Designing Management

Development Program
An article by Sohail Zindani

Now if your company is planning to build, revise or restructure a management

development program, here is my bit of contribution on “How-to” of it!.
However, if you are planning to just completely outsource it to a consulting
firm, or even to trust a foreign expert [who knows absolutely nothing about
your people and your company] to do it for you – please immediately stop
reading it further… it wont help you anyways!
Wobbly economic conditions, rapidly changing
demographics, a constant pressure of survival and an
unprecedented growth of
uncertainty has made
workplace, nothing lesser
than a brutal battlefield,
and a need to enhance
employee engagement and
retention levels are just
some of the issues driving organizations of all sizes to
explore ways of ensuring the readiness and stability of
their workforce. If your company hasn’t yet embarked
on a serious and focused leadership or management
development initiative, it’s likely that you will in the
near future, and if not – start praying for miracles.
Management Development Programs, as I say, comes in
different shapes, sizes and packaging. These programs
are usually significant undertakings and therefore
highly visible within a company. They may target
existing, middle or new managers, emerging leaders,
high-potentials or executives.
Regardless of the intended audience, there are several
characteristics common among successful management
development programs. While every situation and
organizational context is unique and you’ll need to find
a solution that works best for your organization’s
culture and goals, there are several best practices that
can be employed on your way to success.
Identify who is going to participate in your
program
Unfortunately, few clients that we meet in our
professional careers speak very low about management
and soft skills development programs. I being a
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religious believer of “Hard is Soft and Soft is Hard” can
just not take this nonsense. On my further investigation,
I mostly discover that they handle
training similarly as they would
handle annual company dinner, i.e
“come-one, come-all”.
Instead of generously spending on
come-one, come-all programs, many
organizations are taking a more prescriptive approach
that seeks to match high-potential employees with
development initiatives that tackle very specific
strategic business issues. This means that programs are
targeted for selected employees with the highest
likelihood of being able to impact business initiatives.
One should not send someone to a swimming school, if
that person is to be deputed for a lifetime at a desert.
Base your
your program on a competency model
Before any training or development activities can take
place, it is critical to identify the skills and competencies
that will be developed as a result of the effort. Core
leadership competencies like communication, critical
thinking, negotiation, decision making and business
ethics should provide the foundation for your training
and development efforts.
Whether your organization has an established
competency model that has been institutionalized or
not, it is critical to spend some time defining the
management and leadership skills that program
participants are expected to develop. To simply put it
up, instead of thinking about “good to have” focus on
“Must Have” competencies. Asking consultants to
design a management development program without
sharing core competencies is just like asking someone
to train Roger Fedrer on Team Building Skills, Tiger
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Woods on Time Management Skills and Bill Gates on
Presentation Skills.
Involve
Involve senior management
management
Without the full support and
involvement from executive
leadership, your program will
fail—or at least it won’t be as
successful as it otherwise could be.
By demanding to involve senior
management, I am not merely
talking about getting approvals.
Top management must be involved in the development
of the curriculum, the selection of attendees, and in the
presentation of the program. Executive support is
critical for the success and long-term relevance of any
management or leadership development program.
Note: Senior Executives / Leaderships should be
a.b.s.o.l.u.t.e.l.y excited for such management
development programs… remember, “Enthusiasm is
Contagious”.
Content is King. Blended
Blended learning should rule
the day
To be effective, the curriculum that makes up your
management development program must be as
audience-specific as possible. This means providing
learning content that is not only relevant to the
workplace and engaging, but also appropriate for the
knowledge and experience levels of the participants.
For example, it would be unwise to use the same
learning content for new managers as with experienced
executives.
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In terms of modality, blended learning is the answer.
With the right blended learning program, you can
integrate e-learning content with the interactive group
exercises, work samples, expert
feedback and performance support—in
short, the activities provided by high
quality experiential courses are the
most efficient way to drive learning
results. Well-architected blended
learning programs are engaging,
efficient and effective. They result in
high levels of learner satisfaction and
true mastery of business-critical skills.
Note: Over last few years, there has been a great debate
on content v/s fun based learning. For me, it is perhaps
the most illiterate and completely ‘waste of time’
discussion. Learning happens when knowledge blends
with fun and engages mind for adapting newly acquired
skills. I simply can’t stand a 3-day course on
MOTIVATION, with a 225 pages manual, but similarly,
can’t appreciate a 1-day Leadership program, involving
17 games with Balloons, eggs, tapes, papers, chairs and
what not.
