Management Training
How are You Developing Yourself?
If individuals are not responsible for their own professional development and training, they can’t blame their boss or HR division for not having the core competencies in managing, negotiating and influencing, selling and leading others when they weren’t selected for promotion, or were made redundant.
Self Development
Many individuals seek out their own training and development and put a case to their boss or L&D Manager to fund their selected course. Some will even pay out of their own pocket if the company declines their request. But what drives some individuals to be proactive in their search for leading training and development methodologies, whilst others are happy with the status quo?
The proactive individual may be assessing their career path and realise that they have a limited window (mid 20s to mid 30s) in order to climb the corporate ladder and reach senior management status. Therefore, the better their communication skills (soft skills) are, the greater the opportunity to be promoted. Perhaps, the motivation to seek out leading edge training is driven by the fear of being made redundant and the belief that by getting the latest training in ‘dealing with people’ they are well positioned when competing with many other professionals for the same job.
For professional development on business and managing in today's highly competitive markets, contact us to discuss your needs.
Training the Organisation - In a downturn market
Many organisations invest in management training - some don’t. When companies are experiencing a downturn market or market share loss, one of the first reactions is usually to cut costs in the areas of management training, sales force headcount and marketing expenditure – this can make the financial P&L look “not as bad”. These are areas that are often justified by management (those not in Sales or Marketing) as having surplus budgets that are ‘nice to have’ but not a ‘must have’ during tough times. But what if your main competitor decided to increase its salesforce size and marketing activity by 20%, and train all of their frontline managers in leading edge negotiating skills during a downturn?
Who should have the final say in the selection of training providers: L&D, Business Managers, or the executive leadership team?
With job titles such as Learning & Development manager; People & Culture manager; and Organisational Development manager, organisations are recognising the importance of people development, and have dedicated HR teams to develop and implement company wide strategies. By centralising the people development function via the HR Division, organisations attempt to manage the influx of training offers by external providers, and provide a co-ordinated approach to inter-departmental training. The budget and types of training programs are usually planned at least 14 months ahead, and often the decision on who attends what training is linked to individual annual performance reviews.
This arrangement works out nicely for both HR and the business managers. When you consider the dreaded annual performance review process (sympathies to any manager with more than eight direct reports), it is probably a relief for managers to simply look at a checklist of training courses available for the year (prepared by the L&D department) and pick one or two that are a logical fit with the direct reports’ Development Plan, where they can gain skills in behavioural/communication areas that they either need improvement in, or would like to enhance, as they are grooming themselves for the next promotion. The L&D department is likely to assess requirements for management training with round table management discussions, review existing training courses and providers, assess new training designs and providers and then finalise the training schedule for the year to come. But are companies missing out on leading edge training opportunities, because they are locking themselves into an annual training schedule with no flexibility to add or adapt training programs given new information?
In my experience with some large organisations, when new initiatives for training are discussed with the L&D department, there seems to be limited motivation to explore other possibilities once the annual training calendar is finalised. Why? Because it would mean changing the already approved training schedule – and that means more effort to persuade management to allow the change? That would require a determined person with a strong conviction about providing the best they can offer employees. They would also have to be confident that adding a new training provider will reinforce the agreed L&D strategy further. However, a likely consequence of approaching organisations after they have rubber stamped their 12 month schedule may be that they will politely offer to file the information, and be open to a follow up call again in six months or so.
HR are not necessarily to blame when approval processes and procedures for procuring a new training provider are time consuming with a lot of red tape. These procedures can inhibit flexibility to change. After all, if everyone is generally satisfied with current trainers and there is no or limited ‘bad’ feedback, why change? This can also be called inertia. But, there could be a price to pay for taking the safe ‘routine’ path, especially if your competitors are more willing to test out new initiatives more readily.
