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Management Development

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What is Management Development

According to Management Development Institute of India- “Management Development is the development of management done over and above its science and theory, of its practice and application in organizations, corporations and institutions, alike in relation to the organization and manager, so as to re-equip both to fulfill their purposes more effectively and in harmony with each other and both with the environment in which they function and have their being and hope to thrive upon and grow. Management development is a systematic process through which managers develop their abilities to manage. Through this process, managers get to learn more and increase their knowledge as well as they get to improve their skills which benefit them as well as their organization. The role played by the organization in management development is the establishment of programs and opportunities which will help in development of their existing potential managers. Management development embraces the entire process by which managers learn, progress and improve their competence to perform managerial tasks.

Henry Fayol, the staunch supporter of management education, developed the idea of management training and started the first school of management in Paris. Management is recognised as a social science today, and it has its organized body of knowledge, principles and techniques.

Effective executive development programs benefit all - the employees, managers, and the organization. Managers can benefit from Executive executive development programs by being better able to communicate with their staff. Employees also may benefit from a development program by acquiring a deep appreciation for their own skills and career possi­bilities and resuming a greater responsibility for managing their own careers. The organization may gain from a career development system by increased employee loyalty, improved communication throughout the organisation, lower turnover rates, and strengthened human re­source systems.



Content of Management Development Activities[1]

There are three areas in which we can have management development training: 1. Knowledge,
2. Skills and
3. Attitudes, to become competent managers.


Content of Management Development Activities


Lower level managers need considerable technical skills, whereas higher level executives need considerable administrative skills.
There are three skills:

  • Technical skills
  • Human relations skills and
  • Conceptual skill, i.e., a combination of vision, imagination and intelligence. These skills can be learned

Attitudes are:

  • Thinking like an executive,
  • Empathy, i.e., ability to put ourselves in the position of others and understand their minds,
  • Team concept, and
  • Recognition of human values.


Objectives of Management Development[2]

The objective of management development is. in general, to improve the quality of managers/executives performance now and in future. Some main objectives of the management development ore as under:

  • To develop managers/executives for better performance on their present job or assignment
  • To provide a steady source of competent persons at different levels so as to meet the future requirements of the organisation.
  • To enable the managers to understand the problems of the business organisation in so far as they arise out of its policies and system of control.
  • To create conditions and a climate which contribute to the growth process.
  • To replace elderly executives, who have risen from low ranks, by highly competent and academically qualified professionals.
  • To increase morale of the managers.
  • To acquire knowledge about the problems of human relations.
  • To create the second line of defence in the organization so as to meet the emergencies.
  • To broaden the outlook of the various levels of management especially top management regarding their role, position and responsibilities.
  • To help the top management to understand the economic, technical and institutional forces in order to solve business problems.
  • To increase the versatility of the managers
  • To stimulate creativity in the thoughts of the managers.
  • To create a sense of inter-departmental coordination among managers.
  • To indicate how to apply to practical problems the knowledge of the physical and social aspects of business problems and management.

Management development is an educational process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure by which management personnel learn conceptual and theoretical knowledge for general purpose. These purposes are:
(i) Productivity
(ii) Quality
(iii) Human Resource Planning
(iv) Morale
(v) Obsolescence prevention, and
(vi) Personnel growth.


Effective Management Development[3]

While great leaders/managers are a major factor in employee engagement, according to the Gallup Poll, Managers account for 70% of the reasons why employees are disengaged. This shows that it is worth the investment to develop the leadership and management capabilities of your managers and supervisors. Developing managers and building their capacity takes more than teaching them the fundamentals of leadership and management. There are several competencies that a leader needs to develop in order to become effective in their work. These may be categorized in three most basic group of competencies; Leading Self, Leading others, and Managing the Business.


