Mitchell Phoenix - 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.

GOVERNING CHANGE DATES

Structure: Six full day seminars, one day each month for six months

Seminar 1 Wednesday 25 January, 2012
Seminar 2 Wednesday 29 February, 2012
Seminar 3 Wednesday 28 March, 2012
Seminar 4 Wednesday 25 April, 2012
Seminar 5 Wednesday 23 May, 2012
Seminar 6 Wednesday 20 June, 2012



Principal Focus: Leading, directing and mobilizing staff

Key themes:

Seminar One - Key and Fundamental Principles of Management
Seminar Two - Improving the Contribution of Staff and Others
Seminar Three - Leadership in Management
Seminar Four - Improving the Quality of Leadership Influence
Seminar Five - Dominating Change
Seminar Six - Managing into the Future

Course fees: £3650.00 exc VAT

Who will benefit? The Managers of Managers (Senior Level)

"Governing Change" is for managers and management teams who wish to capitalize on their experience and advance their leadership and management abilities. The focus is on the critical area of high quality communication and the management of relationships which take up a substantial part of every manager's time.

Click here to make a booking on this program

What is covered on this course? Click here for course outline

What results do delegates create when attending this course? Click here for sample results

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.

I was recently invited to discuss the concept of best practice in training: what it looks like, how it works, the measurement of effectiveness and so on.  One of the aims of the meeting was to identify parameters through which the organization and design of training could be securely improved and rationalization carried out.

Between us we had a great deal of experience in the area of Learning and Development and all were keen to engage in the discussion.  What became apparent was the elusive nature of the answers to the questions raised.  For example: “What would you consider to be modern best practice in training?” Quickly we realized that different training requires different practices.

Training which equips others with a technical skill (banking, IT, insurance, engineering, etc.) requires the transfer of knowledge from the trainer to the delegate, and the subsequent application of that knowledge to a problem or process – simple cause and effect.  For example, compliance training involves the transfer of knowledge about compliance to the delegate, who then applies this knowledge to their area of the business.

Management skills and disciplines also require knowledge (most managers have this) and the application of that knowledge in the workplace. The difference is, that knowledge is applied directly to the people we manage, rather than to the systems, products or services under our control.

People react and respond dynamically and in complex ways – they are a more unpredictable variable than almost anything else in business. The training of managers demands a learning environment which can create understanding of people and how they behave in the workplace – not simply a transfer of knowledge.

What managers learn must then be practiced in the workplace, where they can grow their understanding through their own experience. Courses should be designed to facilitate this. Straightaway it is clear that knowledge transfer is not up to the task. Just as we can’t learn to swim from a book, so developing a manager’s understanding of how he/she can be more effective requires more active engagement than simply listening to a talk or reading an article.

In addition, consider the range of factors managers deal with:

• relationships in 4 directions (up to a boss, down to staff, sideways to peers and clients)
• the execution of corporate strategy
• the management of resources
• rapid shifts in external influences – customers, markets, money, people, competitors

all of which will defy the application of simple knowledge and yet can be resolved by broad understanding and good management.

As the conversation turned to leadership the game was raised another level. Here there was no doubt that understanding and effectiveness were the critical goals.  To create learning that delivers this level of effectiveness requires 4 elements:

Robust content that stimulates questioning, curiosity and deep understanding

Training based on output, not input – leaders and managers learn through their own experience and need training that causes a change in thinking, understanding and practice

A structure that promotes learning transfer – Short, intense and demanding seminars followed by a period where learning can be realized

Expert facilitation – not facilitation by experts - What’s the difference? Leaders learn from their own experience, not that of others.  Leadership learning occurs when people work on their own approach, not when trying to adopt that of others.

All Mitchell Phoenix programs are built on these 4 principles.