6 posts tagged “management performance”

Ultimately the answer to the question ‘what benefits can I expect from developing my managers?’ lies in the answer to two other questions:

1) What is the business/organization striving to achieve?

2) How do managers need to think and act for the organization to achieve its goals?

Management development can only help to improve an organization’s performance if the development activities are directed in the right way and aimed at achieving a measurable change. For example, the outcomes required from the development activities may be around:

· Developing managers with more impact and influence to increase sales revenues.

· Improving the performance management skills of managers to improve the productivity of staff to increase capacity or reduce costs.

It should also be remembered that there are a range of less tangible business benefits associated with development activities. For example, investment in training and development is often seen by individuals as a sign of being valued by the company as well helping to create a positive business and professional image. Businesses that are seen to invest in staff development will not only find it easier to recruit quality personnel, but also enjoy lower rates of staff turnover.

However, it is important to recognize that individual development is not just about going on a course. While training courses will enable a manager to address a specific skills gap, there are other alternatives to consider, for example:

· Secondments into other roles within other teams or departments can also improve business understanding and team focus.

· Coaching.

· Mentoring

· Project work

· Research

· Networking

· Reading (this list is not exhaustive!)

Whatever the reason for investing in management development, the impact on individual performance and the company's bottom line should always be measured and evaluated to ensure that the investment has been worthwhile and the full benefits gained.

The purpose of a performance management process is to optimize the success and contribution of each employee, team and ultimately the business/organisation. However, too often organizations do not get the full benefits from their performance management processes because they make one or more basic mistakes.

Here are just a few of the most common pitfalls to avoid.

1) Nobody is accountable for implementing the process. When implementing a performance management process, appoint a project manager to implement it. Make this part of their performance requirements for the year.

2) The Board think that performance management is ‘for everyone else’. For performance management to be successful it must be lead from the top and clearly linked to the business/organization’s strategies and goals.

3) Implementing a highly complex/comprehensive system. Start with the basics first. Use a simple paperwork system to record targets/objectives and an annual (or biannual) review of achievement. As managers and staff recognize the value of the process, more ‘features’ can be added (e.g. 360° appraisal).

4) Have a system that ranks staff. Ranking your staff can kill a performance management system if the only way that an individual can improve their ranking is to undermine the performance of others.

5) Setting vague or inappropriate targets. It is vital to set clear and realistic performance targets.

6) Having conflicting targets and measures. It is important to have congruent targets and measures across the organisation. For example, a target to reduce purchasing spend may seem an appropriate target for the purchasing manager. However, buying ‘cheap’ parts may conflict with an operation manager’s target to improve the reliability and output from his production equipment.

7) Reviewing performance inadequately, for example by focusing on one specific incident rather than reviewing the entire period which the review covers. Also avoid the "halo" and "horns" effects. Just because an employee performs badly in one area does not make his/her overall performance bad. The same goes for good performance. The key to successful reviews is factual data about an individual’s performance.

8) Not providing adequate development support for staff. One key aspect of the performance management process is the development of staff to provide them with the capabilities to achieve their targets. Do not ignore this aspect of performance management.

As stated above, the purpose of a performance management process is to optimize the success of each employee and ultimately the organisation. By taking steps to avoid the aforementioned performance management pitfalls, managers have every opportunity to realize this goal.

Many researches have proven the benefits of management training and development over the years and the impact that the right programmes can have on an organisation’s performance. However, the key question is often, how much time and money should I invest? As many organisations are currently in the process of preparing their budgets, this is an important question to answer.

Ultimately the investment needed depends on what you are trying to achieve and the current level of capability in the organisation. However, at budget time, what needs to be delivered is not always clear and so all you may be able to is prepare a ‘best guess’.

Good practice suggests that managers should have around 10-12 development days per year, with about 50% of the time spent on ‘externally directed’ development (training courses, coaching, mentoring etc), and 50% on ‘personally directed’ development (reading, research, project work etc). At around £250 per day, this equates to an average of about £1200 per manager per year. However, It should be noted that averages can mask a wide range of spend, particularly where 1:1 coaching is concerned, which can bump up the investment needed to £3000-4000 per person per year.

In 2004 the Chartered Management Institute undertook some research on the investment companies make in Management Training & Development, a summary of which is provided below.

* Developing Managers: A European Perspective, Chartered Management Institute, 2004.

Clearly the amount that an organisation budgets for their Management Training and Development will be dependent upon what it can afford. Ironically, organisations that are struggling probably need to invest more in the development of their managers (and staff), to enable them to turn business round. During tough times those responsible for training and development need to be as creative as possible and ask themselves some searching questions such as:

1) Who are the key people whose performance disproportionately affects the performance of the organisation?

2) What do these people need to do to add real value to their performance?

3) How many different ways can I support these people to develop what they need without spending any money?

Management Training Course, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching
Developing People offer first class management training and development, with a business training course for every level of personnel, helping you increase productivity through employee training, leadership training

Attending management training courses and seminars to learn about how the likes of well known business and sports personalities from Greg Dyke to Martin Johnson have successfully managed and lead their teams and organisations can be useful. However, they will not necessarily help you to improve your skills and be a successful manager. While a great deal can be learned from others, if you wish to be truly successful then it is equally important to focus on developing and correcting your own weaknesses.

For example, it is probably easier to understand how your own behaviour and approach can demotivate your team and to do something about it, rather than learning a totally new approach, which incidentally might not fit with your natural style. In extreme cases others may see you as ‘faking it’ as your behaviour is not true to yourself.

