Developing people and capabilities

Many organizations face the challenge of developing greater confidence,

initiative, solutions-finding, and problem-solving capabilities among their
people. Organisations need staff at all levels to be more self-sufficient,
resourceful, creative and autonomous. This behaviour enables staff can operate
at higher strategic level, which makes their organizations more productive and
competitive. People's efforts produce bigger results. It's what all organizations
strive to achieve.
However, while conventional skills training gives people new techniques and
methods, it won't develop their maturity, belief, or courage, which is so
essential for the development of managerial and strategic capabilities.
Again, focus on developing the person, not the skills.
Try to see things from the person's (your people's) point of view. Provide
learning and experiences that they'd like for their own personal interest,
development and fulfilment. Performance and capability are ultimately
dependent on people's attitude and emotional maturity. Help them to achieve
what they want on a personal level, and this provides a platform for trust,
'emotional contracting' with the organisation, and subsequent
skills/process/knowledge development relevant to managing higher
responsibilities, roles and teams.
Participative workshops work well in beginning this type of attitudinal
development. Involve people right from the start. Focus on what they want.
You could also use a personal development questionnaire to begin to set the
scene and provide examples of 'alternative' learning opportunities. It starts with
the person, not the skills. It's about attitude and emotional maturity. The
Emotional Intelligence principles and methodologies fit very well with modern
approaches to developing people's belief, maturity and attitude.
When people develop confidence, integrity, emotionally, they automatically
become more proactive, solutions-focused, responsive, etc., which across a
whole team has a cumulative effect. Johari is a useful model too. So many
people at work are simply 'going through the motions', acting in a 'conforming'
state, often because they feel insecure, lack confidence to do what they think is
right, or are nervous about being bold, whereas boldness is absolutely
required for self-sufficiency, initiative, greater responsibility; in fact all
of the behaviours that organizations strive to encourage.
You can't 'teach' boldness - people have to experience things which enable
them to feel bolder, to take risks, and to want to take risks.
This means the rewards must be there too, or people have no reason to stick
their necks out. And not just the prospect of financial reward. More importantly
the Herzberg-type motivators - real extra responsibility, recognition, and
involvement in new successful and interesting projects. This is the fuel of
people's growth and change.

leadership and management training and

development - processes overview
Here's an overview of some simple processes for training and developing
management and leadership skills, and any other skills and abilities besides.
Use your own tools and processes where they exist and are effective. Various
tools are available on the free resources section to help with this process, or
from the links below.
Refer also to the coaching and development process diagram.

1. Obtain commitment from trainees for development process. Commitment

is essential for the development. If possible link this with appraisals and
career development systems.

2. Involve trainees in identifying leadership qualities and create

'skill/behaviour-set' that you seek to develop. Training and development
workshops are ideal for this activity.

3. Assess, prioritise and agree trainee capabilities, gaps, needs against the
skill/behaviour-set; individually and as a group, so as to be able to plan
group training and individual training according to needs and efficiency
of provision. Use the skill/behaviour-set tool for this activity. Use the
training needs analysis tool for assessing training needs priorities for a
group or whole organization.

4. Design and/or source and agree with trainees the activities, exercises,
learning, experiences to achieve required training and development in
digestible achievable elements - ie break it down. Use the training
planner to plan the development and training activities and programmes.
Record training objectives and link to appraisals

5. Establish and agree measures, outputs, tasks, standards, milestones, etc.

Use the SMART task model and tool.

Training and development can be achieved through very many different

methods - use as many as you need to and which suit the individuals and the
group. Refer to the Kolb learning styles ideas - different people are suited to
different forms of training and learning.
Exercises that involve managing project teams towards agreed specific
outcomes are ideal for developing management and leadership ability. Start
with small projects, then increase project size, complexity and timescales as the
trainee's abilities grow. Here are examples of other types of training and
development. Training need not be expensive, although some obviously is;
much of this training and development is free; the only requirements are
imagination, commitment and a solid process to manage and acknowledge the
development. The list is not exhaustive; the trainer and trainees will have lots
more ideas:
 on the job coaching
 mentoring
 delegated tasks and projects
 reading assignments
 presentation assignments
 job deputisation or secondment
 external training courses and seminars
 distance learning
 evening classes
 hobbies - eg voluntary club/committee positions, sports, outdoor
activities, and virtually anything outside work that provides a useful
personal development challenge
 internal training courses
 attending internal briefings and presentations, eg 'lunch and learn'
format
 special responsibilities which require obtaining new skills or knowledge or
exposure
 video
 internet and e-learning
 customer and supplier visits
 attachment to project or other teams
 job-swap
 accredited outside courses based on new qualifications, eg NVQ's, MBA's,
etc.

