The Effectiveness of Training

The Effectiveness of Training Many courses and training programs are actually forms of programming. That is, they provide trainees with a set of functions that can be called upon to perform a range of tasks. The training of most (P)roduction workers – industrial engineers, production managers, lathe operators – could be considering programming. (A)dministrative decisions are also predominantly programmed, usually by a book of rules, policies, or guidelines. Historically, for example, the strength of the British Empire has often been attributed to its superior training of public servants – which amounted to programming.

This routinization and standardization of procedures enabled a few Englishmen to rule over a great many colonials without running into organizational snafus. The goal was to elicit predictable behavior: Under certain conditions, all British (A)dministrators could be expected to act in a certain way. An officer in the foreign service could use the same procedures whether he was posted in India or Africa, and when he was rotated to any other colony, he could hit the ground running. It was efficient. Is it possible to train people in nonprogrammable skills such as (E) and (I)? Well, someone is always trying to, for example, the numerous books that try to demonstrate how to make a strategic plan, or how to become a millionaire in ten easy steps, are all attempting to program (E). And to teach (I), there are workshops that offer step-by-step methods to analyzing people and situations more effectively. Certainly an individual can be taught skills for dealing with people, but whether he will use those skills correctly will depend upon his discretion, creativity, and willingness to take risks. If he is uncreative, he may not recognize when a given situation has departed from the ordinary and thus requires a nonprogrammed decision. Many business executives have made the mistake of reacting in a programmed way to altered situations that call for a new approach.

Current Training is Inconsistent

Current Training is Inconsistent For (P)roducers and (A)dministrators, training is paramount and development far less so. Usually associated with a particular field or organization, training for (P) and (A) is acquired at schools. This is followed by employment and on-the-job training, which may include learning any and all organizational structures and regulations. Obviously, the know-how needed to (P)roduce results and systemize effective methods are important for good management. But this type of training leaves the student without a threshold level of skill and comfort in either (E) or (I).

In some universities, management is considered to be applied (E)ntrepreneurship; thus business schools are part of the school of economics. Students there are trained in economic theory: To know finance, estimate value and risk, and identify opportunities in the marketplace. But again, a highly trained (E)ntrepreneur will not necessarily be a good manager. If he or she does not bring in people who can capably (A)dministrate and co-lead the organization, even brilliant (E)ntrepreneurship can lead to economic disaster. The latest trend in management training is behavioral science. Management schools now offer courses in human motivation and group dynamics, in which endless hours are spent analyzing interpersonal relations and learning how to motivate followers. At best, a successful Superfollower could emerge from this training – someone who is good at getting along with people but has no knowledge or skill at marketing, (P)roduction, finance, or (A)dministration.

The Effectiveness of Training

Clearly, it is not sufficient to be trained exclusively in any one aspect of management. All aspects are necessary: One must learn disciplinary material (P); (A)dministrative methods (A); to identify goals, work under uncertainty, and take risks (E); and finally to work well with others and manage the conflict that inevitably arises (I). Thus, a (P)roducing manager should be a (Paei) rather than a (P---), an (A)dministrating manager should be a (pAei) rather than an (-A--), and so on. Managers must perform all the roles – to the degree of meeting the threshold needs of the task – and they must excel in one or more roles depending on the task – but not all four. Not even the best corporate leaders excel in all four roles; as a rule, they excel in (I) plus one or two other roles. If someone is incapable of performing a particular role – in other words has a blank in his code – I doubt not think that even the best management education could turn him into a good manager. It’s

