Building In-House Leadership and Management Development Programs- Their Creation, Management, and Continuous Improvement

Building In-House Leadership and Management Development Programs- Their Creation, Management, and Continuous Improvement

title:

Building In-house Leadership andManagement Development Programs :Their Creation, Management, andContinuous Improvement

Executives Training of, Supervisors and teaching, Leadership.

Leadership and Management Development Programs

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Leadership and ManagementDevelopment Programs

Their Creation, Management,and Continuous ImprovementWilliam J Rothwell

and H C Kazanas

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rothwell, William J.,1951–

Building in-house leadership and management development

programs :

their creation, management, and continuous improvement / William J Rothwell and H.C Kazanas

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Marcelina Rothwell and Nuria Kazanas

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Management plays the key leadership role in planning and deployingorganizational assets Management decisions dramatically affect the lives

of other people Indeed, management employees make strategic

decisions about layoffs, mergers, acquisitions, expansions, union

negotiations, and bankruptcy filings They also make tactical decisionsabout work group structure and individual pay increases, promotions,demotions, dismissals, and transfers While present trends point towardless arbitrary management decision making in an effort to improve

productivity and product or service quality through increased employeeinvolvement, management continues to play a key leadership role

whether efforts are focused on authoritatively directing the work of others

or participatively guiding it

At the same time, workers at all levels are increasingly being encouraged

—and called upon—to exert leadership Indeed, leadership is not formanagement alone For this reason, then, many forward-thinking

decision makers are sponsoring Leadership and Management

Development (L & MD) programs in their organizations The goal of suchprograms is to encourage, support, and nurture both leadership and

management development

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

Many people we know have been asked to establish, maintain, renew, orevaluate an L & MD program Rarely do they know where to turn for help.They invent their own job descriptions and struggle to satisfy the

(sometimes conflicting) preferences of executives, managers, and

supervisors who see the need for a planned L & MD program but do notknow how to establish and operate one successfully

While many books and articles have been written about L & MD, fewbooks provide practical guidance for those starting up or renewing a

planned L & MD program We wrote this book to serve as a practical,how-to-do-it manual for establishing and administering a planned

Management Development (L & MD) program geared to addressing thetraining, education, and development needs of supervisors, managers,executives, and others who exert leadership in organizational settings Itspurpose is to slake the growing thirst for information about successful L &

MD programs

You may have heard already that many large organizations have enjoyedimmense success with planned L & MD programs Small organizationshave also benefited from them, though their triumphs are usually lesswidely publicized Many of you may have already worked in—or visited—high-performing organizations in which L & MD programs, while not

overtly visible, play important roles in strategic and tactical decisions andactions

Whatever your interests, this book is intended to give you useful,

practical information on how to plan, establish, manage, operate, andevaluate a planned L & MD program in an organizational setting, based

in this book for the first time

2 A literature search We conducted an exhaustive literature search

on L & MD We provide key references throughout the book so youcan delve further into issues of special interest to you

3 Firsthand experience The first author of this book is an

Building In-House Leadership and Management Development Programs

is written primarily for L & MD specialists, human resource development(HRD) specialists, Workplace Learning and Performance (WLP)

practitioners, and human resource managers But the book also containsvaluable information for chief executive officers, chief operating officers,general managers, university faculty members who do consulting on L &

MD, and other people who bear responsibilities for developing

management talent

The book is divided into four major parts Part I consists of one chapter,

which serves as the book’s prologue In it we provide background

information about L & MD More specifically, we define a planned L & MDprogram, distinguish between training, education, and development,explain the purposes of a planned L & MD program, describe the scope

In Chapter 4 we describe how to establish a long-term learning plan to

meet predictable learning needs We call such a plan a curriculum, and

we explain how a comprehensive L & MD curriculum is designed andsummarize different ways by which to design an L & MD curriculum

1 Where should the L & MD function be positioned in the

organization’s reporting structure?

