Many organisations send their managers on open training programmes, or sometimes to colleges or business schools to develop their management skills. Management training is a vital part of the development of a manager, as the skills need to lead, motivate and get the best out of staff are very different from technical skills.
However, there are a number of important issues to be considered using this style of approach.
- Firstly, the manager concerned must accept the course as given,which may or may not meet their specific learning needs.
- Secondly ‘generic’ management training courses do not take into account the culture, climate and needs of the organisation.
- Finally, most people learn best when they use materials and approaches that are relevant to their work.For example, discussing how to manage the performance and get the best out of a team of bus drivers will be very different from a team of creative magazine editors.
The ultimate consequence of the above is that the manager does not make the most of their learning and the organisation doesn’t get the required return on their investment.
To avoid this, organisation’s need to use management training firms with the expertise to develop tailored solutions who can work alongside the organisation’s own internal ‘experts’ to develop the programmes. This ensures that the materials are prepared in the ‘right language’, and case studies, role plays and exercises are made relevant by using realistic workplace examples.
The most effective training programmes are therefore the ones that are developed in collaboration between the organisation and their training partner. Indeed, it is often beneficial that programmes are delivered in partnership too, with the organisation itself delivering certain aspects of the programme. By ‘creating your own’ management training and development programme, organisations can ensure that their managers receive the development that is really needed and the organisation benefits fully from their investment.