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The potential of a creative approach to stimulate the thought of corporate executives and to prompt them to innovate, is demonstrated.

Implemented in 1998, the mission of the United States Postal Service's Advanced Leadership Program is designed to solve its leadership crisis. Few imagined that the program would deliver much more [...]

Issues concerning the growth of in-house so-called corporate universities are discussed. Companies which have set up such systems, in order to train and motivate staff, linking with universities to offer accreditation, are examined.

Some of the world's best leaders are in the nonprofit area, according to Global Leadership Program Director Noel Tichy, who is also professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the University of Michigan. He highlights the responsibility of today's leaders for developing the leaders of the future.

It is important to make a distinction between management training, which helps people to deal with their management problems, and management development, which develops people so that they are in a better position to deal with their management difficulties by themselves. Companies seeking help with management training must decide whether they want specific job training, personal management development with the aim of organizational change or the development of the whole company and help for managers in tackling new challenges.

You need people ready to lead. But in an era of continual job hopping and constant change, how do you approach succession planning? Successful companies don't view it as a [...]

Many firms, such as banks, cannot afford to devote much time for employee and management training so, if they can afford the cost of outsourcing training, they should not hesitate to hire an outside expert group to handle the activity. Others may only need to add onto their existing in-house training programs. Whatever the training needs of a particular bank, costs involved in training should be considered as investment., Training is a vital part of any organization, and banking is no different. In an industry where survival depends on employees delivering quality service based on strong sales skills and [...]

Managers need to have skills and abilities to cope with the turbulence of the business environment. In their desire to become more competitive and to achieve cost savings, companies are radically transforming themselves by adopting new technology, reengineering work processes, downsizing the core workforce and introducing new flexible working practices. One of the biggest changes in the corporate environment is the demise of the traditional employment relationship which was characterized by the unspoken understanding that employees were to give loyalty and effort to the company while employers were to provide life-long job security and career development. With the end of the concept of employment for life, employers should help prepare their employees with life-long employability. Managers should be trained to enhance their employability by helping them redirect their skills base from technical to transferable skills.

The efficacy of training has been questioned as early as the 1980s. Although training of employees and managers was widely regarded as valuable to the organization, there were doubts that it was producing desired changes, a suspicion which was later supported by research studies showing the inefficacy of training at the time. This weakness has been traced to the training profession's reliance on questionable assumptions, unsuitable methodology, untested theories and fads. Fortunately, the training professionals were able to address these concerns. Still, there are things that practitioners can do to further improve their profession. Opportunities abound in the areas of objectives, implementation, content, delivery, methodology and evaluation., THEN Techniques for Evaluating Training Programs Here are the original four articles (condensed) from November through February 1959, published in T&D when it was the Journal for the American Society [...]

Growing emphasis on organizational learning has been a big boost to specialized consulting firms and business schools offering executive-education and leadership-development programs. Aside from these two competitors, potential entrants to the market include executive educators whose teaching excellence are not rewarded with tenure by universities where they teach. Other potential entrants are corporate internal education staffers, retiring executives and suppliers. Suppliers are usually professors and independent consultants as well sa firms that create, package and market materials to be used in management or leadership development programs. However, the market is threatened by potential substitutes to management and leadership development programs, such as executive MBA programs and university research centers.

Management development has emerged as an important tool for increasing market competitiveness. Thus, its integration with business strategy formation is projected to boost organizational performance. Management development must focus on building employee competence and the learning environment aimed at future global competition. The recruitment of outstanding personnel is expected to play a more important role in market advantage over physical assets, financial base or brand products.

A well-planned executive development program is critical to the success of any company in today's competitive environment. Management teams need assistance in adapting to the new challenges and role expectations for leaders in such an environment. Human resource (HR) managers that intend to implement an executive development process in their own organizations can apply Shewart's 'Plan-Do-Check-Act' cycle, which is normally used as a problem-solving process in improvement programs. In the plan phase, HR practitioners should asssess executive development needs, raise the awareness of executives regarding the challenges they face, and create a development plan. The 'do' phase entails the implementation of all actions supporting the executives' needs, while the check phase involves measuring the impact of development program. The act phase involves institutionalizing effective initiatives, reorganizing, and determining which executives to promote and to outplace., Planning an organization's approach to executive development is critical in this competitive age. In the past ten years in a dozen or more quality/culture change efforts, not once have I [...]

The executive development processes of various Japanese companies with respect to the maintenance of their international competitiveness were studied. Among the firms whose executives were interviewed were Nippon Steel, Nissan Motors, Sumitomo Metals and Hitachi. The role of personnel departments, the interfunctional and interplant rotation of executives and promotion systems of Japanese firms were also examined. Among the short-term strategies of the firms were improvement of the quality of raw materials and components and continuous improvement of the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of production facilities.

