The Palette of Management Development

Keywords: Management development, career development, development plans, experimental learning, learning styles

Management Development is too often seen as the responsibility of the individual - an issue solely for you as opposed to your organization. But should this be the case? Find out the key to wholly successful Management Development and discover the crucial role your company plays in the palette of management development.

The central challenge of management development is to control and manage the learning process of managers, focused on individual development and career success and/or reaching organizational goals.

Despite extensive research, there is still no clear picture of exactly what determines career success. Several theories have been put forward but they focus solely upon individual assumptions such as the job, work experience, or individual characteristics. In reality, all of these factors play a part, but it is an amalgamation of these roles which creates the most succinct model for successful Management Development.

The initial assumption is that the outcomes of management development result from the interaction between individual characteristics and organizational characteristics. In other words, career success is influenced by developmental situations within your job and the extent to which you benefit from these by your learning behavior. The other main goals of MD are relevant to the organization as a whole and comprise having enough organizational managers, realizing organizational change and making use of young talent to realize organizational goals. We can explore this in four sections.

Learning opportunities on the job

These result from practical work experience and have more learning potential in situations where traditional behaviors and routines are no longer applicable. Managers will learn by experience even if they fail to learn at once, because development based on new experience compels you to "sink or swim". The successful manager will swim.

Developmental job characteristics that incite such behavior can be clustered into four categories:

1 Transitions
2 Task-related characteristics
3 Support
4 Obstacles

Learning from the job can be controlled and maximized by effective manager support and mentoring.

Learning behaviors of managers (MD as learning to learn)

Learning behavior is defined by how you react to the experiences mentioned above and is both person- and context-dependent. Based on relevant studies of overall approach it is possible to define the following key types of learning behavior:

Emergent learning behavior: Unpremeditated learning approach characterized by retrospective exploration of experience (performance orientated).
Planned learning behavior: Characterized by careful deliberation prior to action (learning orientated).
Meaning orientated learning behavior:Retrospective learning approach characterized by search for deeper meaning of experiences (learning orientated).
Instruction orientated learning behavior:Characterized by a search for superficial information, guidelines and expectation regarding tasks prior to taking action (performance orientated).

Essentially, meaning orientated learning is preferable because it encourages you to search for main issues and relationships, whereas instruction orientated learning is negatively perceived by higher management as it demonstrates to them a lack of initiative and independence.

"Managers will learn by experience even if they fail to learn at once, because development based on new experience compels you to "sink or swim". The successful manager will swim."

In short, the way you recognize a situation (or 'learn to learn') becomes crucial in successful MD. This enables you to become a major player in your own development and competence management.

The output of the palette

Now these learning behaviors and opportunities have been identified and expounded, a fundamental question must be asked; how does the interaction take place between learning behavior and developmental job characteristics? In other words, to what extent does this relate to the career outcome of you, the manager?

Relationship between developmental job characteristics and learning behavior

The two main relationships in this area were "obstacles" and "transitions".

Obstacles relate with instruction-orientated learning. If a job is characterized by lack of support or a difficult manager, the individual will look for instruction. As mentioned above, this has an undesirable effect.

Transition is synonymous with meaning orientated learning. Managers focus upon the meaning of new situations and make the necessary adjustments. This is the preferable path of development.

Joint effects of developmental job characteristics in combination with learning behavior on individual career outcomes.

From the above we can conclude that there is a direct relation between learning opportunities and individual performance.

Support is linked with success. If you are believed in as a potential manager, you are more likely to be brought into situations where you can succeed.

Conversely, obstacles relate negatively with your individual performance. Therefore, the more learning opportunities you have the more likely your marketability (or employability) can be increased.

Learning opportunities and organizational consequences

Not only are there consequences for individual managers but organizations are also affected by this potential interaction, for, ultimately, Management Development is the process of managing and controlling the learning of managers in the direction that is preferred by the organization. The following organizational factors highlight these effects:

Recruitment and selection - Learning opportunities are a recruitment instrument already recognized and utilized by most organizations.
Management development - Traditionally training for managers lacks real challenge; young managers are not given enough responsibility and established managers are often simply moved from small projects to those of a medium size yet similar in content. The best path would comprise a mix of several kinds of transitions and task-related characteristics.
Learning and organizational change - Learning opportunities are an important factor of the learning process of the organization as a whole. Based on individual learning processes, the organization can learn as a whole. The most effective strategy would be to not only stimulate individuals but to convey these results to all employees. This is why, in the larger international organizations, so much attention is given to project evaluations / knowledge databases.

Conclusion

Based on these notions, the presence of learning opportunities, which determines to what extent you can develop and which determines whether you will stay with the company, directly influences the learning ability of your organization.

But, at present, this tends to exist just as theory. Evidently MD experts are correct in advising organizations to link strategic projects in connection with MD to innovation or new business. But, although companies appear keen to focus upon MD, they are only prepared to do so in projects that can be easily stopped and that lack engagement. The high potentials are allowed to learn and develop, but are restricted to a training-ground wherein there is no harm.

24th September 2001

This is a précis of an article entitled "The palette of management devlopment" originally published in The Journal of Management Development Volume 20 Number 2, 2001.

The authors were Lidewey van der Sluis-den Dikken of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Ludwig H Hoeksema of PricewaterhouseCoopers NV, Utrecht, The Netherlands