What is this?
This program is for those who have never managed people before – or were placed in management roles without much preparation, and want to improve their skills.
It gives individual, customised training and support to enable someone to improve their practical and soft skills for their management roles. It is not a ‘training course’ covering materials in a couple of days. Instead, the manager studies separately, and the sessions focus on critical reflection and practical application of the learning and skills over the course of months
This programme is designed to give them training for the practical acquisition of the new skills; consulting to troubleshoot as they begin practicing, and coaching for them to improve their confidence and happiness in the new role.
This is a unique approach. Many programmes offer training on management theory; some offer a little coaching. This course is designed differently:
- Most of the training materials are self-study by the manager; the ‘training’ session is to critically reflect and practically apply learnings from the theory on a 1:1 basis, continually building on changes to practice on the various topics over the course of several months. This is much more challenging – and useful – than sitting in a classroom for two days, or watching a bunch of webinars.
- The ‘support’ sessions enable change at a deeper level. This can be a blend of consultancy and coaching – looking at problems or challenges in their environment, seeing how patterns in their behaviour interact with these, and identifying changes to make. Often, an apparently practical problem turns out to have deep roots – and recognising this source allows the manager to choose a new path.
This gives the manager not only the reassurance of theoretical knowledge, but also the support to best apply the information and to enact inner changes.
Note: This programme is for a single manager. If the company has several managers who want to improve their management skills, see the ‘Management cohort upskill programme’
Training Element
The training element covers the following broad topics on a 1:1 basis. The areas of focus are agreed, after a preliminary meeting with the manager to assess their level of expertise, and completion of a short 360 survey to assess others’ perception of their managerial strengths and weaknesses. Most of the below are usually covered; some topics might be skimmed over while others are done in depth.
- Managing teams – performance management, delegation, feedback, goal setting, coaching, psychological safety, team dynamics, difficult conversations, interviewing.
- Managing self – communication, emotional intelligence, time management and prioritisation, wellbeing management
- Managing managers – tailoring communications, presentation skills, stakeholder management, organisational awareness, levelling up.
- Managing delivery – decision making, problem solving, planning, resource and budget management, change management, continuous improvement
- Managing influence – strategic thinking, political awareness, sales / persuasion, innovation and creativity, leadership presence
Participants are expected to have read the relevant materials in advance of each session to enable deep critical reflection, and practical application. This self study element is crucial to the course – the training sessions focus on how what they’ve learned applies to their environment, and what practical changes they are making, rather than covering the material itself.
Support Element
This consists of 1:1 sessions to either troubleshoot current problems/opportunities, or coaching to work at a deeper level of personal change. The manager can choose for each session how to slant it, and what topics to address. It often starts with an immediate practical management challenge – but turns into a more complex coaching conversation around the patterns of behaviour.
Who is it for?
New managers – those who have recently transitioned from IC to managing people – often the same people who were their colleagues.
Incumbent managers – those who got thrown in the deep end and have been managing a while – but would like to do it better.
Founders – startup founders often suddenly wind up managing teams, without training or wider experience of other companies.
Why would a company select this?
- Typical training options are for large groups, often conducted in a mass webinar format – these might cover the relevant information, but the learning can be shallow, and is difficult to apply, and tends to fade quickly. However, these are often useful if a formal qualification, e.g. from the CMI or ILM, is desired.
- By comparison, this programme goes deep for a single person. It requires deep thought and critical analysis of the material by the manager, with practical application of what they’ve learned throughout, and constant reference to the materials over multiple months – ensuring deeply embedded learning.
- More importantly – most management problems are ‘soft’, people-related. The coaching element of the support helps the manager step outside their habitual patterns of interacting and dealing with people, and change how they respond.
Practicalities
Cost – £2,500, including books
Location – usually remote, though in-person may be an option for London-based companies.
Scheduling – 20 hours over 5 months. Flexible start date and frequency.
- The programme alternates between training and support sessions, each of 2h duration. There are 5 of each – so 10 sessions, taking 20 hours total
- It is usually done with one session every 2 weeks, so 5 months. However, if needed, can do one session weekly for the first 2-4 sessions; or can do a slower monthly cadence, to allow the support to span over a year.
- It’s designed to be flexible:
- Some people want an intensive programme in the weeks around starting the new role
- Some may prefer to spread it out over a long period, for continuous support over a year.
- Those who have done some management, but are about to step up higher, might want a ‘first 100 day’ approach; working out how to adapt and change further; what brilliant would look like.
FAQs
- What’s included?
- Launch and Wrap meetings – 1h with the new manager plus a 1h ‘triad’ meeting with the new manager and their manager.
- 20 hours of training and support, over 3-12 months
- A range of books in print or kindle format, as preferred.
- A 360 survey of 5-10 colleagues at all levels
- How much study time is needed?
- Usually 5-10 hours of study time between sessions, usually mostly books to read.