probably about as worthwhile a project as taking someone who is tone deaf and training him to be a conductor. The chief purpose of managerial education, then, whether it is at in-house training for top executives or at schools that grant MBAs, should not be to create a (PAEI), nor to remove the blanks in a person’s code but to provide the tools necessary to perform each of the roles, and most important, to teach people how to work with those whose styles and roles are alien to them. How do we do that? By making them aware of the four (PAEI) roles that must be performed in every managerial position; and by teaching him how to benefit, rather than feel threatened by, the unfamiliar styles and priorities of other managers. (P) and (A), because they mainly require programmed decisionmaking, call for training. (E) and (I) involve nonprogrammed decisions; thus they call for development. In order to develop, people have to let go of what they are strong at and try to do something they are weak at. They have to venture into unchartered territory, and that can be painful, because when we do that we cannot help exposing our weaknesses. People with a strong fear of failure – particularly those who are missing the (I) skill – will probably find such exposure terrifying. For their own sakes, those people should probably stay away from managerial jobs, since on balance the managerial role will be neither gratifying nor rewarding. Is effective development possible? In extreme cases, in which a manager actually fits one of my four archetypes in that he is capable of performing only one role to the exclusion of the other three, the usual methods are unlikely to succeed. Such people probably need professional psychotherapeutic intervention if they are to change and become managers. In milder cases, where only one or possibly two roles exist at the threshold level and just need to be developed, a gradual increase of exposure with fast reinforcing feedback is of value. But for everyone, without exception, development triggers growing pains, which can be minimized but not eliminated.

What Schools Should do

What Schools Should Do Using our new paradigm, let’s try to define goals for management schools. Immediately we have a new priority before us: Each student should understand that he is not and never will be a perfect executive. That premise, once it is established, can be the springboard from which other principles and strategies will naturally emerge; including: • learning humility; • understanding and appreciating a diversity of managerial and personality styles and feeling comfortable with them; • developing strategies to communicate effectively with other styles; • developing strategies to communicate effectively in meetings, where people of very different styles must be able to grasp what is being said. In addition, of course, schools must effectively teach all four of the basic (PAEI) management roles.

Education for (P) and (A)

Education for (P) and (A) School training for the (P) and (A) roles – whether the task will require them in big letters or small letters – is very straightforward. A (P) has to learn the discipline of his profession – selling, engineering, accounting, marketing, or whatever job-related courses fit the bill here. Some experiential learning is necessary for reinforcement and behavioral absorption of the material; but straight, traditional teaching certainly makes sense. For training in (A), the same prescription is applicable to courses on (A)dministration, on how to organize, systematize, control implementation, and so on. A common approach is a course that studies a decision from its inception through implementation, to see whether what was planned was actually realized, at what cost, with what success, etc.

Education for (E) and (I)

Education for (E) and (I) But where does one learn (E) and (I)? The roles of (E)ntrepreneur and (I)ntegrator, which are most vital at the upper levels of management, consist mainly of nonprogrammable decisions that have to rely on talent and intuition. One cannot hope to attain excellence in these roles simply by memorizing some rules.. The qualities or characteristics required at this level – risk-taking, a high threshold for anxiety, good listening, intuition – must be present or at least innate if they are to be successfully developed experientially If you analyze the kinds of training that are available for (E) and (I) at management schools, it becomes obvious that the designers of these courses have made an underlying assumption that the student already has basic (E) and (I) skills. The purpose of the training, then, is to systematize (E) and (I) with respect to a specific job performance. For (E), courses in brainstorming and synectics provide guidelines on how to stimulate one’s creativity and to utilize it systematically. Training for (I) includes courses on process facilitation, organizational development, change agents, sensitivity training, and leadership. If the basic personality capabilities exist to begin with, these courses can be very effective at augmenting and improving technique. However, it is counterproductive to give (E) training to people who do not have (E) skills. Learning how to do strategic planning will not make someone better able to take risks or plan creatively in an atmosphere of uncertainty. (In fact, most (E)ntrepreneurs who have started companies did not go to business school. They may simply have been so ignorant when they began that they didn’t realize how much risk they were taking.) What schools must try to innovate are ways to develop the skills of (E) and (I). Some schools are already working on that. The UCLA School of Management, for example, offers experiential courses for (E) and (I), in which, working in teams, students learn to make decisions

with others and might also gain a certain amount of self-knowledge. All UCLA management students are required to take at least one experiential course during their first quarter. At ITESM University, in Mexico, professors and business executives assist students on a continuing project. The students identify a business opportunity; then they plan, structure, and manage a business with the help and supervision of the professors and business executives. Each class of students passes its results along to the next group. At Stanford, only applicants who have already shown leadership potential are accepted to the MBA program, which has been consciously designed to give students the tools to develop their demonstrated talent further. I think Stanford has the right answer.