Mitchell Phoenix - Leadership and Management Training

In 2010 - 11 Mitchell Phoenix have been working closely with Alderley Dubai, running bespoke in-house programs for senior and fast track managers both in the UK and Dubai. 

“The management team of Alderley Dubai were especially rewarding to work with. Their enthusiasm, diligence and application of ideas created the results that Nick and the senior team envisaged. In addition they made use of all the available strategies in Mitchell Phoenix projects, supporting each other, building team results and spurring each other on to deliver the maximum - a great group of people!” 
Kevin Yates, Managing Director, Mitchell Phoenix

Click here to read the case study

If one defines organizational culture as the collective values and behaviors of every individual within a business, what influence does this have on overall performance?

When we overlay culture, whatever form it may take, onto strategy, leadership, communication, customer focus, continuous improvement and sustainability, to name but a few core business competencies, we can immediately sense the influence that culture will have on output. Organizational culture will determine levels of efficiency, teamwork, quality, speed of decision making, employee engagement, innovation and reputation. It will block or embrace change, it will build legacy or stagnate, it will inspire or depress. Ultimately it drives the results.

How much attention does business pay to organizational culture? What connections does it make to some of the symptoms of a strong or weak culture?

When any organization examines its levels of employee churn, absenteeism, sick leave, internal promotions, overtime, its value of appraisal, effectiveness of meetings, its customer relationships, the willingness of its workforce to contribute freely, it can gain a measure of how healthy its culture is. How does any business ensure a healthy culture?

There is a clue for all of us in the purpose of management, which is ‘to secure the future’. A healthy culture is a leadership responsibility. When we hear about setting a good example it is actually about exhibiting the culture of the business. Feedback, good and bad, is indicative of what is important to the organization. If the strategic outlook is customer focused or bottom-line oriented it will drive out decisions and actions accordingly. Culture can be built with consistent management style, common language, shared best-practice and guiding principles. Any company can achieve a strong platform for growth if it invests in it and has the buy-in of senior executives.

Rockerfeller once said that he would pay ten times the salary to someone who could influence people who were smarter than they were. That is the importance he placed on being able to influence. Culture is influence over the ability to deliver strategy through people and it is vital.

What is the impact of organizational culture on performance? Whatever you decide.

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.

Mitchell Phoenix' Managing Director Kevin Yates recently published the ebook, How to Build a Successful Leadership Development Project in which he outlines the central factors required if a leadership program is to yield real return on investment. In this extract, he explores the initial situation - the reasons why companies might decide to strengthen the leadership capabilities of their staff.

Recognizing the Overall Need

Firstly, what is the problem?  Presumably your organisation has a sense of what it needs to achieve in broad terms and in detail - strategy, business plan, distributed goals etc.  There will be people in place (mostly) and the wherewithal to achieve the goals. All of these lend themselves to analysis and verification: what is the current capability to enact the organisation’s strategy?

If there is a perceived lack of leadership in your organisation, this implies two things:

1.  An observer (or observers) has compared the current standard of leadership in the   business with a higher standard known to exist elsewhere (at a previous company,   at a higher level of management, etc) and found it wanting

2.  This observer understands the drag on business performance that poor leadership   exerts, and the potential boost to business performance that higher quality leadership will provide

Needless to say, where there is no perceived gap between current standards of leadership and a higher standard, the link between leadership and business performance will not be understood, and there will be no investment in leadership development.

If we are going to measure improvements in leadership then what is it that we are to measure?  We are all likely to have a definition of leadership, and who is to say if my definition is better than yours? Let’s sweep this debate aside for now, it requires time not available in this paper and is not entirely necessary. What counts is your recognition of potential. At this stage, it is enough if you and/or your organisation have recognised a leadership gap to exploit and the potential to exploit it.  Here are some clues as to the extent of that potential:

    * Ownership of initiatives and/or goals is patchy

    * Blame culture when things go wrong

    * Complaints of phoney reward systems

    * Pockets of ‘resistance to change’

    * Upward delegation prevalent

    * No trust between people and divisions

    * Gaining commitment is like herding cats

    * ‘Yes but’ begins every sentence

    * …and finally the simplest of all – you prefer not to battle against it!

These are the symptoms of poor leadership.  There is a neutral position where leadership is adequate and displays few of the negative factors and some positive attributes.  Most organisations occupy this position. 

click here to download the full ebook