We all know that planning is essential in order to achieve overall organisational and departmental goals, but many plans I see when dealing with management development are, quite frankly, not worth the cigarette packet they are written on.

So how do you make sure that, not only are your plans logical and well-defined, but also motivating and integral to the results you are trying to achieve?

Here are some strategic guidelines that will help you achieve those end goals that will make your planning effective and results-oriented:

1) Identify the overall objective. What exactly are you trying to achieve? What’s the end goal? Manage your goals like you would your sat nav; that is, set the overall destination first.

2) Carry out a SWOT analysis. Analyse the environment you will be working in, consider the strengths and weaknesses surrounding the project, identify the opportunities and threats and work on the resources that you have available to you.

3) Consider the strategies to achieve the end goals. The strategy should serve to complete the big picture by considering the opportunities that exist within the company. Think of the strategy as being the route that the sat nav comes up with.

4) Implement strategies properly. Evaluate and control people’s performances to achieve the goals. Communicate what needs to be done effectively and efficiently so that everyone is singing from the same song sheet.

5) Evaluate the results you have achieved. Are the results what you expected? What adjustments, if any, should be made for future projects?

Remember that your competitors will be working on new products, technological advancements will make current production processes obsolete, changing consumer trends will reduce demands for certain products and services, while building demand for others. So when you identify these ongoing changes, you will be able to make the necessary plans for changes in all areas of the business.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course
Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

When I visit clients, the conversation often turns to how their staff could do with further development. That’s music to my ears, as that’s the service I offer!

But a fundamental question I ask of them makes them stop and think. I ask, ‘If developing your people’s skills is so important, what processes do you have in place so that they learn every day?’

I often get sheepish looks, and they say they leave it up to departmental managers to ensure their staff are motivated and develop their skills on the job.

Do you see people-development as an important issue in your company? Is the slogan ‘Our people are our greatest asset’ just a comment that someone once came up with and is now long-forgotten?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about raiding your budget and sending everyone on countless training courses. No, that would be a knee-jerk reaction that wouldn’t pay dividends. Because the real way to develop your people over time, and increase their contribution, motivation, passion and loyalty is to have a process for continuous, on-the-job learning and development.

How can you encourage this type of culture? You could think about including the following:

Adopting a mentoring and coaching culture: Day-to-Day interactions, observational feedback, formal and informal discussions, goal-setting, project-planning and hands-on assistance.

Personal Development Plans: Job-sharing, seminar-attendance, mentoring others, web research, visiting the competition, visiting other branches of your own company, customer focus groups, reading work related magazines and books.

Temporary projects: job-swapping, ad-hoc projects, matrix team membership

Extra support: secondment to other branches or departments, community services, night school courses, team-leadership projects, NVQs, college courses, e-learning qualifications.

These are just a few ideas on how you can make developing your people a way of life at work. By having continuous learning as a cultural backdrop to everything you do, you create a feeling of advancement and usefulness throughout your staff.

So, don’t leave all your people development needs to others…take control and drive it yourself. And leave the bits you can’t do yourself up to us!

Thanks again

Nick Hill

Training Director

MTD Management Training Course

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Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

It’s a more commonly-asked question than it might appear. Should I actually promote the person I am considering is right for the advanced role, or should I ensure they have the attributes, skills and knowledge before placing them in the new role?

A good way of identifying if this person is ripe for promotion now, is to ask about the personal attributes and qualities they possess, and would that make for a good employee for the role you are attempting to fill.

They may well be competent in doing the job itself; that is, they fit the ‘can-do’ requirements of the role. The big question is…will they do the job well?

In many roles, these are the will-do factors that can be all-important:

* A good team-player. Will this person work well with others in a team situation? Are they co-operative and helpful? Have they displayed evidence of good teamwork in their current job, and what’s been their reaction when working in teams?

* Track record. No matter how long they have been doing their current job, measure how well they have done it. Promoting someone simply because of the length of time they have been with you won’t bring the results you need at a higher level in the organisation. What did they accomplish in their current role? Look at their track-record and identify what results they have achieved and how they will make an impact at the higher level.

* Interpersonal skills. They might have a high IQ, skill-set, talent and ability, but what about the key aspect of all leadership, that of great interpersonal skills? How do they currently interact with others to get the job done? Can they verbally communicate ideas and concepts constructively and clearly?

* Organisational skills. What’s their attention to detail like and how organised were they in the current job? What changes will they need to display in the new role?

* Flexibility. Can they adapt to change, or are they grasping for the status quo? How happy are they with constantly-changing demands and data that changes every few minutes?

* Willingness to Learn. You need people these days who are open to learning new ideas and concepts, curious to try new things and assess new values. If the person is kind of stuck in their ways, or have been doing things the same way for years, ask yourself how open they would be to developing new skills.

* Initiative. Will they be able to take on the responsibilities that the new job will entail without too much direction? Can they seize the initiative and drive changes through proactively?

* Problem-solving ability. Do they have good analytical abilities and show a solutions-focused mindset? Is it critical to have such qualities in the new role?

