Developing management competence
May 2, 2008
Not long after I had written my comments yesterday about learning from qualifications and experience, I was browsing the latest HR stories and found one about ‘skills guru’ Lord Leitch’s comments on the lack of management skills in the UK. He thinks that the lack of these skills will mean UK will fall behind on competitiveness in the global economy, losing out to newer international players such as China and India. One of his key points was that academic qualifications do not necessarily equal skills, which mirrors my concerns about my qualification.
This is a critical consideration for organisations. As I reported a few days ago with relation to football managers, there isn’t a lot of time afforded to senior management in today’s organisations to get up to scratch and perform to the high standards required in a competitive environment, yet many new (and some old) managers will not have the necessary skills to carry out the role effectively, even if they come with a degree or management qualification – as this only teaches the theory. Many new managers do not even have a qualification but are given the opportunity due to their proven abilities within the role they now have to manage. The problem here is competence in an operational capacity does not necessarily mean competence in management.
So what’s the answer? Well, as I’ve talked about in the past, formal training methods such as lecture-style sessions are not the most effective way for people to learn skills. To master a skill you need to carry out your learning as close to the activity as possible. This can mean simply experiencing the role, i.e. the ‘practice makes perfect’ method, but what will improve the learning experience is adding reflection into the routine; so that each time you practice something, you can review your performance and discuss what can be done differently. Coaching and action learning are good examples of learning methods that would be very effective for management development, as they both involve carrying an activity out and then reviewing what was done. Another benefit of these methods is that the learning is directly relevant to what is happening at work rather than on theoretical models or case studies.
Many large companies have management training programmes, most of which I imagine will offer a blended learning approach, using a combination of theoretical and practical methods to help the learner develop in their role. Most smaller companies will not normally be able to afford this level of development for their managers, but nonetheless need to ensure this vital group of people are well prepared and competent in their roles. Management teams can develop informal versions of development methods to support each other, work through issues together and give advice where appropriate. This way the variety of experience can be used to its full potential, as all the managers will have different approaches, different past experiences to draw on, and different ideas for the future.
Learning in theory or in practice?
May 1, 2008
I’m coming to the end of a gruelling HR qualification, summoning what little motivation I have left to finish the last few sections of the final, enormous assignment. When I first started the qualification, I loved it and thought that it was really useful to my job; I tried to put every bit of learning into practice in my work. This last year has been a nightmare though, I think there’s only so far you can go before the experience counts for a lot more than the academic learning, and this has become apparent even more with this assignment that I’m doing. The problem is that everything academic is based in theory, and it’s sometimes hard to relate that to practice when you have to actually carry out the things you’ve been learning about. Another key issue is that some of the tutors have been lecturers for decades, so the last experience of business they had doesn’t relate that well to today’s working environment – in some cases it was before I was even born! I think the best teachers are those who have recently worked in a similar environment – but how can that work in practice? You’d have to keep kicking out the old to bring in the new and that’s hardly feasible!
In many areas of HR, there is a need to carry out formal training to understand the requirements and the theory behind HR practices; such as employment law, the recruitment and selection process, learning and development options, and how to develop a HR strategy from the business strategy. But the responsibility for making this happen in real life is placed on the individual, and you only get good at this through practice and a commitment to trying things out.
So I’m not really sure what I’m saying here. I have definitely benefitted from carrying out a HR related qualification, but a lot of it has been down to me drawing on the information and using it effectively, which is how it should be I suppose. I think now I’m just at the point where having to research theories of practitioners from 1975 and then somehow put that into an action plan for my organisation is making me think ‘what on earth am I doing?’