Management Development Framework


  • Leading Self: Leading the self means recognizing all your personal devices, your strengths and opportunities for improvement and being able to manage all these to work with oneself and others in pursuing a goal. Follower-ship is a response to one’s ability to get people’s buy-in. Getting that buy-in takes a lot. It’s more than just presenting a logical plan. It takes buying-in on the whole person.
    • Personal Mastery – Leaders who demonstrate personal mastery have special sense of purpose. They can accurately assess current situations, recognize how their own mental model affect their understanding and attitude towards these situations. They can muster the will to direct their action towards the achievement of their goals and respond productively to people and other variables in front of them. They are curious and humble enough to inquire and confident enough to advocate ideas and actions. At the core of personal mastery is what is called emotional intelligence or EQ. It starts with self-awareness that grows into self-regulation, being socially aware that leads to better relationship management.
    • Assertive Communication – Leaders are able to assert themselves. Not only that, they promote assertiveness in their team by demonstrating they listen well and can strike an engaging conversation not just a cascading of instruction. Very few Filipino managers are capable of this. Many fail to engage their people because they keep the communication mono-directional, and it’s often downward. Developing one’s assertiveness opens up opportunities for collaboration and harnessing the collective power of teamwork
    • Projecting a Professional Image – Leadership reputation is a compendium of things we say, how we present ourselves, and how we respond to different social situations. Leaders’ behaviors are magnified. It helps to have leaders who carry themselves well when conducting business.
    • Strategic Thinking – “The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.” – Bill O’Brien. Successful leaders and managers think strategically and have a method for doing so. They also have this big sense of ownership that leads them to continually search for better ways of doing things that lead to achievement of goals.
  • Leading Others: “You don’t manage people; you manage things. You lead people” – Admiral Grace Murray Hopper. Leaders need to recognize the difference between leading and managing. The distinction should be made clear and managers should know when it is best to lead and when to manage. Leadership and Management Development Program must ensure that they are properly equipped for both.
    • Fundamentals of Leadership and Management – This an important starting point one’s journey of leading others. It helps to know the fundamentals and learn how to use them effectively at work. This program covers the needed transition, leading teams, and applying the Planning, Organizing, Directing and Controlling in managing work.
    • High Performance Leadership – This program focuses on the practices of exemplary leaders. We used Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Challenge 5 Practices as a high-level framework and take it a bit further, I believe by really digging into what needs to be done build alignment, share vision, lead change, empower others and engage people.
    • Coaching and Mentoring – Carrying out the processes of coaching and mentoring provides an excellent opportunity for managers and employees to identify developmental needs. While planning and monitoring work, deficiencies in performance become evident and coach and team member can address them. Areas for further enhancing already good performance also stand out, and action can be taken to help successful employees improve even further, even get them ready for bigger responsibility. This is an important skill for leaders to have especially now that leaders are expected to be more involved in their people’s development.
  • Managing the Business: This part of leadership and management development provides for the necessary skills to, well, manage the business. This is not exhaustive. We believe that the differences in business and the complexity of the managerial work will require more competencies, but we believe the ones in our list are the most basic.
    • Leading and Managing Change – When effecting changes in the organization, managers are dealing with people with mindsets and comfort zones that were built overtime. People tend to resist change because they do not want to step out of these comfort zones–they like to stay in an environment they are comfortable with. There are a number of things that need to be taken in to mind to help people accept and overcome the pain of change. This course aims to equip change managers with the knowledge skills and right mindset in managing change. They will also learn to identify the need for change and strategize their way to successful change implementation.
    • Project Management – This course provides a coverage of the essentials of Project Management and facilitate an understanding of the concepts and principles throughout the project life-cycle. More than just understanding the concepts, an experienced Project Management Professional (PMP®) will help the participants relate them to real world situations.
    • Problem Solving and Decision Making – Most managers and supervisors solve workplace problems using quick fix, short-term solutions based on limited experience and data. The results are problems that recur and often get worse, demoralizing the whole organization. Organization leaders of today need a good balance of creative and critical thinking to produce workable, effective and innovative solutions.
    • Managing Meeting – One of the biggest complaints about most organizations is meetings… they waste too much of our precious time. This is bad news for organizations. Meetings are important because that is where an organization’s culture and climate perpetuates itself. Problem is that many managers wing their meetings. They are ill-prepared and don’t facilitate well. There is obviously a need for them to equip themselves better for this important job.

Leadership and Management Development is crucial to organizational goals. Addressing it solves a lot of the poor management decisions that typical pervades in organizations. If your company does not have a strategy have and wish to have one, talk to us.


The Need and Importance of Management Development[4]

The need and importance for management development in today’s organisations arises because of the following factors:

  • There is a rapid pace of technological development. Many automatic machines and equipments have been introduced. The managers must have working knowledge of the uses of the new technology.
  • Change in the socio-cultural environment is taking at a fast speed. The managers must have up-to-date knowledge of these changes to understand the behaviour of people in a proper perspective.
  • There is tough competition in the market and the consumers have become conscious of their rights. It is no longer easy to misguide the consumers. To understand the needs of the consumers properly, executive development can be of great help.
  • Recognition of social responsibility of business managers has increased the need of executive development.
  • Today’s workforce is educated and socially aware. They ask for their participation in management, better pay and better working conditions. In order to satisfy them and to motivate them to contribute to the achievement of organisational objectives, development of executives is necessary.
  • Frequent labour-management conflicts need trained managers to maintain industrial peace in the enterprise.
  • Management development can be used to impart knowledge to the managerial personnel in the latest management concepts, principles, techniques and practices.


