If your friendly local business school or university cannot provide you with the management training and development you need, the answer may be to create your own!
Often companies send their executives and managers to a business school or on a diploma course and they have little choice about it. He or she must take the course as given. The problem with this approach is that the learning is very generic and may not meet the needs of the managers or the business.
A way round this is to use your own experts in conjunction with a professional management training firm to develop the course with you. This has the benefit of taking material from your own company for case studies and examples and will provide managers with more understandable and relevant materials.
Mark Evenden from Developing People said ‘Many organizations that we work with have managers who are technical/professional experts in their field but often require people-management training to ensure they are more effective in developing their role and the business. We will work with organisations to devise a programme that meets their needs and focuses on turning its technically oriented people into more rounded people managers.’
It is important to identify where management training and development will have the greatest impact on the business. For example the investigations might identify a need for managers to be ‘straighter’ with each other and have direct and appropriate conversations with their colleagues and clients. Alternatively, other needs may be identified around motivating and retaining employees, or winning new business.
‘The programmes we run are always developed in conjunction with our clients to meet their specific needs’, commented Mark Evenden. ‘Where possible we also encourage the client to be fully involved by delivering certain aspects of the programme.
Developing People run a range of tailored management training and development programmes, and the following is an example on one split into three modules:
Module 1 – Improving Communications. This involved straight talking, and genuine listening. This addresses issues in the role of the leader, driving high performance, managing skilful conversations and active listening, performance management and giving and receiving feedback.
Module 2 – Leadership. This addresses issues of leadership styles, looking at change, strengths and development opportunities, peer coaching and feedback, delegation and motivation.
Module 3 – Team Development. This addresses issues of “where your team is now”, managing virtual teams, diversity, team-development models, trust and understanding and managing internal and external expectations.
By ‘creating your own’ management training and development programme you will ensure that both your managers and the organisation receive the development that is really needed.