* Creativity. Like showing initiative, creativity is a key skill you want the new person to being to the role. Do they need to think of new ideas for the role? How have they shown creative thinking in the past? If they haven’t been very creative before, don’t expect them to start now.

* Reliability. Do they follow-through, have they met all their deadlines, can you count on them to get a good job done? All these are important traits to show how reliable a person is.

* Good motivator. Can they provide the environment for their team members to feel self-motivated? How do other people feel about their motivation traits?

* Effective leadership style. What behaviours and judgments have they shown in the current role to depict how they will behave as a leader in the new role? Are these the traits you desire, or must the person select a new style before they can make an impact in the promoted position?

These are desirable traits in any promotable person, but you need to assess the value of the person in the new role before deciding whether they are ripe for promotion now. It may be better to hold off for a short while and allow the person to improve their skill-sets in these common areas before considering them for promotion. Remember that overlooking someone for promotion now may be very demotivational for them. Setting specific goals for their skill-set before promoting them may result in a strong foundation being laid before building a fragile structure. Think about how you develop them and those desired skills before making the commitment and regretting it later.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

Many companies have cut back on their training budgets in today’s economic climate, as they put their attention on surviving and ensuring every penny is well-invested.

But this doesn’t mean they have to neglect the development and progress of their people. In fact, if you know how people learn, grow, advance and develop, you can identify ways of coaching your teams to make progress a natural part of the working environment.

To do this, you have to be aware of how people learn and grow. If you can understand the fundamentals of how the brain works, you can establish a motivated workforce that enjoys expanding their knowledge and applying it in the real world.

Learning is physical. We have found through brain research that learning new ideas, concepts and skills actually modifies, grows and prunes our neural networks, through experience.

You may have come across the ‘Learning Cycle’ or the 4 stages of learning:

Stage One: We have a concrete experience

Stage Two: We develop reflective observations and connections

Stage Three: We generate abstract hypotheses

Stage Four: We actively test those hypotheses and see if they work. If they do, we learn.

In that last stage, we have another concrete experience and the cycle continues.

So, how it works is 1) we get information (activating the sensory cortex in our brain), 2) we make meaning of that information (in the rear integrative cortex), 3) we create new ideas from these meanings (in the front integrative cortex) and 4) we act on those ideas (using the motor cortex).

This is how we learn: by gathering information, analysing it, creating new ideas from it, and acting on it.

How can you use this knowledge in developing people’s skills? Well, a key condition for learning is self-driven motivation, a kind of ‘ownership’. To feel in control, to feel that we are making progress, it’s necessary for us to feel that the learning cycle is self-perpetuating. That is, if we find learning fun and easy, we want to continue doing it, and we will open ourselves up to new creative thoughts and ideas.

Coaching is the best way we ever found to encourage learning in the workplace. If we consider the four stages of learning again, give people a concrete experience at work (that is, get them to carry out a task). Ask them what they learned from it that could be improved. Discuss what ideas they can formulate to ensure any improvements are made to work in the future. And then assist them in putting those ides into practice.

As we become more informed about the structure of learning, we can apply them more and more in the workplace. Having a small training budget doesn’t mean we have to neglect the development of our team members. We can use these ideas of how people learn and coach them to improve, develop and progress through practice and application.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

(Image by JS Creationzs)

MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

Today’s economy has far-reaching effects on businesses, and we recognise that one of the key areas that are neglected because of cost implications is that of people-development.

Many managers consider the only way they can develop their staff is by sending them on courses, which can prove costly if they are not followed up and not integrated into the current work environment. So how can you ensure that any training your staff carry out is proved valuable by being instilled in every-day work?

On-The-Job Training, or OJT, can be linked to classroom and other types of formal learning. The basics consist of:

• Showing trainees what to do
• Watching them do the job
• Talking through what they did, and how they might do it better
• Repeating these processes until they get it right
• Frequently linking the instructions with written procedures like training manuals

So, is OTJ the right approach? Well, it depends. You can identify the following points that will give you an idea:

• People are going through off-the-job training that might be done better by OTJ
• Informal OTJ activities are already going on that could be made more formal
• There are new initiatives or changes that might be facilitated by OTJ
• There are staff who could make good OTJ trainers

If you decide that OTJ may help your staff develop their skills quicker and give them more confidence, then remember the importance of:

• Getting higher-management support
• Starting on a small scale, building on success and learning from failures
• Getting the basics correct

Then you can determine how to operate and develop an effective OTJ system. Make sure:

• It operates consistently between different areas of the business
• Assessment and verification processes function properly
• The opportunities for expanding OTJ go to all areas of the business
• You see the benefits of combining it with other forms of training

Many of your staff will enjoy the benefits of e-learning and will request opportunities to enhance their learning through OTJ and mentoring. Give them the chance to expand their knowledge through different forms of training and development. That way, you will see improvements in their performance and highlight how everyone can benefit from developing their skills in many areas.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”