Getting started Topic 3 defining management training needs

Abstract

This article is one of the series aimed at people who are responsible for training, but are not career training specialists and it concentrates on management development and training. Just as John Wellens' first article looked at where to start and how to define the overall company need, this is a guide to a newcomer on where to start on management training. In dealing with managers, there are two old ways to be avoided, the traditional approaches of Management Training and Management Development. The traditional methods are ponderous and full of academic niceties, so I propose to take a broad knife through the usual text‐books in order to give you something which you can use, and use quickly. This is not just a question of the standard methods being applicable only in large firms, or ones where training has been long established, but they are based on mistaken premises, the main one being that management training is an extension of operator training and that the same approach of analysing skills and teaching them in a classroom can be applied. So, while my principal aim is the plain man's guide, the development specialist will at least find something to dispute, and, if he has been following the usual approaches for over two years and has yet to develop a manager, he might realise why.