Smart Management Development
By 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.
