debbielawley's weblog

The evolving role of the Line Manager

debbielawley — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:27:54 +0000

In my company, much of the work we are commissioned to undertake is centred around Management Development. Interestingly, when delegates struggle with their own learning the most frequent issue cited is their own Line Manager. It seems to me there is a bit of a dichotomy here. While most companies and organisations are putting significant proportions of the L&D budget towards Manager’s development, it is often the lack of understanding amongst Managers that constrains the development of their own teams.

Well, we really must ensure that our Managers understand the role they play in enabling a learning environment in the work place. If we don’t, we will inhibit not just the development of our people but of our companies in the years to come.

Follow this link for the full survey results :

http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3A3AD4D6-F818-4231-863B-4848CE383B46/0/learningdevelopmentsurvey.pdf

And see this quote from the CIPD’s annual survey for 2008 on trends in L&D :

Indeed, the crucial role of line managers highlighted in previous surveys is reinforced this year, with the majority being involved in determining learning and development needs (86%) and half predicting line managers will have greater responsibility for learning and development over the next five years (49%).

So what is Management Development now?

debbielawley — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:05:30 +0000

I am frequently asked to do replies to bids from companies seeking Management Development Programmes. It always feels pretty tiresome – these forms are long! And, of course, I end up thinking about what companies are asking for and what works best in reality. There is a link here to a weekend bike ride with my partner, Jon. We really enjoy our days out – physically demanding and fantastic to be out there enjoying the Cotswolds where we live. Inevitably, we have long chats about everything and nothing. This time it was what should we teach our kids.

My youngest had a recent report which detailed page after page what an amazing little boy he is – creative, funny, great to be with, focused but not so hot at spelling. Well, what should we teach our kids? We thought about self confidence – being able to fully experience their lives without constraint and fear. We thought about being great to be with – if you are well liked in life then life will be a better place for you. We also thought about being good with money – whatever that might mean. A fortune isn’t great if you still exceed it but a modest income is fine if that enables you to live the life you seek.

And where does that leave Management Development? Well, I could see major areas of overlap here – I do seem to be focusing more and more on networking skills, on how to learn through others and with others, on how to create a rich learning environment for your people. Really much the same as I am trying to provide for my boys! Then I was looking through some of jay Cross’s material and found this – I hope you enjoy this too : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3r-GBD1tk

Hello world!

debbielawley — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:37:14 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!