Mitchell Phoenix - Leadership and Management Training

How to Choose a Leadership and Management Development Provider - Part 2

Last week we explored training providers which deliver at Level 1 - Favourable Reaction. This week we focus on providers who deliver Learning.

2. Learning

What are the results reported by providers at this level?

1. A needs assessment is carried out, where delegates are tested to find out what they already know and don’t know. Training is delivered, and delegates are retested on what they now know. The result is shown in the difference between what they know now compared to what they knew before.

2. A certificate is often awarded to show that delegates now know more than they knew before. Where the certificate is deemed to be a useful addition to the delegate’s CV (eg an MBA), it is often the securing of this certificate that is held to be the most important result of the training programme.

Training that is focused predominantly on learning varies widely, from an MBA at a prominent business school to a one day Personality Type session run in a kitchen. What is learned can range from the latest, most complex process improvement models to the fact that one member of the department is less detail-oriented than another.

Clues that providers operate at this level:

• Testimonials focus on how much the trainer knows, on what the delegate now knows, or on all the useful tips and tricks the delegate picked up
• Promotion focuses on participants’ intentions to put what they learned into practice, rather than what they did differently back in the workplace
• Marketing focuses on the heritage / prestige of the institution
• Advertising will focus on how programmes kick-started careers through contacts made on programs, or once delegates were able to put the qualification on their CV

Why are the types of offerings described above only listed as the second in a hierarchy of four types of training? Why would a learning and development manager look for a programme that delivers anything more than learning? Leadership and management training which focuses primarily on learning often does not deliver development.  

How can this be? Consider these two questions:

1. “If a change is going to be unpopular with your subordinates, you should proceed slowly to gain acceptance.” Agree / Disagree

2. “If you are promoted to a management job, you should make it different than it was under your predecessor.” Agree / Disagree

What would you answer? Click to find out how these questions point to the gap between learning and development

Last month we put forward the idea that Leadership and Management Development Providers will create results at one of four levels:

1. Favourable Reaction
2. Learning
3. Short Term Behavioural Change
4. Long Term Behavioural Change

(Read more about this here)

How can you quickly discern at which of these four levels a potential provider will deliver? After all, as one of our clients famously said, “everyone out there will tell you they can do everything, but they can’t.”

1. Favourable Reaction

Clues that training companies primarily operate at Level 1 include:

• Testimonials focus on the trainer – how much fun, how inspirational, how dynamic, how interesting he/she was
• Little concrete evidence of results in the workplace – the result is that people attended the training and were not upset or bored by it 
• Training often woven into other fun activities, such as actors’ games, cooking, assault courses
• Business promotion reflects testimonials: people have a good time – all course days rated good to excellent, etc.
• Companies use associates – the key skill required is to be able to hold the interest of a group of executives for a day, or two days. Full time employees with deep knowledge of in-house content and approach are not required; in this case, associates hired on a daily rate will be able to fulfil the brief.

Click for a fuller discussion of Favourable Reaction as a Result of Leadership and Management Training

Over 20 years of client work, Mitchell Phoenix' approach has been constantly refined in the pursuit of a single goal: the creation of results in the client's business. This principle is the foundation on which our programs are built, and it is in the light of this principle that all other decisions about course content and structure are taken. 

But once the overarching purpose is established, what other principles are invoked to ensure every course produces real, practical results? Click to read how we build leadership and management training.

Here is an example of real ROI:

Communicating a Challenging Decision and Retaining Commitment

A manager had to run a difficult bonus review meeting with one of her direct reports. Under previous arrangements, put in place when the company was much smaller, the direct report only had to satisfy some basic requirements in order to qualify for his bonus. The manager wanted to change this situation, and link the direct report’s bonus to target achievement. Mindful that this was likely to be unpopular, the manager booked out a whole morning for the meeting in which she was going to broach this subject.

Using concepts developed on the Foundations of Management Program, the manager first agreed with her direct report that bonuses should be based on performance. This done, they worked together to create a set of objectives for the coming year relating to a particularly important aspect of the direct report’s role. With the objectives agreed, the manager told the direct report that his bonus for the coming year would be dependent on the achievement of the objectives they had just created. After a short discussion, the direct report agreed to this and they set a follow up meeting to monitor progress towards the achievement of the first objective. 