Executive education programs need to be led by the CEO and must go beyond the typical MBA-type training in order to develop executives capable of leading change. Executive education? The [...]

Karen Maggio, corporate director of organization development for Children's World Learning Centers, a nationwide child-care provider, thought she had died and gone to HRD heaven. Her company had a new [...]

Each year this telecommunications company relocates more than 1,000 of its key managers and executives, most for developmental assignments. Here's the company's strategic thinking and how it does it. In [...]

The 21st-century American expatriate manager (EM) will have completely different professional skills and experience, management orientation and professional challenges from those of today's managers. The recruitment, selection and development of [...]

The Welch Grape Juice Co's strategy for enhancing its competitiveness involves the pursuit of total quality leadership. One area that Welch's is seeking to strengthen is the development of its supervisors and managers because the company recognizes that continuous development of managerial skills can be an important source of competitive advantage. Welch's introduced a supervisory training program in 1986 after evaluating its supervisors and managers and finding them deficient in interpersonal, leadership and communication skills. The training program covers such areas as time management, effective union relations, effective disciplinary and corrective action discussions, communications, and other leadership skills. Managerial skills development is all part of Welch's cultural revolution, referred to as Operation Excellence., In this age of corporate restructuring, downsizing, 'rightsizing,' mergers, acquisitions, flattening of the organization, global competition, and intense domestic competition, who has time to think about development? Most of us [...]

As the pace of business activity and change accelerates, managers filling openings are demanding immediate performance and having less and less tolerance for delay. The honeymoon period, a time of [...]

A profile of typical Japanese cultural values indicates that Japan has different priorities and social values than the US. Astute firms which recognize these differences and which provide cross-cultural training are the firms which will achieve success in the global market. For example, studies of US-Japanese business interactions indicate that various ideas should be included in cross-cultural training, including: communicating that US workers need a world perspective and knowledge of firms; understanding that Japanese managers have different values and work expectations; and understanding that Japanese firms value other qualities besides technical expertise., The Occidental Tourist Learning about another culture isn't just good manners--it's good business. This guide, based on real, long-term experience with multinational companies, shows that cross-cultural training is essential if [...]

Executives can use a variety of leadership techniques, including transactional leadership, which rewards employees for services delivered, and transformational leadership, which explains realistic corporate visions and focuses on worker diversity. Experience has shown that transactional leadership tends to limit employee effort and satisfaction, while transformational leadership stimulates workers' intelligence. Firms interested in developing transformational-focused executives can encourage the selection and retention of employees who have the possibility of developing into transformational leaders. Additionally, transformational leadership techniques can be promoted by providing training seminars and designing organizational cultures to accommodate transformational techniques., From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision Sir Edmund Hillary of Mount Everest fame liked to tell a story about one of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's earlier [...]

Jack Sanger, Director of the Centre for Organisational Research at Anglia Polytechnic University, England, has been involved in coaching senior managers at financial services firm M&G. Sanger's technique links traditional consultancy with coaching that concentrates on individual performance.

The creation of the UK Benefits Agency in Apr. 1991 has brought a new business philosophy to benefits management. With the organization's new agency status, it became apparent that the traditional command and control leadership approach would hinder the Benefits Agency's ability to respond quickly and appropriately with changes in the environment. This realization was followed by the recognition of the need for employee empowerment. The Agency came to acknowledge that front-line personnel must have the information and authority that could enable them to make decisions that would improve customer service. To be able to tap the potential of front-line employees, the Benefits Agency has implemented a development program that seeks to train managers in promoting employee empowerment.

'The time has come. . . to talk of many things. . . . And why the sea is boiling hot - and whether pigs have wings.' 'The Walrus,' from [...]

Companies planning to initiate a financial professional development program are advised to assign a person or a team to handle the management of professional development and appoint representatives from each department to the program. Continuous encouragement of professional management is also important, as is assessment of results. Telecommunications firm NYNEX shares its experience in developing and implementing a comprehensive professional enhancement program for its financial executives., How do you turn your finance department into an agile, world-class unit? That was the challenge we faced at NYNEX in 1988, four years after the company was formed in [...]

Management development programs should focus on training people to cope with swiftly changing business conditions. They should also prepare people to operate in management structures that have eliminated the need for many middle managenent tiers. Furthermore, these programs should aim to train managers to handle and implement change. This ability to manage change is a skill that has been identified by graduate recruiters as one of the most important characteristics of an effective manager. Other skills that are regarded as good indicators of managerial competence are excellent communication abilities, strong leadership traits and expertise in solving problems.

A first-time engineer/manager may confront difficult situations that will challenge the acceptance of that new role by former peers. The chances are that most associates will be accepting. But for [...]