I called the Sales Capability Manager-HR of a large organisation in November last year. This person is responsible for looking after the training and development needs of the Sales division. I enquired about their training strategy, and when they indicated there is an ongoing interest in developing the influencing, negotiating and selling skills of their talent pool, I offered them an opportunity to come along to one of our public enrolment trainings in negotiating. The manager’s response was “we already have our training locked in for 2008.” That’s expected. I then asked, “what is your process for investigating new leading edge training programs which could be integrated into your corporate strategy later on?” The manager replied “we’ve already been through an assessment of various providers and have made our decision on who we’ll be using this year.” Fair enough, although she didn’t really answer my question. I then offered the Sales Capability Manager the option to come to our training herself in order to test it out. This would give her an opportunity to assess the calibre of our training, and be prepared with recommendations based on self experience, ready for the next round of management training discussions. She declined the offer.
Although this is not an indication that all large organisations respond in this manner, I am surprised with the few that had. Perhaps my timing wasn’t right, in which case I obtain an agreement to follow up at a later date. But if people development is a strategic process, that requires forsight into the future needs of the business and an assessment of what skills managers and employees will need to have in order to compete effectively.
Therefore, it could be assumed that senior managers in L&D, OD, and Business units would take on roles similar to talent scouts, agents, and coaches of sporting teams – search and recruit those that show potential; provide clear direction on their role and what the team expects; then give them the best resources, training (physical and mental), support and care to help them realise their full potential.
If this metaphor was a driving principle, then those responsible for bringing management training to the organisation would be searching and investigating all areas that could provide them with a competitive advantage, testing out new prospective trainers all the time. If they don’t do this, then what criteria are they basing their recommendations on?
Feedback Forms – who is the feedback really on?
If L&D recommend an existing trainer, they can say “we got good audience feedback the last time”. If their criteria is primarily based on the participant feedback, that could be dangerous. Enjoying a training session does not necessarily mean that the participant learnt any new skills or how to apply them in the real world. Learning how to learn and change yourself can be quit confronting for most people initially. That’s why feedback forms are a waste of time – they simply provide an assurance to L&D that they have chosen the trainers well based on the provision of a comfortable, intellectually stimulating and ego boosting forum. Then it should be called a forum, not training.
If a comment on a feedback form stated “ I really hated the training – I was made to do too many role plays in front of my peers and try things I wasn’t comfortable with – it was embarrassing to fumble, and I shouldn’t have to do this at my level…” would you take this as ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ feedback? Or would you celebrate it as a breakthrough in the training of new skills, or at worst acknowledge that the individual may realize that they have a skill gap that might be worth working on? Unfortunately, the culture of many organisations would interpret this feedback as a criticism of the decision makers for selecting a poor training program. Thus the vicious cycle continues…
Admittedly, this is difficult for an organisation, because in order for employees and managers to learn new skills and how to apply them in their busy, pressured environment, they must go through the stages of learning (Maslow) during their training session. The stage of learning that is least popular is “conscious incompetence”, and the more senior a manager is the harder this stage is to accept. It can challenge the ego. The ones that are willing to focus on ‘learning’ rather than ‘achievement’ in the training room are the ones more likely to provide the feedback “ I didn’t enjoy this training, but I learnt a lot.”
So how do you know if you’re getting the best training that is available in the market? Perhaps for some, it doesn’t really matter. Maybe L&D Managers and department heads see training as appropriate for others, not themselves. Perhaps all that matters is that the company is seen to be providing development opportunities for their employees, and are satisfied to select the training providers who are local and cheaper.
When L&D and business managers get together to talk about the options for training providers, do they insist on leading edge training that will teach them and their people new skills, or will they settle for a comfortable discussion forum disguised under a training title? Will the procurement policy put off managers from going through the extra effort in justifying and filling out extra approval forms for a new high level training provider?
Is changing a previously approved strategy viewed as “going off strategy”, thus a weakness in the strategists? Or is it accepted that a strategy needs to evolve? Who has the final say? It probably depends on who’s cost centre the training budget sits in. Let’s face it, spending the budget is the easy part.
To find out more about the specialist management training opportunities Holon Business Group offers under the corporate brand, the Organisational Development Group, please contact our office: info@holonbusinessgroup.com.au, or phone
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