The manager felt in complete control in the meeting, and concluded it in 20 minutes, leaving a whole morning free for other work. She later reported that it was completely successful in terms of creating motivation in the direct report and securing agreement to a difficult decision.

c. 8-10 of these per delegate x 8 delegates = c. 70 results = real ROI from a management training program

… and what is a waste of money:

As mentioned in a previous post, the management training industry has created a smokescreen around what is a real result and what isn’t. The examples below are regularly proffered as ROI, when in fact all could be achieved much more cheaply through other means:

1. Everyone actually attended the course – (the only requirements here are physical presence in the seminar room and a pulse, it is a rare delegate who cannot manage either of these. Cheaper alternative = organise a meeting, see who turns up)

2. Everyone enjoyed themselves – (cheaper options = pub, crazy golf, day off…)

3. Everyone found things out about themselves (without action in the workplace to build on this, cheaper alternatives = horoscopes + star signs, drunken post pub truth-telling sessions, books)

4. Everyone left with an action plan for how they are going to implement what they learned back in the workplace (alternatives = your last set of new year’s resolutions)

5. Everyone enjoyed the facilities on their residential course (most residential courses are hotels that use training to hook people in. Cheaper alternative = book a week in a better hotel, leave out the “training”)

You’ve decided to do some management training with your people. The business case is clear and the necessary budget has been secured. If you don’t spend the money in the next couple of months it will disappear, so you sit down to make your choice.

You think that with stronger management skills you and your people will behave more effectively on an individual, team and organizational basis. This would be a fantastic business result. You search the internet for management training companies which can deliver business results… and to your surprise, everyone can. Every provider you look at shouts back at you about the “results” they create for their clients, like a flock of parrots that has learned to say just one word.

In fact, in the world of management development “results” has a range of meanings:

1. At the basic level, the “result” is that everyone who attended a day of training rated it highly on a feedback sheet – eg. as “very good” or “outstanding”. People had a good time, nobody tried to climb out of the windows.

2. The next type of “result” is that everybody learned something on the course. They learned what personality type they are, or that they annoy a colleague when they don’t turn on their out of office message. The link between the learning and the workplace is hazy, or based on firm promises to put an action plan in place one delegates get back to the their desks. Six months down the line, people are still annoying their colleagues by not turning on their out of office messages. Perhaps unexpectedly, much of the input on MBA courses falls into this category: interesting but not used.

3. Short-term behavioural change is the next category of “result”. Here, people adopt a new behaviour and stick to it for a while. For situations where longevity of application is not a factor, “results” in this area are useful.

4. Long-term behavioural change is the pinnacle of “business results”. This is rare, requiring all of the other three preceding “results” to be in place (no one will change their behaviour if the course designed to do this is making them want to climb out of the window). Along with these, any course operating at this level will create a deep understanding of management principles, such that they can be applied to any situation a manager faces. Managers take decisions with this new frame of reference in mind, and choose new, more effective behaviour now and in the long-term.

Next month: the clues that show which of the four types of result above a provider can deliver.

In discussion with a client the other day, he remarked on how many of Mitchell Phoenix's long-standing relationships are with companies in high growth; some of which have become household names during the 20 years we have been doing business with them. What is it about our approach and the results we create that suits organizations experiencing rapid change so well? Here is the answer.... click to read on

We’re going through a period of change, and my people need to do something on change management - what have you got on that?

Although everyone has their own idea of what “change management” means – from charming resistant employees, to implementing a full-blown project-management-style methodology – it is possible to identify some common characteristics:

• A coherent vision of what the desired future should look like
• A well constructed plan of how we are to get there
• An understanding of the present situation – current capability, resources, strengths, areas for improvement, etc
• The ability to set goals and manage progress towards their achievement
• The ability to overcome unexpected setbacks
• The ability to persuade others to support change, especially when this means they will have to change something about how they operate

If the managers in an organisation are not capable of doing these things already, what are they doing? To what extent are we looking at a company where managers have been able to get away with only having:

• A partial vision of what the desired future should look like (“we’ve set ourselves a few financial objectives that sound good”)
• A vague idea of how we are to get there (“more or less do what we’ve always been doing, with some rationalisation and one or two tweaks”)
• A vague understanding of the present situation (“we’re pretty much ok, although I’ve never liked him…”)
• Only partial ability to set goals and manage progress towards their achievement (“the secret is to not set anything too stretching”)
• Variable success in overcoming unexpected setbacks
• Little ability to persuade others to support change (“you should see some of the people in my department – these people don’t want to change”)

Lurking under the idea that change management is different from “normal” management, we can detect the assumption that management is a passive activity. A manager’s role is primarily concerned with preserving the status quo, ensuring people behave as they have always behaved and safeguarding processes, procedures and expectations laid down some considerable time ago. A passive manager of this type could not be expected to possess the “change management” skills outlined above.

An active manager, fully aware of the organisation’s purpose, ambitions and aims, would view change somewhat differently. For this person, change is at the heart of their responsibility, and the ability to create and manage change is central to their role. The organisation will only fulfil its aims through change: depending solely on what worked in the past will not serve us in the future. Further, if we do not have the skills to initiate and manage change, our options are severely limited, because all we can draw upon is precedent.

The difference between “change management” and “management” is the difference between behaving actively and passively. Why wait for a large, externally imposed change before attempting to equip yourself and your people with the skills to manage it, when you could actively decide to acquire those capabilities now – and create some changes of your own?

Lord Davies' report, Women on Boards, has highlighted a growing body of evidence linking the number of women on the senior management team of an organization with the strength of its performance. The following article explores why this might be the case, and what the implications are for decision making.