Mitchell Phoenix - Leadership and Management Training

Few CEO’s Cite Paint-Balling as their Chief Leadership Influence

Rare quotations:

“I paint-balled my way to the top”

For comedians training is one of the most fertile areas of business life. The tenuous links made between a host of activities – from actors’ trust games to orienteering – and our working practices are funny because we can all recognise the scenario. Whether it is making the accounts team go through an army assault course or asking the production division to do a karaoke for leadership programme, everyone knows someone who has done something ridiculous in the name of development, or – worse still – has had to take part in something ridiculous themselves.

If you want a development activity which is useful, rather than simply entertaining, what should you look for? After more than 25 years in development, Mitchell Phoenix’ Kevin Yates concludes that there are four pillars of successful development programmes. “Look for expert facilitation, an unwavering focus on the creation of results, a structure which will allow the creation of results, and tried and proven content,” he says.

What should this content consist of? First of all it should be usable in the workplace. Under pressure in a real life work situation, anything overly complicated, such as a theoretical ‘model’, will be difficult to bring to mind or use. Second, content should be useful, so that when it is applied it will solve a problem and/or generate concrete results. This means the content should focus on how to conduct the key activities managers and leaders undertake. Whether the focus is delegation, persuasion, motivation or anything else, concrete detail on how to do each of these things is vital. It is not enough to define the problem, the content must take us towards the solution and then prompt us to take action back in the workplace.

“Perhaps most important,” says Yates, “is that the content is based on strong, ethical business principles which senior managers can relate to, and on which they can build. They must see clearly how what is being suggested to them fits with the business principles they already hold, or with principles they aspire to and are likely to adopt.”

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.