Management Development Techniques[5]

Management development techniques can be categorized in two ways
1. Traditional passive techniques which include techniques like lectures, case study method, conferences
2. Experiential techniques which include role playing method, sensitive training and management games. Some of the common techniques used in various organizations for management development include the following:-

  • On-Job methods where the development of the skills takes place on the job. Various techniques included in this method are
    • Coaching- The trainee is placed under a senior manager who helps in correcting errors and working in an efficient manner. The senior manager helps the trainee to acquire knowledge about the job and helps in improving skills and techniques required. The managers act like coaches or guides who observe, analyse and improve the performance of their trainees.
    • Job-rotation- It is the transfer of one employee from one job or plan to another for some learning purposes. Before promotion as managers, the trainees are rotated in the organization in various jobs in a department or unit. It helps them in acquiring a broader outlook and diversification of the skills which is very important at higher levels of organization. The most important advantage is that it permits a good understanding of the various activities in an organization. It helps people to be prepared for to accept greater responsibilities. Even their abilities are also known so their best utilization can be made out of them.
    • Understudy- An understudy is the person who is given all the responsibilities of his senior so that he can be trained for the future. This method allows ensuring that a completely trained person is available to replace a manager in his absence under any circumstances, be it illness or retirement or transfer. An understudy is selected by the head or superior of the concerned department. The understudy knows the problems and the complexity associated with them and tries solving them out. Leadership skills can also be developed in him by giving him the supervision tasks as well. The biggest advantage of this technique is that it is a practical method and keeps the learner’s interest and motivation level high. This method helps the senior to be relieved of some of the tasks which he has to perform and also the trainee derives benefits as well as he derives continuous guidance and knowledge from the superior manager.
  • Off job development- The various techniques in this method include
    • Case study method- in this method an actual business situation taken from actual experiences of an organization is described comprehensively to the trainees. The trainees are then required to discuss upon the case, analyse significant facts and find out the best solutions for the case. This method improves the decision making skills of the trainees and improves the analytical skills as well. This method is a strong approach towards learning.
    • Incident method- This is a method similar to the case study method. It involves the practical incidents on the basis of experiences of the organization. Every trainee in a group is given role from the incident and asked for suggestions to solve the problem in the given incident. The main objective of this method is the development of intellectual skills and practical judgment of the trainee.
    • Role playing method-the trainees are given more practical situations and are asked to perform their roles. This method makes it visible that good human skills are also required.
    • Conferences- it is the most common method for management development. In this method meeting of many people is conducted to discuss the issues like latest management issues, modern technologies and all participants even exchange notes and come to interact with each other. The success of a conference depends on how freely participants present their views in front of everyone
    • Sensitive training- it is a method of giving an individual maximum opportunities to expose themselves and receive feedback. It also includes experimenting with new behavioural and developmental awareness. The primary aim of this training method is to reduce interpersonal friction by establishing better relationship with others. This method basically focuses more on human skills rather than conceptual or technical skills.


See Also

14 Principles Of Management
Management Accounting
Management Buy-Out
Management Consulting
Management
Management Metaphors
Management Model
Management Style
Management Succession Planning
Management by Exception (MBE)
Management by Objectives (MBO)
Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) IT Strategic Planning
e-Business Strategic Planning
Governance of Information Technology (ICT)
Governance
What is Enterprise Architecture Planning
Information Technology Sourcing (IT Sourcing)
IT Strategic Plan (Information Technology Strategic Plan)
Strategy
Information Technology Operations (IT Operations)
Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Leadership
Leadership Development
Leadership Development Framework


References

  1. Content of Management Development Activities Business Management Ideas
  2. Objectives of Management Development WhatisHumanResource.com
  3. What is in your Leadership and Management Development Program? ExeQServe
  4. Why is Management Development Important for an Organization? Economics Discussion
  5. What are the Different Techniques Used for Management Development? Nusrat Khan, Sandhya Tayal and Fehmina Khalique