We had the opportunity to test out our ideas to improve the effectiveness of management development programmes when we were invited to join an internal working party in a fast moving IT company to help them set up, implement and evaluate an international management development programme.

The company had grown rapidly over the last few years, largely in Western Europe where strong vertical structures had been established. It was now recognised that future success would be dependent on creating an international organisation in order be responsive to the needs of international customers. The company's growth had in large part been as a result of acquisition so there was not currently a strong sense of culture in the organisation or a clear strategy for reorganising on an international basis. Part of the need then was for a unifying programme.

Previously our involvement in management development had been with organisations where a `need' had been identified to do some kind of development managers and we were asked to put something together based on this ill defined `need'. In the past we have run well received programmes but, until now, we had not been given an opportunity to run the project in its entirety.

SOLUTION

The initial task was to define the training need. It is a common failing of training needs analysis that insufficient attention is paid to how development will fit with organisation culture and strategy. !t is not enough only to collect information about the relevance of training to the job and the readiness of the participant to be trained.

Our approach was to identify the skills, knowledge and personal attributes that are most likely to be recognised by the organisation because they are valued currently by the culture or are accepted as critical for the future development of the business. Getting beneath the rhetoric is key.

This approach is then grounded in the organisation's reality and that prevents any subsequent development programme being out of touch. It shows that the development that really pays off for the individual and for the organisation, is found where the development is important to the job, where the individual is ready for it and where putting it into practice will be rewarded. lt is here that strategic and operational priorities for learning converge.

Some needs were identified which fell into the category of ' important but not valued' which meant that the organisation was not ready yet to tackle work in this area but this allowed us to explore how to establish its imperative for the future.

This exercise identified the key development interventions which would guide the design and delivery of the programme and also uncovered key non development solutions which were identified as important in the organisation. We flagged these up to senior management as key to the future success of internationalisation of the company. Many of these solutions centred around the need to redesign human resource policies to facilitate international working. None of them was unpredictable hut it was helpful to substantiate change with the clearly defined business need.

It was clear that any development intervention needed to focus on three key groups: the senior mangers across the organisation, the young managers with potential to become the senior managers of the future and finally, any manager currently, or soon to be, managing an international team. The design and delivery consequently needed fo be pitched differently whilst remaining in harmony with each other.

VALlDATION

Validation of our approach could only be demonstrated in a formal review of the impact of the three programmes. Cairns' 1997 study into evaluating management development identified 65% of respondents did not consistently measure its impact because of difficulties in quantifying results, lack of management involvement, lack of clear objectives and lack of tools and time. Progress was demonstrated by controlling information as ` a critical part of creating a dominant definition of reality.' (Pfeffer) For example, end -of- course `happy' sheets which measure reactions rather than leaming. Our level 1 reaction was very high with a strong level with strongly expressed support for the internationalisation of the company as well as comments which referred to a sense of `belonging' to the company.

This did not give either a realistic measure of what was actually leamed or of whether it was put onto practice. Dena Michelli argues that 'highly objective measures do not tell the full story. Subjective and contextual information is needed to enrich data that enable judgements to be made on the value of a programme.'
We decided to conduct a post programme evaluation after three months. Questions were posed about the benefits of the programme and whether any of the learning had been put into practise with what results. The respondents were asked to quote specific examples and outcomes to do with productivity, efficiency, creativity or business results. There was a 39% response rate and the quality of the resulting data was good. The respondents had a good sense of the contribution that the programme had made to their development and many specific examples were cited that showed international working and as a result business success in these areas could be directly attributed to the programme.

SUMMARY

The value of management development is not visible. Yet increasing global competition has led to intense pressure on HRD to demonstrate that programmes contribute directly to the organisations bottom-line.' ( Holton) It is critical that the potential strategic contribution of management development is clearly understood by the senior management group in any organisation intending to invest in a managemeny development programme.
The value based approach to management development is one way that this can be achieved.