Management Development — Trends in 2012

We’re a lit­tle way into 2012, and what bet­ter time than now to touch on some of the emerg­ing trends in man­age­ment devel­op­ment this year. While a large amount hasn’t changed from last year, it’s worth­while cov­er­ing the big pic­ture items, as the vast major­ity of orga­ni­za­tions are stuck in their old man­age­ment devel­op­ment systems.

From Indi­vid­ual to Orga­ni­za­tional Focus

For effec­tive orga­ni­za­tions, the focus for 2012 is mov­ing away from indi­vid­ual key mem­bers of staff toward the over­all orga­ni­za­tional capa­bil­ity and capac­ity. That means excep­tional busi­nesses are look­ing at the big­ger pic­ture, decid­ing who really needs man­age­ment development.

It’s really the only intel­li­gent way to decide where to spend scarce train­ing bud­gets. To really do this effec­tively, it’s absolutely vital that you know the matu­rity of your man­age­ment staff across the orga­ni­za­tion. From there you can develop an orga­ni­za­tional man­age­ment capac­ity inven­tory, allow­ing you to know where the orga­ni­za­tion is, and in which areas and peo­ple you need to focus. Be care­ful, though, you don’t want to sin­gle out poor per­form­ers as a method of pun­ish­ment. In fact you’ll see the best returns by focus­ing your devel­op­ment on the 50% of staff that make up the mid­dle of the range.

Man­age­ment Devel­op­ment as a Pipeline

Some com­pa­nies are start­ing to realise that man­age­ment devel­op­ment isn’t just train­ing. It really is a great pipeline for future tal­ent require­ments across your orga­ni­za­tion. If you’ve devel­oped an under­stand­ing of your cur­rent man­age­ment capac­ity, you can make some assump­tions about the future, and use them to develop staff com­pe­ten­cies for the long-term objectives.

This is an oppor­tu­nity which is almost always missed. Orga­ni­za­tions often develop man­agers with vague plans of what stereo­typ­i­cal man­agers do. While that no doubt has some ben­e­fit in devel­op­ing generic man­age­ment com­pe­ten­cies, it’s of lit­tle use in the devel­op­ment of the spe­cific com­pe­ten­cies which your orga­ni­za­tion will likely require into the future. Instead, invest now to develop those man­age­r­ial com­pe­ten­cies that will make your orga­ni­za­tion a force to be reck­oned with in your indus­try. You’ll be ahead of the curve, but more impor­tantly ahead of the competition.

Total Invest­ment Increasing

Despite the eco­nomic down­turn, com­pa­nies are con­tin­u­ing to invest heav­ily in man­age­ment devel­op­ment. At the same time, the pro­por­tion of that invest­ment per employee has declined, as it is spread over the wider orga­ni­za­tion. Why the increased invest­ment? Sim­ple. Money spent on man­age­ment devel­op­ment that com­ple­ments orga­ni­za­tional objec­tives and exist­ing com­pe­ten­cies shows bet­ter returns.

As com­pa­nies exper­i­ment with new, inno­v­a­tive ways to allo­cate their man­age­ment devel­op­ment bud­gets, the abil­ity to make tar­geted invest­ment deci­sions increases. This year, we’ll see an increased invest­ment in both under­stand­ing the exist­ing man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ties, but also in the deliv­ery of devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives to those man­agers who can benefit.

Focus on Inter­nal Development

In addi­tion to increased man­age­ment devel­op­ment invest­ment com­pa­nies are devel­op­ing their man­age­r­ial work­force using their inter­nal resources, such as inter­nal cor­po­rate train­ers and orga­ni­za­tional men­tor pro­grams. These pro­grams are excep­tion­ally valu­able, and they pro­vide an effec­tive way for com­pa­nies to keep their man­age­ment devel­op­ment pro­grams consistent.

The best effec­tive inter­nal man­age­r­ial courses are those that focus on the generic com­pe­ten­cies of man­age­ment. Plan­ning, orga­ni­za­tion, lead­er­ship and con­trol are all generic enough that courses can be applic­a­ble to the major­ity of the man­age­r­ial work­force. Typ­i­cally they are also areas that have an amount of orga­ni­za­tional spe­cific con­tent – ideal for deliv­ery by your own staff. For those orga­ni­za­tions choos­ing to imple­ment inter­nal man­age­ment work­shops, keep an eye out for a post in March with some prac­ti­cal tips on run­ning train­ing work­shops. It’s not a dif­fi­cult task, but you do need the right staff in place to ensure effec­tive results.