potential conflict between HR/training

function and business management
 
Conflict can arise between HR/Training and other parts of the organization,
commonly due to differing priorities among performance management functions
within a business, and notably relating to training, development and welfare of
staff. If so, you need to identify conflict and manage it. Conflict is often caused
by the different aims of the departments, and you need to facilitate
understanding and cooperation on both sides. This is especially important in
order to achieve successful training needs assessment, training design,
planning, delivery and optimal take-up and implementation. Aside this there are
very much deeper implications for organizations seeking to be truly cohesive,
'joined-up', and aligned towards common set of corporate aims and values. If
you see any of the following symptoms of conflict, consider the root cause and
facilitate strategic discussion and agreement, rather than limit your activity to
simply resolving or responding only to the symptom.
 
 management resisting release of staff for training due to day-to-day
work demands
 short-term needs of performance management vs long-term outlook of
HR
 HR have no line authority over trainees therefore cannot control training
take-up
 Training is rarely well followed-through once delegates are back in jobs,
despite HR efforts to achieve this via managers
 HR budgets are often cut if profits come under pressure

Generally conflict would stem from the values and priorities of directors,
managers and staff involved, and the aims and processes of the different HR
functions. Here are some subject headings that serve as a checklist to see that
the aims and priorities of HR/Training align optimally with those of other
departments (the list is not exhaustive but should enable the main points of
potential misalignment to be addressed):
 profit, costs, budgets
 well-being of staff
 ethics and morality in treatment of staff
 legal adherence
 business strategy
 training and development needs (skills, knowledge, EQ, etc)
 succession planning
 assessment and appraisals
 promotion
 recruitment
 age, gender, disability
 policies
 harassment
 counselling
 workforce planning
 management structure
 decision-making and approval processes
 outsourcing
 contracts of employment
 corporate mission and values
 acquisitions and divestments
 premises
 pay and remuneration plans and market positioning
 use of agencies
  advertising and image

leadership
leadership development methods and tips

While leadership is easy to explain, leadership is not so easy to practise.