Don’t underestimate the importance of
financial acumen
It is stunning how many managers and leaders don’t
have a solid understanding of how their organizations
make and spend money. All too often individuals are
promoted to positions with little knowledge of basic
financial terminology or, more importantly, what it
means for their work. For example, you’ll find many HR
professionals chanting that they are the Strategic
Business Partners of the organization… but out of them,
hardly 50% [I am being generous] can tell you what the
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company earned, lost, invested and distributed last
year. Having a firm grasp of the economic and business
models and financial metrics used within the
organization is critical to long-term success because it
directly impacts just about every high-level decision.
Financial acumen should be a core competency your
training program works to develop.
Integrate feedback, development
development planning
and coaching
360-degree survey tools provide feedback enabling
leaders to realize strengths
and areas for development
based on their own and
other’s perceptions.
Gathering feedback from
participants’ direct
supervisors, direct reports
and peers can easily be
facilitated online with
comprehensive feedback
reports. Feedback should be delivered, packaged with,
opportunities for one-on- one coaching and mentoring.
In addition, participants should be expected to develop
individual development plans that address needed
competencies. The individual development plan then
becomes the blueprint for the participant’s ongoing
management development efforts.
Note: It’s high time when our appraisals, feedbacks and
development plans should be given parallel
consideration. Normally, this factor is terribly avoided in
designing such management development programs.
© Learning Minds! Group – All Rights Reserved
Leverage “action learning” as part of the
process
Action learning is an approach whereby participants
learn by addressing real-life issues that are impacting
their company. The format is built around groups of
colleagues working on a project or problem together
with the goal of accomplishing a work-related initiative.
As a result, the participants are able to practice new
skills, work as a team, and receive and provide
feedback. Perhaps most importantly, they do so while
exercising their new knowledge
and skills to solve a current
workplace issue.
Note: Recently, at one of our
management development
assignments with leading
regional organization, we worked
on this aspect [no need to
mention that the entire senior
management was on board], and received overwhelming
response. All 11 participants [recently promoted as
managers] were assigned individual tasks to lead, and
they, not only performed it overwhelmingly well, but also
stunned the senior management with the smoothness of
execution – You see…“Action has its own logic”.
Adjust,
Adjust, adapt and improve over time
The first version of any comprehensive leadership or
management training program is unlikely to be perfect.
I seriously doubt that even the second or the third or
the forth version can also be perfect. The beauty is in
improving. It is important to continually modify the
program based on the feedback received— not only
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from the participants, but from their managers and the
consultant on board as well. By continually improving
the program, it will meet the needs of the organization,
even as the organization changes.
Measure and track outcomes
While each organization determines the level and
extent to which the results of a leadership development
program are measured, a variety of tools can be used to
determine the impact of the program:
• Skill improvement as measured by pre- and post
assessments.
• Changes in perceived skills as measured by
feedback tools over time.
• The number of participants retained and
promoted over time.
However, when you decide to evaluate the outcomes of
your development efforts, the measurements should be
established prior to the start of the program. Such
measures will allow you to make appropriate
adjustments to future programs and assist in
demonstrating the impact of the effort on strategic
objectives.
Note: Remember, if no major change is witnessed after
the entire program, it’s not only the consulting company
to be blamed for! Immediate supervisors engagement in
the entire process, senior management sincerity towards
developing people, write competency mapping, properly
linked goals and appraisals, associated salary and
© Learning Minds! Group – All Rights Reserved
compensation plan, and many other similar factors do
contribute towards real CHANGE. Its not that as a
consultant, I am trying to put off blame from my
shoulders, but it’s just an effort to share that is NOT only
the consultant’s fault.
Applying Best Practices to Your Situation
Leadership and management development programs
literally feed and energize the people-power of
organizations. They can require substantial levels of
effort, time and investment to build and maintain over
time. They also involve people employed at the highest
levels. They are very visible within an organization and
therefore highly scrutinized. As such, it would be
beneficial for anyone charged with developing and
managing an enterprise program to understand best
practices and how they can be employed to guarantee
success.
Sohail Zindani is a well known International Speaker,
Author and Organizational Development Consultant.
Serving as Chief Learning Officer at Learning Minds!
Group, Sohail has extensively worked with leading
national, regional and international organizations. He is
well known for his straight-forward, practical, humorous
and optimistic approach towards management and
leadership challenges.
Get in Touch:
Facebook & LinkedIn: <Sohail Zindani>
Email: sohailzindani@learningminds.biz
Web: www.learningminds.biz / www.sohailzindani.com
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