CIPD - Management development

Learning, training and development

Revised February 2008

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

considers what management development is
outlines various management development techniques.

Background

Anyone with responsibility for organising resources or people is a manager. In this factsheet we are talking about anyone from supervisors to chief executives, and about all activities aimed at developing people from where they have no management responsibilities to those where they have al least some. For a discussion of the difference between senior and other managers in terms of development, see our factshee on Developing senior managers.

Go to our factsheet on Developing senior managers

The Chartered Management Institute estimated that in 2004 the spend per annum per manager on management and leadership development was £1,035, an average of 6.3 days per manager.

What is management development?

There are at least as many definitions of management development as there are books on the subject. But for the purpose of this factsheet, it is taken to cover the entire structured process by which managers learn and improve their skills for the benefit of their employing organisations and themselves. The word 'structured' is important because, like everyone else, managers learn all the time from experience - from doing their jobs. Only if that informal learning is picked up or used in some kind of formal process should it be counted as management development.

So management development includes:

structured informal learning: work-based methods aimed at structuring the informal learning which will always take place
formal training courses of various kinds: from very specific courses on technical aspects of jobs to courses on wider management skills
education: which might range from courses for (perhaps prospective) junior managers or supervisors at NVQ Level 3 to Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees.

What do we mean by management?

The term 'leadership' is often used almost interchangeably with 'management', but leadership is different: whereas management is about rational thinking, leadership appeals more to the emotions. However, leadership is an important component of management. For a fuller discussion see our factsheet on leadership. CIPD members can view Leadership or management: the differences.

Much of what is written about management development focuses on large organisations, public or private, and on senior managers – future business leaders – perhaps because they are the most interesting to academics and have more resources invested in them. But managers at all levels, and not just those at the top, need to be developed. Similarly, small firms are not simply smaller versions of big companies and they have different priorities and needs: for example, some are less likely to see the need for management development, they may have fewer resources to devote to it, their managers have to be more multi-functional, and they may need to learn in different ways. When considering the techniques described below, it is worth bearing in mind that some may be more appropriate to large organisations than small and to certain levels of management.

Management development techniques

The techniques used for management development are wide and varied. Each of the techniques summarised below is a subject in itself and readers wishing to know more about them should refer to the relevant literature. The list follows the distinction made above between work-based methods and formal training and education, although clearly there are links between them (for example, an individual may need to take a training course before being given additional responsibilities, and most management education courses include projects in which the student draws on experience at work or seeks to solve problems there). Although people skills are a key element of management, formal training interventions are rarely good at producing improvements in inter-personal behaviour. Work-based methods appear to be most effective here and in some other areas. A CIPD survey UK Global Comparisons forecast, 2005-2006: best practices for tomorrow’s leaders confirms this and for this reason, they are treated first in this factsheet.

Visit our UK global comparisions forecast

Work-based methods

Coaching, counselling and mentoring

Recent CIPD learning and development surveys suggest that coaching, counselling and mentoring are growing, with over 80 per cent of organisations using them to develop at least some of their people. These one-to-one methods offer personally-tailored reflection and discussion in confidence between a manager and another individual about that manager's development. The three terms are often used almost interchangeably, but there are differences.

View our learning, training and development surveys

Coaching is about improving skills and performance, usually for the current job, but also to support career transitions. Coaches seek to bring an objective perspective to a structured dialogue to bring about sustainable solutions. Usually coaches are hired from outside the organisation, but increasingly some organisations expect all line managers to operate as coaches, and it is often true that a young manager will learn more from senior colleagues than from any other source or formal learning intervention. Coaching's focus on skills distinguishes it from counselling, which is about helping people with personal concerns such as motivation and self-confidence. For more information, see our factsheet on coaching and our Coaching at work journal.

Mentors, by contrast, usually come from inside the organisation. Typically mentors will be experienced managers (but not individuals' line managers, because frankness is needed in exchanges) who regularly meet more junior colleagues to help them perform better and groom them for career advancement. But for more senior managers, outside mentors may sometimes be hired. This blurs the difference between coaching and mentoring, but the differences are perhaps that mentors have relatively long-term relationships with their junior colleagues and their focus is less on events than it is in coaching. For more information, see our factsheet on mentoring.

Go to our Mentoring factsheet

Action learning

Most people learn best by doing. If that process can be structured, so much the better. Action learning sets help to achieve this by making their members focus on solving live issues in their normal working environments by trying out different approaches, with discussion and support from colleagues to help them reflect on their impact.

