Question
Normally in our IT organisation, people are promoted due to their technical knowledge. The fact is, many of these people would benefit from some kind of management training. Can you recommend any programs that I can implement for my technical managers?
Answer
You raise a great point. Technical people typically ask for technical training, but often what they need most is managerial, people-skills, and leadership training.
You aren't alone in your desire to add soft skills to your technical staff. Consider this quote from the 3/17/03 issue of Business Week: "IBM is spending US$100 Million to teach 30,000 employees to lead, not control their staff, so workers won't feel like cogs in a machine."
The types of training that would benefit your group fall into several skill categories: understanding people, leading people, and managing projects.
Engineers and technologists typically aren't the best at reading people. A number of programs related to reading people are available, ranging from simple to numbingly complex. The simpler programs often provide the greatest benefit with the smallest time investment. A number of these programs categorize people's personalities into four quadrants. Some systems use animals and others use descriptive labels. (For example, a reserved, cautious person is an Owl in one system and an Analytical in another.) These systems are simple enough to teach to all of your management team, or even better, to your entire department.
The Wilson Learning model, the one I know best, can dramatically improve people's ability to understand one another. I learned a simple version years ago and it is now ingrained in our company culture. The offerings on the Wilson Learning Web site are quite extensive and could give you a wide range of choices for training your team.
Not all training needs to be formal. A management book that builds on this reading-people premise is You've Only Got Three Seconds: How to Make the Right Impression in Your Business and Social Life by Camille Lavington. Instead of focusing on how to read people, Camille teaches you how to present yourself.
The book starts:
"THEY'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
Get used to it. The real world has your number. It only takes people three seconds to know where you're coming from. Within a few seconds they can size you up. It's not a comforting prospect to be judged so hastily, but that's the way it is."
The book takes you through considerable self-examination, so you can plan for the impression you want to present. You could make this book or a similar one the basis of a training session for your staff.
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