Leadership is about behaviour first, skills second. Good leaders are followed
chiefly because people trust and respect them, rather than the skills they
possess. Leadership is different to management. Management relies more on
planning, organisational and communications skills. Leadership relies on
management skills too, but more so on qualities such as integrity, honesty,
humility, courage, commitment, sincerity, passion, confidence, positivity,
wisdom, determination, compassion, sensitivity, and a degree of personal
charisma.
Some people are born more naturally to leadership than others. Most people
don't seek to be a leader. Those who want to be a leader can develop
leadership ability. And many qualities of effective leadership, like confidence
and charisma, continue to grow from experience in the leadership role.
Leadership can be performed with different styles. Some leaders have one
style, which is right for certain situations and wrong for others. Some leaders
can adapt and use different leadership styles for given situations.
People new to leadership (and supervision and management) often feel under
pressure to lead in a particularly dominant way. Sometimes this pressure on a
new leader to impose their authority on the team comes from above. Dominant
leadership is rarely appropriate however, especially for mature teams.
Misreading this situation, and attempting to be overly dominant, can then cause
problems for a new leader. Resistance from the team becomes a problem, and
a cycle of negative behaviours and reducing performance begins. Much of
leadership is counter-intuitive. Leadership is often more about serving than
leading. Besides which, individuals and teams tend not to resist or push against
something in which they have a strong involvement/ownership/sense of control.
People tend to respond well to thanks, encouragement, recognition,
inclusiveness, etc. Tough, overly dominant leadership gives teams a lot to push
against and resist. It also prevents a sense of ownership and self-control among
the people being led. And it also inhibits the positive rewards and incentives
(thanks, recognition, encouragement, etc) vital for teams and individuals to
cope with change, and to enjoy themselves. Leaders of course need to be able
to make tough decisions when required, but most importantly leaders should
concentrate on enabling the team to thrive, which is actually a 'serving' role,
not the dominant 'leading' role commonly associated with leadership.
Today ethical leadership is more important than ever. The world is more
transparent and connected than it has ever been. The actions and philosophies
of organisations are scrutinised by the media and the general public as never
before. This coincides with massively increased awareness and interest among
people everywhere in corporate responsibility and the many related concepts,
such as Fair Trade, sustainability, social and community responsibility (see the
ethical leadership and ethical organisations page). The modern leader needs to
understand and aspire to leading people and achieving greatness in all these
areas.
Here is (was..) an Excellent 30 minute BBC Radio 4 Discussion about Modern
Leadership - (first broadcast 2 Sept 2006, part of the 'Sound Advice' series). Its
mere existence is evidence of changed attitudes to leadership. Such a
programme would not have warranted BBC airtime a generation ago due to lack
of audience interest. Today there is huge awareness of, and interest in, more
modern leadership methods. The radio discussion highlighted the need for
effective modern leaders to have emotional strength and sensitivity, far beyond
traditional ideas of more limited autocratic leadership styles. I'm sorry (if still)
this linked item is unavailable from the BBC website, especially if the recording
is lost forever in the BBC's archives. If you know a suitably influential executive
at the Beeb who can liberate it please contact me.
Incidentally as a quick case-study, the BBC illustrates an important aspect of
leadership, namely philosophy.
Philosophy (you could call it 'fundamental purpose') is the foundation on
which to build strategy, management, operational activities, and
pretty well everything else that happens in an organization.
Whatever the size of the organization, operational activities need to be
reconcilable with a single congruent (fitting, harmonious) philosophy.
Executives, managers, staff, customers, suppliers, stakeholders, etc., need solid
philosophical principles (another term would be a 'frame of reference') on which
to base their expectations, decisions and actions. In a vast complex
organization like the BBC, leadership will be very challenging at the best of
times due to reasons of size, diversity, political and public interest, etc. Having
a conflicting philosophy dramatically increases these difficulties for everyone,
not least the leader, because the frame of reference is confusing.
For leadership to work well, people (employees and interested outsiders) must
be able to connect their expectations, aims and activities to a basic purpose or
philosophy of the organization. This foundational philosophy should provide
vital reference points for employees' decisions and actions - an increasingly
significant factor in modern 'empowered' organizations. Seeing a clear
philosophy and purpose is also essential for staff, customers and outsiders in
assessing crucial organizational characteristics such as integrity, ethics, fairness,
quality and performance. A clear philosophy is vital to the 'psychological
contract' - whether stated or unstated (almost always unstated) - on which
people (employees, customers or observers) tend to judge their relationships
and transactions.
The BBC is an example (it's not the only one) of an organization which has a
confusing organizational philosophy. At times it is inherently conflicting. For
example: Who are its owners? Who are its customers? What are its priorities
and obligations? Are its commercial operations a means to an end, or an end in
themselves? Is its main aim to provide commercial mainstream entertainment,
or non-commercial education and information? Is it a public service, or is it a
commercial provider? Will it one day be privatised in part or whole? If so will
this threaten me or benefit me? As an employee am I sharing in something, or
being exploited? As a customer (if the description is apt) am I also an owner?
Or am I funding somebody else's gravy train? What are the organization's
obligations to the state and to government?
Given such uncertainties, not only is there a very unclear basic philosophy and
purpose, but also, it's very difficult to achieve consistency for leadership
messages to staff and customers. Also, how can staff and customers align their
efforts and expectations with such confusing aims and principles?
The BBC is just an example. There are many organizations, large and small,
with conflicting and confusing fundamental aims. The lesson is that philosophy -
or underpinning purpose - is the foundation on which leadership (for strategy,
management, motivation, everything) is built. If the foundation is not solid and
viable, and is not totally congruent with what follows, then everything built onto
it is prone to wobble, and at times can fall over completely.
Get the philosophy right - solid and in harmony with the activities - and the
foundation is strong.
This of course gives rise to the question of what to do if you find yourself
leading a team or organization which lacks clarity of fundamental philosophy
and purpose, and here lies an inescapable difference between managing and
leading:
As a leader your responsibility extends beyond leading the people.
True leadership also includes - as far as your situation allows - the
responsibility to protect or refine fundamental purpose and
philosophy