Project working

Increasingly, managers work in cross-functional teams, exposing them to different functions and enabling them to learn about different aspects of the organisation and ways of doing things. Putting people on such teams is one way of broadening their experience and effectiveness.

Secondments

Taking a role in another organisation through secondments for a year or two - or sometimes, in the case of senior people, non-executive directorships - is another way of broadening experience. For more information, see our factsheet on secondment.

Go to our factsheet on Secondment

Performance and development reviews

Since the 1970s, many organisations have operated appraisals, in which an individual's manager regularly - usually annually - records performance, potential and development needs in a top-down process. Many of these systems have evolved into a more rounded process known as performance and development review meetings, in which the dialogue is more open and two-way (indeed, the person being reviewed should do most of the talking), enabling those involved to reflect on past performance as a basis for making development plans. The key difference between the traditional appraisal and the development review is that the former concentrates on performance, with development as something of an after-thought, while in the development review the main focus should be on the development of the individual. See our factsheets on performance management and performance appraisal.

Development centres

The purpose of development centres (sometimes known as assessment centres) is to focus on opportunities for personal development, and to gauge potential and help make selections for promotion. Although they take place off the job, they include work-related activities and group work, as well as counselling and psychometric assessments, so they can be included under the heading of work-based methods. They are expensive to run, so are mainly for large organisations.

360 feedback

Appraisals and even performance and development reviews can be perceived as subjective and over-dependent on the views of the person doing the reviewing. The process of 360 feedback seeks views from a range of relevant viewpoints - peers, superiors and subordinates, and sometimes even outsiders like customers and suppliers - based on a framework of competencies. The aim is that the process will provide a more accurate assessment than a review from one individual and point to areas where development (or even simply behavioural change) is needed. For more information see our factsheet on 360 degree feedback.

Go to our 360 feedback factsheet

Succession planning

Succession planning is a process by which one or more successors are identified for key posts (or groups of similar key posts), and career moves and/or development activities are planned for these successors. It usually covers only the most senior jobs in organisations, plus short-term and longer-term successors for these posts. The latter group are in effect on a fast-track, and are developed through job moves within various parts of the organisation. This focus on the most senior posts - perhaps the top two or three levels of management - means that even in large organisations, usually only a few hundred people at any given time will be subject to the succession planning process. For more information, see our factsheet on succession planning.

Go to our factsheet on Succession planning

Education and training

Formal training courses

In large organisations especially, formal training is given in the shape of courses, particularly at key transition points such as first management jobs and as preludes to promotion. Their content will vary according to the organisation and the role the individual is to fill, but in the private sector finance and business strategy is a key component. Change management appears to be increasingly popular.

In the past, such training tended to be delivered as long, single residential courses, but increasingly they are delivered in modules, with work-based projects and maybe coaching and mentoring in between. This is not only because it is easier to spare people from work for short periods but because there is growing recognition that people learn best in 'chunks', supporting the theoretical knowledge learned in courses with practical experience. Such training might be delivered by in-house training specialists, by business schools, by large training consultancies, by individual freelance trainers, or by any combination of these. For more information, see our factsheet on learner-centred training courses.

Go to our factsheet on Learner-centred courses

Outdoor development is sometimes used for team building purposes, while in-house providers or external deliverers can provide 'one-off' training to fill particular gaps which might be identified because of organisational needs or through the review and one-to-one processes mentioned above. An important aspect of getting people together away from the workplace is that they can exchange ideas outside the classroom, while meeting people from elsewhere in the organisation helps in corporate networking. For more information, see our factsheet on outdoor development.

Go to our factsheet on Outdoor development

E-learning and blended learning

Increasingly, organisations are seeking to supplement traditional courses by e-learning, which is the use of computers to deliver training, often delivered through corporate intranets. It provides large populations with the same material, and access is flexible so that people can learn in their own time. Against this, e-learning does not appeal to everyone, and it works better for 'hard' knowledge than softer skills like communication or leadership. But mixed with other forms of learning (as 'blended learning'), it can be a valuable tool. For more infromation see our factsheet on e-learning.

Go to our factsheet on E-learning

Leading from the top

Management is not an exact science. Despite what some of the literature may suggest, most management activity is unstructured, unplanned and uncoordinated. This always needs to be borne in mind by those who plan management development, as does the fact that not all managers are receptive to learning. Methods that work in one organisation may not work in another, and management development can be undermined by short-term 'faddism'. But in any organisation, successful management development will not take place unless the lead comes from the top, and the chief executive and directors not only give support but are seen to be continuously learning themselves. Line managers need to be trained and rewarded for their contribution towards developing their people. Management development is not a quick fix but a continuing process at all levels.

Management development