1. Training is an investment in results. You might invest in operational management training for one or more of your managers if:
- The manager is very busy, but does a lot of ‘doing/operating’ and very little managing.
- The manager has little interest in, or knowledge of issues such as costs, cash-flow, risk, or bottom line results.
- Work in the manager’s department or team is not clearly defined. Sometimes responsibilities overlap, or sometimes it seems as if no one takes final responsibility for certain tasks or outcomes.
- Senior management knows what results they want from this manager’s team or department, but the results are sometimes not forthcoming.
- Other teams or departments are mistrustful when they share projects or tasks with this team. They find ways to check up on work involving their customers or projects. HR avoids assigning talented hires to this team.
- There is a lack of energy or initiative in this team or department. The team does not seem proactive, and few innovative thoughts or process improvements come out of this department.
- There are general signs of managerial problems: a strong grapevine, on-going conflict, gossip and rumors, nostalgia for previous management, snoopervising, ‘seagull management’ or simply a stagnant, 20th century approach to new challenges, complexity or change.
2. Choose the right training. Leadership and management training is not ‘one-size-fits-all’. In general, separate a) new or emerging managers b) operational managers c) senior strategic leaders. Some industries give career supervisors their own training, but they are usually fine in operational management programs.
See: CPS’s Operational Management Workshop at the Centre Club
3. Discuss your specific needs with your training vendor. It only takes a quick phone call or email to be sure that your people are on the right program. Customized training is best if you have five or more people who would benefit. A local specialist will be able to offer several short sessions, at affordable rates, without taking your people away from their work for too long.
4. Tampa Bay and adjacent counties have excellent programs of state funding for customized training. Good training vendors offer needs analysis and customized training, within the budgets allowed. Some, like CPS, will also handle most of the red tape around the funding for you. Remember: funding comes out of your business taxes. It is your money anyway.
5. Training is a partnership. Good external partners prefer to work seamlessly with internal partners, to ensure long-term results.
6. Pre-work and post-work (consolidation) is an important part of reinforcing a strong message. Training often uses the marketing ‘rule of seven’ so a message needs to be repeated up to seven times before it changes behavior. Your training partner will explain how this is done. Pre- and post-work is often more effective if they comes through internal training/HR, provided by the external trainer. Provide your external partner with as much internal information as possible, for example participant competencies, as these help in ensuring that training delivers on the objectives.
All leaders and managers benefit from regular training experiences. They all need time away from work to review their objectives, strategies and techniques, to think about their people and processes and to gain (or regain) perspective and insight. Most managers think that they don’t need training and most say that they ‘don’t have time for training’. Every manager who has attended a good workshop discovers that s/he did need it, and ‘couldn’t afford to miss it’ from a time (or any other) point of view.
