Getting the best out of your juniors

Every morning, when Cissy Nassolo woke up, she would kneel to say a prayer before proceeding to embark on the chores of the day. She was a house help at the home of Samuel Patel and Elizabeth Taylor.
When Patel realised she was creative in her cooking, he started mentoring her and further nurturing her culinary skills. The couple run Faze 2 and 3. “As I did other chores, he always interested me in learning how to cook, specifically Indian dishes. Over the years, I got to learn how to cook a variety of dishes. With time, he gave me a placement at his first restaurant, Sam’s, along Bombo road,” 51-year-old Nassolo recounts.
Today she is one of the lead chefs in the continental kitchen at Faze 2, a top hangout joint and eatery that was started by the Patels in the late 1990s. This year, she celebrates a decade as a chef.
Mentorship is an important aspect that a good manager can use in nurturing skills in their juniors. Benjamin Rukwengye describes it as an idea of teaching to learn and learning to teach.

Keep learning
“Those that are in a position of knowledge and power, have a responsibility to keep learning so that they can teach those under their management...whoever is in pursuit of knowledge and power has an obligation to seek, learn from those who know,” he adds.
Human resource manager and career guide, Efrance Musimenta, says it is very important that a team or juniors understand their role and expectations very well.
Plus, juniors ought to be provided with necessary tools to deliver expectations.
“The manager needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each member on the team. This will help him in developing them and equipping them with necessary skills to deliver,” Musimenta explains.
Also, the people manager should not create a big gap between him and the team. Musimenta says closeness with a team helps build trust and respect which improves productivity.
To her, the closeness should however, remain professional. “It is also advisable that managers take interest in understanding their team beyond work. People feel appreciated when they know it’s not only work their leader is interested in but you care about them. For instance, asking your juniors how the family is doing.”

Freedom to explore
Andrew Lwanga Ssebaggala, a talent mentor at House Of Talent East Africa Limited, says allows his team members to be, helps them try out their ideas and delegates many of his roles to them. This has enabled them to own the business and treat it as their own. “They are still young artistes but I have given them responsibilities to be arts manager running House Of Talent. This is not something they are used to, as many directors in our performing arts sector want to run their business as a one-man show,” Ssebaggala explains.
Ayoub Kato, a hospitality industry mentor under ‘Smiling Faces International’, whose core is customer core, says any manager worth their salt needs to empower and provide both the soft and practical skills to their juniors.
He adds: “Delegating assignments is crucial if you identify that star achiever in your company. Sharing your success stories with your juniors is crucial. As I normally state it with colleagues or juniors that have crossed my path, you don’t work for your boss but work for yourself because at the end of the day, between five and 10 years you can own the same business. That milestone needs passion, commitment, ownership, trust and hunger to achieve.”

Belief in self
Ssebaggala believes in people and in establishing systems and as such, he attests that company projects run smoothly because he has made his young team of arts managers believe in themselves and so they bring out their best.
Musimenta agrees with Kato that it is very important also to recognise individual performance.
“Appreciate every little achievement and improvement. For instance, taking note of the person’s improvement in the quality of work, reporting or time management is very motivating and makes the team want to go an extra mile. I would also say giving productive and timely feedback is crucial. Letting people know how they are fairing in assigned tasks, where they scored better, where they need improvement etc keeps them focused,” she observes.
Also very important, is for the supervisors to learn to listen to their teams. ”Managers should not rush to conclusions or sanctioning their members. They need to listen. Understand why, counsel where necessary and monitor progress,” Musimenta advises.