements, right palm on left top so thumb and index Rs contact with little L.
Plus index and and middle Rs combine with ring L.
It is easier to do it than to imagine it reading words...like in action learning....just do it to visualize the opportunities.
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This is a very good concept indeed, Thank you for sharing. Did you create this concept?
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100% original, inspired by your own.Popped up while reading and materialize because I decided leave a comment.So it is pure co-operative intelligence process, according to my personal definition.
It is a real life illustration of what I describe in my last hacks.
You can insert it in your doc to add to your body text if you want.
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