2 What rewards or incentives should be offered to management toencourage members to accept responsibility for developingthemselves and those reporting to them?

3 What kind of leader should direct the planned L & MD program?

4 How should the program leader be recruited, selected, and

oriented?

5 How should internal staff members and external vendors beselected, oriented, and trained?

6 How should planned L & MD activities be scheduled?

Chapter 8 focuses on planning and using informal L & MD methods, such

as on-the-job management training, on-the-job management coaching,management mentoring or sponsorship, management self-development,and management self-study

Chapter 9 focuses on planning and using special L & MD methods

Among them: adventure learning, New Age Training (NAT), and actionlearning

Part IV consists of Chapter 10 only In this chapter we define evaluation

We also describe different types of evaluation, key obstacles to

evaluation, methods to overcome those obstacles, and a step-by-stepapproach for conducting a program evaluation

globalism, downsizing, and team-based management Our aim in thisfinal chapter is not to address these issues exhaustively; rather, we

explain the issues and provide general guidance about reviewing andrevamping L & MD programs in light of the recent, pervasive influence ofthese issues

Finally, a Bibliography closes the book It contains not only the notes fromall chapters but also additional resources that can lead readers on toother current works and research on Leadership and Management

Development

Leadership and Management Development: Background Issues

Part I provides background information about Leadership and

Management Development (L & MD) We introduce Chapter 1 with arealistic case study Planned L & MD programs often originate fromefforts to handle an isolated crisis like the one dramatized in the casestudy In Chapter 1 we also:

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The announcement of Leah’s retirement does not come as a completesurprise to Josephine The bank recently extended a generous earlyretirement offer to long-service employees Josephine has known for sixmonths that Leah would qualify, but Leah did not indicate until recentlythat she would accept the offer Amid painful cost-cutting and downsizingefforts, Josephine’s division has become so shorthanded that she feelslucky to be getting the work out at all In some areas her employees havebeen working 600 hours of overtime annually to hold down staffing needsand employee benefit expenses Leah is not the only supervisor

Josephine will be losing to retirement But Leah’s departure poses thegreatest problem because Josephine has not prepared anyone to

assume Leah’s important, technically oriented, and tough-to-master

position

Josephine can fill the vacancy created by Leah’s retirement in severalways One way is to promote from within, gambling that someone fromLeah’s work unit can master the job in a reasonable time In this processshe knows she can always ask for Leah’s opinion about which

employees have the best potential for success in the job Promotion fromwithin is the bank’s time-honored method of filling supervisory openings

In fact, many employees expect a new supervisor to be promoted fromwithin the work unit Some will be upset if the vacancy

Josephine has other ways to fill the vacancy She can ask other

executives in the bank to nominate employees with management

potential from their departments If chosen, such a candidate would bepromoted or would receive a lateral transfer to Leah’s position But

Josephine knows that moving a worker from another area will touch offmoves all over the bank as a replacement is sought for each vacatedposition, a problem complicated by the early retirement offer Nor will it be

an easy task to convince other managers to give up a trained worker—even for a promotion During downsizing, some managers hoard workers

so they need not justify replacements or take precious time to train

newcomers To make matters worse, the bank has no centralized skill orstaffing inventory and has temporarily suspended job posting for

supervisory positions Josephine’s efforts to recruit a qualified candidateinside the bank will thus be complicated by lack of information It couldprove to be time-consuming and difficult

Josephine is also aware that she could hire a supervisor from outside thebank That option, Josephine worries, is a minefield of potentially

explosive problems because ‘‘outsiders” have established no track recordinside the bank In any case, Josephine would clearly want someone withbanking industry experience, preferably someone who has worked atanother bank in a position similar to Leah’s Although such people exist,they are rare Recruiting one will not be easy Even if a suitable candidatecan be located and hired, he or she will lack job-specific and

organization-specific knowledge about this bank’s unique procedures and

culture A new hire, no matter how experienced, also lacks a social

support network to ease the transition from outside Unexpected turnover

in Leah’s position is an unpleasant prospect for Josephine But the bankdoes not have a good record of retaining those hired from outside to fillsupervisory positions Newcomers too often become turnover statistics

