Develop Your Managers
/in General, Assessments, Whitepaper /by Sue DevendorfDevelop Your Managers
Many executives are recognizing the valuable role leaders / managers play at all levels of the organization. Learn how to develop your managers to make sure they are performing at a high level.
Smart Management Development
/in Assessments /by Sue DevendorfBy Phil Devendorf
It’s no secret that the higher the quality of your management / leadership team, the more productive and profitable your business will be. Strong leaders and managers create higher staff productivity, reduced turnover, and increased profitability. Smart management development means your management / leadership team will develop skills targeted to the individual.
Management skills are learned and need to be developed. Manager development has been a one size fits all approach, but we now know that this doesn’t really work. Seminars, books and training programs treat all managers as if their needs are the same. In reality, managers are individuals with different strengths and needs. In addition, management jobs vary, requiring different skills and priorities.
The smarter approach:
New managers need training on all aspects of management. Experienced managers, however, need more of a tune up. It’s a more effective use of their time to focus on developing management skills where they are needed or that have a high priority in their job. The 360 feedback process gives us the tools to do just that!
The 360 approach is a form of popular (and often needed) continuous improvement processes:
If you are not familiar with 360 feedback, we gather anonymous feedback on management competencies from the target manager (referred to as Self), boss, peers, direct reports, and other groups in order to provide a measurement of strengths and areas for improvement. That feedback is given to the self and, usually, the boss, for analysis and understanding. The self and boss then create a targeted development plan to guide the self toward improvement of his/her management skills.
The 360 feedback tool provides survey questions to measure appropriate competencies and provides a report that evaluates the data gathered and helps you prioritize development. It is important that direct reports, peers and other respondents are comfortable that their feedback is anonymous. If feedback is not perceived as confidential, your results won’t be accurate.
Once you complete the 360 and review the report, you are in a position to create a personalized management development plan. The plan should focus on areas that need improvement and areas identified as high priorities for the job.
The development plan should include action items to drive improvement. Some action items may be as simple as identifying specific things you should do more often, do less often, or begin.to do. Other action items might include training, mentoring, and coaching. The important thing is that you create a plan and hold parties accountable to implement the plan.
Solution
Talassure360 is a modern 360 tool that offers some key advantages over other 360 tools:
- Researched and tested
- Safeguards confidential feedback
- Management skills prioritized by boss and self
- Easy to understand reports
- Steps manager through development planning
- Web based, mobile friendly
- Easy to administer
- Cost effective
For more information contact phild@pdservices.com, or call us at 740-397-4928, or visit our website https://www.pdservices.com/360feedback/ for a sample report and brochures.
Identify and Develop Management and Leadership Skills
/in Assessments /by Sue DevendorfWhy Are Management and Leadership Skills So Important?
Studies published by Robert Half International show two important facts:
- Executives view employee retention as their number one concern.
- The #1 reason for losing top performing employees is unhappiness with management.
In these competitive times, we cannot afford to lose top performing employees. With tight budgets and skills shortages, we must focus on cost effective means to avoid this type of turnover and leverage productivity. There are three areas that may offer a big return for a small investment:
- Targeted, personalized management development
- Improved performance management processes
- Objective information for selecting, training and coaching employees
This white paper suggests and approach to Step 1 above.
Management Development
My daughter recently graduated from college and took a job with an insurance company. The company invested 3 months to teach her the insurance business in general and another three months of training and apprenticeship in her claims position. My bet is that when she is first promoted to a supervisory/management position, regardless of the company, she will need far less training for that role.
Often, a new manager is simply given a pat on the back and an encouraging word rather than training for his/her new responsibilities. Doesn’t the level of responsibility of a supervisor/manager exceed that of this entry level position?
What Can You Do to Identify Management and Leadership Skills?
A good “Management 101” program is best for new managers, but many of us have an existing staff of poorly trained and, to some degree, ineffective supervisors and managers. In most cases the managers have varied strengths and weaknesses. We don’t want to waste time and money providing development for specific managers in competencies they have already mastered. Instead, we need to identify areas of weakness and maximize the return on training by focusing on these areas that can offer the highest return.
The most effective approach to developing management skills in your existing management team is to first identify their individual strengths and weaknesses. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you know, or that their managers know what these are. The people who know best are their direct reports and their peers (in that order). The best way I have found to identify management strengths and weaknesses is through implementing a good 360 Degree Feedback survey.
A good 360 Degree Feedback survey should measure competencies that are appropriate and important to performing effectively as a manager in your organization. It should include feedback from the self (targeted manager), his/her boss, and anonymous feedback from direct reports and peers. The results should be presented in a fashion that facilitates identification of the manager’s strengths and weaknesses and is oriented to development versus evaluation. Depending on the number of managers you have, online administration and management tools may be important in order to contain the time and effort spent to implement the surveys.
Once you have the 360 degree feedback results, each manager should meet with HR and/or their manager to agree on a development plan. This plan should consider the relative weaknesses identified in the 360 and the importance of those competencies in effectively performing their job responsibilities. A plan that focuses on developing 1 to 3 competencies over a 12 month period has proven to be the most reasonable.
Create a Development Plan
Selecting development activities now becomes the challenge. You will want to consider options that specifically address the competencies identified as focus areas for the specific manager. You may have internal or external training that will fit the bill. Recommended development activities and guidance to “coaches” are included with our tool. Other alternatives may include self paced reading or mentoring with someone strong in that specific competency.
The key to success in the development phase is follow through and accountability. Follow through from the standpoint that managers with identified training needs (weaknesses) are encouraged to take action to improve. Accountability generally stems from executive management and buy in to the program, giving priority and emphasis to follow through.
PDServices offers a 360 degree feedback system. This tool provides an effective, personalized development program for individual managers. Contact PDServices at 740-397-4928 or visit our website at https://www.pdservices.com/360Feedback/.
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