Human resource management practice I also available by michael armstrong

Formal approaches to 

management development

Formal  approaches  to  management  development 

consist of processes and events that are planned and 

provided  by  the  organization.  These  should  be 

based  on  the  identification  of  development  needs. 

The  methods  of  defining  learning  needs  described  

in Chapter 23 can be used to determine collective 

needs.  For  individuals,  performance  management 

reviews  are  an  important  means  of  producing  

personal development plans and learning contracts, 

also  described  in  Chapter  23.  This  can  be  done 

more systematically at development centres. These 

consist of a concentrated (usually one or two days) 

programme of exercises, tests and interviews designed 

to  identify  managers’  development  needs  and  to 

provide  counselling  on  their  careers.  Competency 

frameworks can be used as a means of identifying 

and  expressing  development  needs  and  pointing  

the  way  to  self-managed  learning  programmes  or 

the  provision  of  learning  opportunities  by  the  

organization.

The formal approaches that can be used are:

 

●

planned experience – which includes job 

rotation, job enlargement, taking part in 

project teams or task groups and secondment 

outside the organization – this is possibly the 

most effective approach on the grounds that 

managers learn to manage mainly by 

managing;

 

●

coaching – a personal and usually one-to-one 

approach to helping people develop their 

skills and levels of competence (coaching 

skills are dealt with in Chapter 52);

 

●

mentoring – the process of using specially 

selected and trained individuals (mentors) to 

provide guidance, pragmatic advice and 

continuing support that will help the person 

or persons allocated to them to learn and 

develop (see also Chapter 52);

 

●

action learning – a method of helping 

managers develop their talents by exposing 

them to real problems; they are required to 

analyse them, formulate recommendations 

and then take action;

 

●

outdoor learning – getting teams of