Management consultant John Pope considers how you can really encourage managers to develop their people, and offers a few practical ideas.

It worked in the past

Many years ago, when international air travel was not as cheap as it is now, the Bank of London and South America, a subsidiary of Lloyds, used to recruit bankers in Britain and ship them out to run their branches in South America. Some of those branches were miles from anywhere. They went out – a three week voyage – on a single ticket and were told they would get the return ticket at the end of their three-year contract, but only if they had trained up one of the local staff to run their branch well during their three-months home leave.

What an incentive to do what all managers should do – develop their staff themselves without all the clunky, cumbersome system of performance review, competency assessment, training needs analysis, training plans, validation. Primitive approach, but it worked.

It could work again

I suppose we can’t do that now; but if we made it clear to managers that developing their staff was their own responsibility; that failure to do so meant stagnating in the commercial jungle and never being promoted; that only those who really looked after their staff would make progress, then the lot of the HR manager and training manager would be much easier. There would be less waste on unsuitable training; the staff would be better too, more competent, and probably more ‘engaged’, since they would be looking towards their future.

Managers could do more, HR and training could do less

Many managers could do more for the development of their people, but some would need help and guidance from HR and training professionals. They could use a few practical ideas. Here are some ideas which have worked in organisations that I know.

There is usually a post-mortem when something goes badly wrong. It is seldom productive and can be de-motivating since there is a natural tendency for those involved to disassociate themselves from the incident – “I wasn’t at the meeting where…”.

Hold post-mortems on successes. Teach the managers how to help those principally involved in that success to present what they did, how well it went and how it could have been even better. Teach the manager how to identify where else these lessons could be applied and how to get all their team to contribute to the learning. People learn well when they are active with their colleagues in groups.

Most managers have some special strength – you don’t employ ‘good-for-nothings’ as managers do you? Get a manager to run a clinic to teach others how he or she uses a particular approach to get special results. Set up a programme of different aspects of work or management which you know to be of sufficiently wide application and are attractive to people who think they need that skill or knowledge. They can be short sessions – an hour or so. You may have to teach that manager how to run a clinic. it can also be motivational for a manager – once he overcomes initial reluctance.

Run a series of topics – at lunchtime – on different aspects of the business with which more people should be familiar, open to all. A pharmaceutical company pioneered this about 15 years ago to make sure more people in the business knew enough about the business and its development. Forty minutes, with a brown bag lunch to encourage attendance. It improved knowledge, engagement, the skills of the speakers, and helped people see where they could contribute more strongly.

Why send people away on a two-day programme called ‘Finance for non-financial managers’ when the finance director or one of his staff could do it instead, and at the same time handle all those questions which the staff, even senior ones, felt shy to ask for fear of displaying their ignorance. It helps those attend, but it also helps those who have to give the presentation. We know that it’s only when you can explain a subject well that you really understand it.

I worked with a chief executive whom I have known for a long time. At the end of his first exec meeting in his new job, and just as everyone was shuffling papers and trying to leave he said: “Before you go, just tell me in no more that one minute each, what we have learned from these discussions, and what we will do differently.” They did, and he gave them more than one minute that first time. But he carried on with that approach and in a surprisingly short time his approach had trickled down several layers of management. You want a learning organisation? That’s a pretty good step towards getting it.

Produce a short guide for managers on how to develop their staff, but include practical guidance that fits the way the business works, and that they can use.

Not everybody is good at everything, but many people have outstanding strengths. In informal organisations there is often someone – perhaps more mature, usually un-ambitious – who helps people solve some management and relationship problems. Can you identify them? Could they help? Could you formalise this without making it too formal?

Show you are serious about managers’ responsibilities

Make ‘developing your staff’ one of the goals you include in the annual performance review. The question “what have you done to develop each member of your team, and with what effect?” is pretty powerful – especially if followed up by more detailed discussion of each member of the team. You can also follow up what happened to each member of staff’s training plan – and find out how useful these formal training programmes really are.

Culture makes the difference

Many approaches to learning are mechanistic; the competence framework, the assessment, the TNA, the menu of courses. Is there something about that learning approach which deters managers and staff from developing an enthusiasm for learning? I think so. People are more likely to learn when they are keen and want to learn. They learn when they are competing with others for recognition and praise, when they see that they can apply their new skills and that they contribute to the organisation progress and results. They learn when they realise that new abilities help them to progress.

Once the CEO and senior managers show that they contribute personally to the development of their people, others will follow.

Use it or lose it

It’s all very well for your staff to gain knowledge and develop new abilities. That new knowledge and ability becomes useless unless it is applied. Make sure that development leads somewhere.

Where does staff development stand?

Effective development of people has enormous beneficial effects on an organisation and eases many problems such as high staff turnover, poor human relations, and lack of engagement. Approaches on the lines I have mentioned can develop managers and staff at all levels. Why not try some new ideas?

John Pope has been a management consultant for 40 years and seen management fashions come and go. He has worked to improve the development and performance of managers and management teams at all levels for most of his career and has a reputation for original thinking on management issues. He can be contacted at r.j.pope@btinternet.com