Are You Investing Enough in Manager Training Programs?

BY Kathy Crosett
Featured image for “Are You Investing Enough in Manager Training Programs?”

Like many business leaders, you regularly introduce changes – new products, services
or people. These changes are designed to help the company grow and mature. If you measure the success rate of these changes, and many leaders don’t bother to, how would you grade yourself?  Be honest. If your grade isn’t what you want it to be, Jack Zenger can tell you why.

In his column on herds and immunity for Forbes, Zenger channels the late leadership guru Peter Drucker. An organizational expert, Drucker believed “that to enact a meaningful change, an organization needs to reach a minimum of a third of all managers, and ideally more than two thirds, to succeed.”

How has that been working in your company? If you’re preparing to launch a new product or service, have you immersed 2/​3 of your managers in related training and development? We all know training and development programs are expensive. You have to pay for the resources to provide training. You also have to acknowledge the downtime while your managers spend time away from their routine duties.

According to the statistics Zenger shares in his article, the number of managers who feel supported by the leadership  is directly related to whether they believe they are improving in their role in the organization. For example, only 33% of leaders with nonsupportive managers think they’re improving while 74% of leaders with very supportive managers say the same.

You’ve made a big investment in your business and in the changes you want to deploy. You want your managers to carry out their new tasks and feel that they are improving. Don’t hold back at the end and fail to invest in the folks who can ensure your success. Invest in their leadership training to be sure they’re ready to take your organization to the next level.


Share: