Designing A Management Development Program
Designing A Management Development Program
Designing A Management Development Program
Development Program
An article by Sohail Zindani
Unfortunately, few clients that we meet in our design a management development program without
professional careers speak very low about management sharing core competencies is just like asking someone
and soft skills development programs. I being a to train Roger Fedrer on Team Building Skills, Tiger
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Woods on Time Management Skills and Bill Gates on In terms of modality, blended learning is the answer.
Presentation Skills. With the right blended learning program, you can
integrate e-learning content with the interactive group
Involve
Involve senior management
management exercises, work samples, expert
feedback and performance support—in
Without the full support and
short, the activities provided by high
involvement from executive
quality experiential courses are the
leadership, your program will
most efficient way to drive learning
fail—or at least it won’t be as
results. Well-architected blended
successful as it otherwise could be.
learning programs are engaging,
By demanding to involve senior
efficient and effective. They result in
management, I am not merely
high levels of learner satisfaction and
talking about getting approvals.
true mastery of business-critical skills.
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 Note: Over last few years, there has been a great debate
critical for the success and long-term relevance of any on content v/s fun based learning. For me, it is perhaps
management or leadership development program. the most illiterate and completely ‘waste of time’
discussion. Learning happens when knowledge blends
with fun and engages mind for adapting newly acquired
Note: Senior Executives / Leaderships should be
skills. I simply can’t stand a 3-day course on
a.b.s.o.l.u.t.e.l.y excited for such management
MOTIVATION, with a 225 pages manual, but similarly,
development programs… remember, “Enthusiasm is
can’t appreciate a 1-day Leadership program, involving
Contagious”.
17 games with Balloons, eggs, tapes, papers, chairs and
Content is King. Blended
Blended learning should rule what not.
the day
To be effective, the curriculum that makes up your Don’t underestimate the importance of
management development program must be as financial acumen
audience-specific as possible. This means providing It is stunning how many managers and leaders don’t
learning content that is not only relevant to the have a solid understanding of how their organizations
workplace and engaging, but also appropriate for the make and spend money. All too often individuals are
knowledge and experience levels of the participants. promoted to positions with little knowledge of basic
For example, it would be unwise to use the same financial terminology or, more importantly, what it
learning content for new managers as with experienced means for their work. For example, you’ll find many HR
executives. 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 Leverage “action learning” as part of the
year. Having a firm grasp of the economic and business
process
models and financial metrics used within the
Action learning is an approach whereby participants
organization is critical to long-term success because it
learn by addressing real-life issues that are impacting
directly impacts just about every high-level decision.
their company. The format is built around groups of
Financial acumen should be a core competency your
colleagues working on a project or problem together
training program works to develop.
with the goal of accomplishing a work-related initiative.
Adjust,
Adjust, adapt and improve over time
Note: It’s high time when our appraisals, feedbacks and The first version of any comprehensive leadership or
development plans should be given parallel management training program is unlikely to be perfect.
consideration. Normally, this factor is terribly avoided in I seriously doubt that even the second or the third or
designing such management development programs. 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 compensation plan, and many other similar factors do
consultant on board as well. By continually improving contribute towards real CHANGE. Its not that as a
the program, it will meet the needs of the organization, consultant, I am trying to put off blame from my
even as the organization changes. shoulders, but it’s just an effort to share that is NOT only
the consultant’s fault.
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