Frequently managers de-motivate their employees by failing to understand the basics of human motivation. The most common failings are:

• Acting without integrity, by failing to do the things that have been promised.
• Being too aggressive and task orientated, disregarding individuals needs and work-life balance.
• Over controlling peoples work and taking away their personal responsibility.
• Making unfair decisions about work routines, pay and reward.
• Failing to engage people creatively by asking them to do meaningless work.
• Being incomplete or inconsistent in communications.
• Failing to get the involvement of others when making decisions that affect them.
• Continually being in ‘tell’ mode and not listening to others.

The role of management training should be to help managers to understand how their behaviour can de-motivate others, rather than simply showing them new role models to mimic. Management training should provide facilities for constructive feedback, and make room for, informal discussions, and peer coaching to help participants to change their behaviour.

Management Training Course, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching
Developing People offer first class management training and development, with a business training course for every level of personnel, helping you increase productivity through employee training, leadership training

Too often management training and development is left to the province of HR or Training Specialists when in reality line management has an important part to play.

The potential advantages of line manager involvement in learning and development has long been recognised.

The line manager is in a unique position to reinforce learning from management training or other forms of development, by integrating them into an employees working life and promoting a positive approach to these types of activities.

So how should a line manager be involved in their staff’s management training and development?

1. The first area of involvement is for the line manager to set clear expectations with their staff, both in terms of what they need to deliver (job responsibilities, targets etc) and how they are expected to deliver these things (approach, behaviour at work, etc).

2. The next area of involvement is conducting performance appraisals and agreeing personal development plans, i.e. measuring the “gap” between what an individual delivers (and how they do it) and what is needed.

3. In agreeing personal development plans line managers should not just ask “What are this persons weaknesses?” but should also ask “Where will learning and development add the greatest value to their performance?”

4. Line managers should understand the breadth of learning and development interventions that are available to them. For example, too many turn to the ubiquitous “Management Training Course”, or “Presentation Skills Course”, when in reality there are hundreds of development actions that an individual can take from reading a book to learning to play chess.

5. Line managers should also take on more of a coaching role with their staff. Significant relationships exist between the effective provision of coaching and guidance by the line manager and levels of employee satisfaction, commitment and motivation.

6. Finally, to be truly effective line managers need to understand their role as a “sponsor” of an individual’s or team’s learning and development. For example, it sends completely the wrong message to someone if a manager asks them to attend a management training course but then prevents them from attending some or all of it.

As a sponsor, the line manager should:

· Invest time, energy and enthusiasm in their employees development.
· Demonstrate public commitment to management training and development by “walking the talk”.
· Sanction any hindrance or blocking behaviour from employees reference their learning and development.
· Be clear with their teams the importance of management training and development in raising standards and performance.
· Recognise successes.

Too often education and development is the province of HR or the training department but by becoming more involved in their managers training and development, line management will have a greater impact on their teams performance and capability, which will ultimately impact the performance of their organisation.

1. Gibb S (2003) Line Manager Involvement in Learning and Development: small beer or big deal? Employee Relations, Vol 25, No.3, pp 281-293.

2. Latest Trends in Learning Development and Training. CIPD Survey 2007

Management Training Course, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching
Developing People offer first class management training and development, with a business training course for every level of personnel, helping you increase productivity through employee training, leadership training

In 1959, Kirkpatrick first outlined four levels of training evaluation:

· Reactions – ‘liking or feelings for a programme’.
· Learning – ‘principles, facts etc absorbed by the participants.
· Behaviour – ‘using learning on the job’.
· Results – ‘increased production, reduced cost’s etc’.

While a number of developments in evaluation have been made during the past 48 years, the basic tenets of Kirkpatrick’s work remain. Ultimately the “acid test” of an investment in management training and development is the results it produces. Clearly an organisation would not invest in a new product or service if management thought that it would be a flop!

Any evaluation must therefore start at the design stage of a programme.

What is the purpose of the management training?
What issues is the organisation struggling to resolve?
What does the organisation wish to see differently from its people?

For example, does the organisation wish to:

· Increase productivity of staff?
· Reduced mistakes/quality problems?
· Increased sales or market share?
· Have more effective and productive working relationships between managers/functions?
· Improve motivation and reduce staff turnover.

Once the outcomes of a management training and development programme are clear, it makes the task of evaluation much easier.

Building on the principles of Kirkpatrick’s model of training evaluation, the impact a programme has on individual managers, their teams and ultimately the organisation can be assessed in a number of ways.

        · Individual – The impact the management training and development has had on the individuals performance and behaviour can be measured via achievement of personal targets (e.g. cost reductions, sales increases etc) as well as observations from their manager or via 360° feedback appraisals.
· Team – The impact the programme has had on the managers team can be measured via achievement of team targets and performance measures (e.g. customer satisfaction, absence rates etc) as well as observations on team behaviour from external/internal feedback surveys.
· Organisation – Ultimately the impact a management training and development programme has on the organisation can be assessed via the organisations own metrics (profitability, sales growth, market share etc) as well as internal employee satisfaction and motivation surveys.

It is vital that organisations assess the impact their management training and development programmes have to ensure that the investment they make pays off. To achieve this, the purpose and outcomes of the programme must be clearly defined and methods of monitoring set up to collect the relevant data at an individual, team and organisational level.

Management Training Course, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching
Developing People offer first class management training and development, with a business training course for every level of personnel, helping you increase productivity through employee training, leadership training