HANDS-ON MIDDLE MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS

Your situation looks something like this...

You  have a group of middle managers who thoroughly understand the skills of the people they manage because they have risen from being practitioners themselves. They are pretty good at managing the technical and administrative aspects of their job. Their performance is highly variable in the other key parts of their role – leading and developing their people, aligning their decisions to wider business priorities and leading change through process improvement.

Their attitudes have become isolated and defensive through a combination of factors of which the most significant are feeling unsupported and vulnerable to criticism from all directions. For all this, they have undeveloped strengths and potential.

The programmes we design and run to bring out this potential and create confidence in contributing more to the business are as varied as our clients' culture, situation, and business priorities, and are always founded on these features of benchmark best practice:

• Careful project specification between Senior Managers, HR and ourselves
• Thorough preparation of participants before they begin the programme to create understanding and commitment
• Learning delivered over a period in a mixture of short training interventions, facilitated workshops, team coaching and mentoring, and projects directly related to participants' work and priority. Continuous individual coaching in leadership behaviours and process management driven by expert feedback and motivation

It is a major challenge to persuade managers, who may often be competitors for promotion and influence, to work together co-operatively for benefit of increasing collective performance.

We have consistent success in helping senior managers create true management teams. For this we use a powerful, possibly unique methodology, which creates conditions in which participating groups of managers cannot avoid the consequences of not working trustingly together and are encouraged to consider and implement options for positive collective behaviour.

After a careful sell-in, ensuring all participants can challenge, and even refuse to accept, although no one has yet done so, the development approach before they experience it, our consultants record actual management team activities such as SMT Meetings, Appraisals, Briefings and Planning Meetings. Our video recordings concentrate on the reaction of others to speakers, so it soon becomes clear what behaviours induce positive and negative results. At which point we use the prior permission we have obtained from all participants to pause proceedings, review the effect of these behaviours and demonstrate options for change. Then we ask people to practice these options so they can assess their impact when we review them together.

There is no hiding place here; no possibility of avoidance. It sounds confrontational, and it is a very direct approach, but it is also delivered with respect and sensitivity to the feelings of those who have been exposed. The result is a rapid cohesion of the group under this courteous yet consistent pressure as they learn about how they can impact most positively upon each other.

This approach is direct action learning, addressing real situations with the real participants and in real time. Little dedicated training time is involved because everything, except individual coaching, takes place during time dedicated to work activities. As the programme goes on the emphasis is on team reinforcement, and individual coaching and mentoring.

Are your managers being asked to lead the interface with clients? Are they tasked with both Relationship Management and Business Development responsibilities? In bald terms, does the idea of having to sell at a high professional level scare them? Even offend them because they have never considered themselves salespeople, or wanted a sales role?

We have a methodology for removing these understandable concerns and replacing them with the competence and confidence to win and retain business in the face of competition. Our approach is based on applying the findings of ongoing research into effective consultative influencing behaviours where the emphasis is on developing acuity, recognizing and responding to customer signals, and presenting solutions in terms that meet their preferences and expectations – without overt sales pressure.

We teach this relaxed and professional approach together with a very rigorous insistence on customer relationship process management. We can do this without even mentioning the dread word “selling!” As always, we demonstrate the key learning points through rehearsal and feedback on the real influencing situations facing your managers.

Three or four dedicated training sessions are required to install the basic approach and behaviours. The odds on closing important forthcoming competitive deals may be substantially shortened  by us leading rehearsals of key presentations and meetings, and by “coaching accompaniments” of managers during key meetings.

If you need a specific training solution for a tightly defined group, we have developed courses on:

• Influencing and Negotiating with Impact – 1 Day (8)

  — An Introduction to Key Basics, Disciplines and Self-Awareness

• Business Negotiation – 2 Days (8)

  — Strategy and Execution, Tactics and Confident Behaviour

• Influence and Communication – 3 Days (8)

  — Personal Effectiveness and Authority in Business Situations

• Leading and Making Your Point at Meetings - 2 days (8)

  — Best Practice Techniques

• Problem-Solving and Decision-Making - 2 days (12)

  — Fact-Based and Lateral Thinking Tools

• Presentation Skills - 1 day (8)

  — Presentation Design, Delivery and Self-Management

• Effective Business Writing - 1 day (12)

  — Impact, Clarity and Style in E-Mails, Letters and Reports

• Managing Difficult People - 1 day (12)

  Advising, Instructing, Counselling, Discipline Interviewing

• Performance Management - 2 days (12)

  — Management Coaching, Targeting, Appraisal and Review

• Team Leadership - 3 days (16)

  — In-depth practical Leadership Behavioural Development

(Figures in brackets are the maximum participant numbers)

Consultancy Fees 2008

All fees are transparent and without unexpected expense elements. They are quoted per consultant per day and include travel expenses inside mainland UK, training and support materials and portable equipment. Taking instructions and review meetings are not chargeable.

Contact

0044 (0) 7887 557740