A fourth way to deal with the vacancy, Josephine knows, is to restructurethe division to eliminate the need for Leah’s position If that move results

reluctant to push them any harder for fear that several might quit Thatwould only intensify her staffing problems

A fifth way to deal with the vacancy is to eliminate the need for any

supervisor by making Leah’s unit a self-directed work group If Josephinechose that option, she would redistribute Leah’s work to employees of theunit Josephine would like to experiment with this promising, popular newapproach designed to increase employee involvement But she realizesthat employees must first be trained in how to supervise themselves.Three months is not long enough to

Despite all these possibilities—and Josephine can think of others as well

—she remains unsure of what to do about the pending vacancy in Leah’sposition But she knows she is not alone in facing a problem of this kind.The early retirement offer affects too many other people and positions.Perhaps it is time, Josephine reasons, to suggest that the bank introduce

a planned Leadership and Management Development (L & MD) program.While starting up such a program now will not help solve the immediateproblem created by Leah’s early retirement, it may help avoid similarstaffing dilemmas in the future Moreover, Josephine was not all thathappy about the “sink or swim” approach she experienced when sheentered management She feels that there must be better ways to train,educate, and develop people She resolves to find out

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?

In the case above, Josephine is looking for someone to exert leadership

as well as someone to fill a management vacancy Many definitions ofleadership have been offered over the years Among other definitions,

These definitions share a common thread: leadership is not linked to

position but is linked to the ability to influence others.

WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?

Management is associated with position Individuals who are said to be

of others In most organizations, management consists of supervisors(who oversee the work of hourly or wage-payroll workers), managers(who oversee the work of supervisors), and executives (who oversee thework of managers)

A point worthy of emphasis is that management is thus a function ofposition or placement within the organization’s chain of command orreporting relation-

ahead of time Management Development, in an often-cited but

controversial definition, is “an attempt to improve managerial

effectiveness through a planned and deliberate learning process.”4 (Thisdefinition is controversial because management employees may be

employers to employees, that is related to their present jobs.”5

Management training narrows or closes the gap between what individualsalready know or do and what they must know or do to perform

technical, responsibilities Leadership

department, work group, or team

By on-the-job or off-the-job, we mean that management employees can

be developed in more than one setting Off-the-job L & MD experiencesusually afford opportunities to interact with others, while on-the-job L &

MD furnishes opportunities to learn while doing

By influence other people in positive ways, we mean that a planned L &

MD program can effect change with individuals by giving them increasedskills to sway the opinions of others without necessarily requiring

authority Leaders can be made and are not just born But not all peoplehave the innate talents needed for leadership They must be shown whatskills are needed to influence others and how to apply them

By conducted to meet individual, group, or organizational learning needs,

we mean that a planned L & MD program can serve many purposes Itbenefits:

Demographic Information about Respondents to Rothwell’s 1998 Survey onLeadership and Management Development: Industries

Type of Industry

Government 7.5%

Manufacturing 18.9%

Another Industry 15.1%

organizations; and, Exhibit 1-3 lists the chief reasons why an organizationsponsors a planned L & MD program An explanation of each reason isdescribed in the following paragraphs

Reason 1: Contributing to Implementing Strategic Plans

Our survey respondents indicated that one of the two most importantreasons to sponsor a planned L & MD program is to “contribute to

implementing the organization’s strategic plan.” Strategic planning is themeans by which organizations prepare for competing in the present andfuture Central to strategic success is aligning the right leaders with theright skills in the right places at the right times to achieve desired

competitive results.9 It is this need to match the right leader to the righttask that makes a planned L & MD program partic-