When it comes to management training – and, in particular the ROI of management training – I fear we have been getting the balance all wrong.
Typically, we have a history of directing mass, generic interventions (seminars, training events, etc.) towards junior- to mid-level managers…
… While holding back personalized, intensive interventions (executive coaching, etc.) to senior leaders and executives.
This has been the status quo in every company and region in which I’ve worked, and at every client organization with whom I now consult
[And, while there may be exceptions, they are outliers]
Two factors are at play here – status and cost. Management training is predicated on a single simple question:
Who is important enough to have earned big ticket service?
And there is a more subtle undercurrent – HR and L&D departments are tasked with delivering management training:
- On a budget…
- To the most people possible…
- With the primary purpose of risk avoidance
As a result, big bucks get spent on developing senior folk who, it seems, aren’t getting helped by HR and L&D.
Executives who have a limited shelf-life simply because of relative career-stage – and also because of executive turnover rates
[bear in mind, I’m not focusing on “crash-and-burn” remediation coaching here]
Simply put, we’re training/developing after-the-fact.
[and, sure, I get that we could argue that the development trickles down – but, in your experience, does it? Does it really?]
Oh, and before I get to what I think is a healthier approach, let me just say that there is a MASSIVE incentive for coaches to maintain the status quo. The industry is predicated on earning BIG BUCKS from serving senior leaders
[and supplanting HR as the provider, though that’s a different story altogether]
so I wouldn’t hold my breath for a groundswell of change from that direction.
So, it’s simple: we just get every manager a coach?
Maybe, but I don’t think so – because now we’re playing at the other end of the ROI curve.
You see, not everyone who is given supervisory/managerial responsibility, a) wants it, and b) has the potential to do it well
[fun factoid, most managers become managers by accident of individual performance and corporate career ladders]
In fact, there are studies upon studies that the majority of people fail in their first managerial position within 18 months
[which is also the case for business start-ups, interestingly – who would have thought it, not everyone is cut-out for what they think they want/need to do!]
Given this, we would be foolish to invest in high-intensity solutions for all new managers.
But the clue is in the data I just mentioned: after 2 years in a first supervisory/managerial role, we have winnowed out the chaff
[now, when was the last time you read that phrase in a business article? :)]
and have an experienced, capable pool.
Said differently, we have a cadre of managers with much greater potential to be successful leaders.
And there’s a compounding factor that comes into play here. Somewhere around the 3 year mark, any decent new manager will begin to have skip-level reports – i.e. they will become a manager-of-managers.
And that, right there, is the most powerful opportunity space.
Because leadership is about motivating and achieving through others, and the mark of successful executives long-term is their ability to lead at organizational distance.
Transitioning from being a leader of task to a leader of people is not easy. It takes battle-scars and reflection, action and learning. It is intense and individual; it happens differently for each leader.
Said differently, It is precisely the point where a personal coach will have the greatest impact.
And it is precisely the learning intervention that is LEAST well-served by generic group training.
“Anyone who tells you differently is selling something”
The Dread Pirate Roberts
So, where better to spend our development $$$ than at this critical inflection point – when the journey to C-Suite is beginning, rather than playing catch-up when the executive has long-since arrived?