Top management dis's the importance of managerial and supervisory skills
The folks at the Ken Blanchard companies have just released their "2007 Corporate Issues Survey." The news release tells us that: "Developing managerial and supervisory skills has remained the number one issue for five consecutive years."
What it doesn't say is that Top Management and HR professionals have wildly differing ideas about how important. While 64 percent of all respondents to the survey ranked those skills as the top employee development challenge, that breaks out to 59 percent of Top Management and 83 percent of HR professionals.
What could account for that whopping 24 percentage point difference? Maybe the top management folks figure they're already spending plenty on training for those skills.
Not likely. According to the Wall Street Journal, supervisory skills get a tiny fraction of the training budget, even though there are lots of supervisors and even though the transition from individual contributor to supervisor is one of the toughest in business or life.
The anecdotal evidence matches the stats. Talk to front line supervisors and lower level managers in most companies, as I have, and you'll find that most them get absolutely zero training in supervisory skills.
Maybe those top management folks think that the front line bosses aren't important. But lots of research, led by the people at Gallup, tells us that your immediate boss has the single most powerful impact on your engagement, i.e., your morale and productivity.
So what could it be? Why do bright, savvy businesspeople ignore the importance of front line supervision and the pittance thrown at training the people who do it? I have three ideas.
I think lots of the top management people figure they got no training in supervisory skills so today's manager don't need any. This is a variation on the theme of walking to school three miles through the snow in bare feet. They don't need no stinkin' training!
Some may see it as simply competing for resources. After all, why spend $10,000 to train 100 managers when you can take that same money and send a top executive to a 3 day training program that offers gourmet food and good golf?
Or some top management people may not see the supervision issues that cause other, more visible, issues. After all, when customers call the toll-free number to complain, they complain about some frontline person, not that person's supervisor. No one ever says, "I'm calling to complain because you're not supervising your people properly!"
Whatever it is, top management needs to pull its collective head out of wherever it's stuck and look at the issue. Good supervision is vital to long term competitive advantage and profitability. Ignore it at your peril.
Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.
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Wally,
Preach it!
Just had this conversation with another long-time consultant and a co-trainer when we were working together internally.
We acknowledged that we were both experiencing the same phenomenon consistently and across companies and industries: It's popular to talk about Talent Management and high level initiatives; it is no longer a matter of course to train people who are making the biggest single jump in their careers.
We also acknowledged that neither of us has bothered to ask our clients "Why not?"
So our part in all of this is now to see if we can find out the reasons and whether there are any universal themes.
Thanks for shining a light on an area of development that has traditionally been the cornerstone of managerial growth. Without the basics at the right moment, organizations stand to spend a lot more down the road on what could only be described as "remedial" management and supervision.
Are these also organizations who have Powerpoint Templates labeled "Do It Right The First Time"?
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Great blog. If you look at the careers page on many big companies, you see the link for benefits which usually includes "Training." Like this is a benefit. That is like saying "Show up for work on time" is a benefit. Just for clarification, I am an early bird. But still, training a benefit? No wonder big dogs do not drop more common "cents" into the bucket. In my experience, insurance, paid holidays, etc. are battled in the budget, these are benefits. So if training is a benefit it too gets lowest cost is best. Executives need to realize that you cannot give the certain jobs to the lowest bidder. Training is one of the them. Quality is better than quantity. Maybe this is why teachers get paid so little, maybe this is why modern education sucks.
Great article. Continue the thought provoking discussions.
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"Developing managerial and supervisory skills". Employee development should be a top priority for any Company, we are their best assets.
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Not so long ago I had a conversation with a senior executive around this theme. His view was that training was predominantly a motivation/reward activity to make staff feel like the company cared about them and their development. He did not see it as necessary to developing workplace skills.
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Interesting, Simon. Thanks for sharing that. Alas, in many companies, training is what that exec was describing. But if that was the case in his company, I wonder why he wouldn't want to improve it.
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That was precisely the conversation I was having with him Wally. My challenge was to convince him that there was real value in the training I was offering beyond his base belief that training was primarily a motivation/reward mechanism.
In this case I was able to change his mindset by running a half day taster session for the senior executive team, during which they underwent some fundamental changes in their values and attitudes and I hope, in their behaviors. All too often though we are not afforded the luxury of even speaking with senior executives, let alone working with them.
Keep up the great work, you have an excellent and engaging blog here.
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Thanks for those kind words. I hope you keep reading and stopping by to lend your comments and insights.
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