For all you Management Gurus

I've been put in charge of creating a management training program to train the people among the staff believed to become tomorrow's management "stars" in our organization. Some of these guys don't have any business/management degrees.

Not sure where to begin, but I have been provided NO "petty cash" to create this program, if you catch my drift.

So, my question is to all the DBAs, CMAs, CMs and PMPs on this forum: Any pointers??

 

What type of business are you in? Are you training people who have yet to take their first first-line supervisor jobs or are you training a bevy of VPs who are looking at siezing power as CEO when the current guy has the decency to die or retire? By the way, I suppose I should have asked: May MBAs reply?

 

Excellent question, and yes, MBAs are very welcome!!

I am not training VPs but rather newbies junior guys... My CEO's vision is not to hire any more MBAs but rather train people who we evaluate over a certain period of time to be, as they say, management material.

my set of organizations are very very cautious about spending so I have to pull something out of my, if you pardon the expression, something usually substituted for the word hat.

My target audience come from two distinct organizations...

- One is in software development (not IT stuff but rather embedded systems - I'm talking hardcore computer firmware and Digital Signal Processing/Processor focus) and is basically a projectized organization but I want it to move towards a balanced matrix type.

- The other is an event management organization that organizes trade shows.

For the start at least, my main focus will be towards the former since I am working as the project manager there. The latter company is our sister organization but the business model and target market is totally different and more importantly I am not directly involved in daily operations.

 

my two cents...

Since we're talking about junior level folks here, my take on this would be to start out not with management training per se right off the bat, but rather a good beginning would be more along the lines of general people skills -- team building, communication styles & techniques, personal development, etc. as well as some low-level managerial things (e.g., SWOT analysis building). In other words, first raise the awareness among your target audience about their personal skills, drives, motivation, achievement capability, etc -- at the same time, as you move along in this, you can easily add another meta-level to your training debriefings . . . in other words, show how what they're doing so far leads into higher level management training. I hope that makes sense!

A great free resource on the web for such lower-level training, complete with many exercises and activities you can use, is http://www.businessballs.com.

Training is probably my favorite part of my job, and I'm very much an advocate of experiential training methods. If you're not familiar with this, I'd recommend checking out this website, which will give you a quick and dirty run-down: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/experience.htm.

I hope this is useful!

Cheers,
Adrienne

 

Two cents are worth a million

Adrienne, this is sound advice! Thanks for the links! I especially found the Training Needs Analysis matrix to be very applicable as a starting point.

 

I would start with some books such as Primal Leadership which details Emotional Intelligence and Gung Ho! and Fish! which details employee motivation.

 

Email me and I will send you a small paper my two man group wrote for an MBA class I took that covered this subject.

William
[email protected]

 

Re: Two cents are worth a million

You are more than welcome! I love the BusinessBalls site . . . excellent ice breakers and activities, and you gotta love free . . . my training budget isn't exactly gargantuan, either!

Good luck with this, and I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers,
Adrienne

P.S. Feel free to PM anytime on this subject!

 

I know how to get "petty cash". Here's a link to California's Employment Training Panel (ETP) page:
http://www.etp.cahwnet.gov/m_process.cfm
I'm not sure how many states have something like this, but it's worth looking into if you don't live in California. Businesses pay into the Employment Training Fund and submit an application to the ETP for training money. You can get a million plus dollars depending on how much your company paid in and how many employees you currently have. The ETP monitors the whole process and you can hire an outside company to manage your training project. I used to be a project administrator for a training company that did this. My company did everything. We submitted applications, planned training, met with ETP monitors, provided trainers and submitted requests for reimbursement. You can also do the entire training project yourself. Word to the wise-review what this process entails and decide honestly if you can do it alone. I've seen failures because companies didn't plan well or enforce their training plan and wouldn't pay for extra help to do so. (If you don't succeed, you don't get reimbursed by the Employee Training Fund.) I've also seen companies greatly improve their employees' skills in a matter of months and be completely reimbursed. If living in California, contact the ETP before hiring a training company and find out what companies successfully completed their training projects and find out what training company they used if any. I even participated in one training project offered at my local Small Business Development Center. It was for small businesses and I learned so much from the classes and the other class participants who shared their experiences. Good luck.