I am trying to implement a Leadership Development Programme (LDP) and was wondering what is the norm in terms of support for managers after training on the various competencies. What is the most effective way of maximising the transfer of learning. Having managers acting as mentors? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated or any suggestions on some websites or essential reading on the implementation of LDPs?
Damian Hunter
4 Responses
Doing Similar
Damian,
I’m looking to do something similar with an advance Project Management course that I’m at present constructing.
The approach we’re taking is to involve the students manager both as part of the set-up and afterwards.
At the end of the classroom session there is a personal action plan section for the students to prepare. This is then shared with one of the instructors, but also shared with their manager when they get back to the workplace. We would expect the student to have set up a one on one with their manager for when they return. In this session we expect the student to cover the key points they took away from the course and share their action plan. Then discuss with their manager how they can help going forward.
As instructors we would then arrange a 3 or 6 month follow up with ex-student and manager to ensure the skills learnt are being put to good use and establish if there’s something been missed.
The risk here of course is that the manager abdicates responsibility and doesn’t engage from his/her side of the equation. What has to be sold to them is the plus side of this to their business goals.
That’s our approach to this one – remember that Senior PM skills are mostly soft skills (at least in my book) so start to approach your area of concerns.
We won’t roll this session out for about 6 months so I’ll have to wait and see if it works.
Give me a call if you want to discuss further or you think there’s anything I can do.
Regards,
Action Dimension
Our approach at Balance Learning is to send out regular work-based assignments to participants on our leadership programmes, that are structured around their own personal “real world” issues. Each assignment draws on an element of the knowledge and skills they acquired earlier in the training programme, so facilitating the transfer of learning against each of the competencies.
Thanks
Thanks ever so much to Tim and Phil, your feedback has been very useful and very much appreciated. I may get in touch Phil once I clarify the objectives of what we want as an organisation. Talk to you soon!!
Use Troikas to maximise post-training learning implementation.
Hullo Damian,
In a similar circumstance some time ago, I decided to form groups of three participants, (preferably from the same organisation – although it didn’t really matter) to maximise ongoing learning and the transfer of new learning back into the workplace. We called the groups Troikas and charged them with meeting/ talking at least once a week for two months to share progress and problems/issues etc.
In this way we overcame the isolation of going back to work with little or no support for new initiatives amongst colleagues who did not understand what was going on. Based on feedback from participants it worked very well. Obviously in-house support from other Managers/Leaders helps too, but is not always forthcoming.