New Manager Success Key: Ongoing Training
January 22, 2009 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Business
Recently Dan Bobinski at Management Issues discussed why new managers fail. Quoting Dan:
“People placed in management roles must become translators, delegators, motivators, trainers, mediators, planners, listeners, organizers, problem-solvers, example-setters, cheerleaders, budgeters, ambassadors, regulators, counselors, and more, all while remaining diligent workers.”
Yep, that about sums up my job. Too much for any one person to do effectively every day, so I focus on a few things every day to do, I delegate a few things every day, and I don’t do a few things every day.
His solution is simple: ongoing training.
I’d LOVE to get ongoing training to improve my skills and become a better manager.
Unfortunately, his article left me wanting more, because he never said what managers need ongoing training in.
So I thought I’d fill in a few gaps for me, and ask you to add more of your thoughts.
Ongoing Training for a Manager
- Written Communication Skills
- How to write better email
- How to write a memo
- Verbal Communication Skills
- How to do one-on-ones
- How to give feedback
- How to conduct a meeting
- How to discipline
- Succession planning
- How to promote someone
- Hiring
- Firing
- Finding a mentor
- Managing up
- Delegation
What’s missing?
Please share your suggestions in the comments, and be as detailed as you can be so we all can learn from you.
Keys courtesy of slavin_fpo
How about:
Goal setting
Coaching
Setting and maintaining standards
I’m a fan of continuous improvement.
One of the simplest ways is to leverage the experience of everybody around you and make everyone your mentor.
How about support from your manager as well as others around you. This coupled with a mentor to help along the way and the time to practice the improvements/training instead of leaving you out on the vine to die!
The reason for the last comment was because if one is not allowed to implement what was learned the more likely nothing will be improved or changed. Thus all the “self-improvement” training classes in the world won’t help unless you have the time and resources to impliment what was taught!
Learning skills, team skills (both leading and participating effectively), influence management skills, networking skills, street savvy skills, conflict management and resolution, THINKING SKILLS, systems skills, problem solving skills The list is endless, and job and company conditioned.
Managing down and sideways–always remember: it’s your peers and subordinates that get you promoted, not your boss.
Phil –
You’ve got a good list to start with. Here’s a few adds
-Creating a vision
-Leading change
-Strategic thinking
-Finance and budget 101
-Team leadership and development
-Leading virtual teams
-Process improvement
-Coaching
-Conflict resolution
-Problem solving and decisions making
-Employee development
And most importantly, teach managers how to develop their own skills on an ongoing basis. That is, teach them to fish.
Interesting to watch this list grow – like topsy. This is a typical pattern where we keep just adding stuff. How about we took out anyhting that wasn’t essential – or that would not be taken care of by a ‘higher level’ process. For example I would argue that feedback and coaching would both remove the need for – employee development, conflict resolution, process improvement, leading teams (virtual or real) etc. How about we go for the shortest possible list topics that would still leave a manager highly effective. A kind of Pareto list.
@why new managers fail?
The single biggest reason is that job performance is considered a viable criteria for management. Someone who doe a a job or skill set well does not necessarily have the tools to manage.
The higher a person goes the more skill that person would need in communications.
Interesting comments. I’m going to try to write about many of these here, but I’d also be interested in having any of you awesome commenters share your insights. If you’re interested in doing a guest post, please send me an email anytime (phil.gerbyshak@b5media.com) and I’ll post your thoughts (once a week, on Wednesdays) and a byline that shows you as the expert you know you are.
Thanks!
@Phil – I have one growing concern regarding “Ongoing Training” or training in general. It appears that when there is a slow-down in the economy such as now that one of the first things companies do is cut training.
What happens when the economy perk back up on an up-swing? Is everyone going to jump into training? And if so then what happens to the companies that DIDN’T cut training but rather supported it and continually upgrade their staff’s skills?
I would rather work for such a company that supports training even in down times because they are setting themselves to leap-frog over the competition!
I’d say that recognising diversity in your staff and ensuring that the job function is allocated to those with the skills, knowledge and understanding of what this function is, how it develops the organisaton and those around thes, as well as the ongoing recognition of these is a primary management requirement. Basic? You and I may think so but experience proves that this is not necessarily how many managers are indeed managing today. Sad but true…
The list if getting longer and longer…I would add:
improve your listening skills
public speaking – thats’ real key
time management
how to network
Andrew