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Shrewd guidance on management training
Page 155
Page 156
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THE STRESS laid upon management training by the Road Transport Industry Training Board is well known. The great pains taken by the Board's staff in taking soundings in the industry to determine the content of courses is perhaps less well known. I learned something of this in a recent instructive interview with Mr. M. H. M. Lees, a senior training officer of the Board, who was responsible for organizing the pilot course for transport managers on which the courses now running at the High Ercall Motec are based.
Mr. Lees talked to various road haulage operators and attended a number of courses at Technical Colleges, Pendley Manor, Ashridge Management Centre, etc, before preparing the syllabus for the pilot course put on at the Wembley headquarters in January.
At the pilot course, attended by 22 members, mostly senior executives and transport managers of medium to large firms, and with an admixture of training officers, the ages ranged from 24 to 55 years. I was interested to learn that the fleet strength of the road haulage members present ranged from two to 450 vehicles, with an average in the 40-80 bracket.
An impressive line-up of speakers was assembled for the pilot course. They included three senior officials of the Ministry of Transport, three managing directors of road transport organizations, a fleet engineer, a safety officer, an insurance expert, a law lecturer and a prominent trade union official concerned with road haulage staffs. After the formal lectures the discussion periods allowed time for obscurities to be ventilated and for friendly relationships to be established between course members and the visiting speakers.
Aims of the course Mr. Lees defined the aims of the course as follows: To introduce road haulage managers to the implications for them of the Transport Act, 1968, and other legal requirements; increase their awareness of the importance of accurate costing of their operations and to give them practical help in carrying this out; point the way towards improving industrial relations in road haulage with a view to increasing productivity; show managers how training can improve road transport operations. The pilot course was designed to last for five days and course members agreed with the organizers that this length is ideal for subsequent courses of this nature. Some improvements to the syllabus were suggested. Members felt that an afternoon session devoted to the legal requirements of vehicle maintenance shomd be defined more clearly with separate sessions on (a) C and U Regulations and (b) Plating and Testing of goods vehicles. It was urged that in any talk on planned vehicle maintenance several methods should be put forward, with time allowed to debate their merits or demerits. And there was a call for the lecture dealing with legal requirements to be more oriented to road transport needs.
Treatment in depth Of course, transport management is not learned in a five-day course. It was apparent during the discussions that some subjects such as costing required treatment in depth --a separate three-day course was suggested. It seems likely that as the new legislation becomes more familiar, subjects dealing with this aspect may be faded out and new subjects—such as marketing, work study, appreciation of organization and methods, etc.—introduced. I was a little surprised to hear Mr. Lees say that the course as constituted was of little value to fleet engineers. If the future is to see any "allpurpose" transport managers with experience of the operational and maintenance functions, each discipline must learn of the other's problems.
It is a matter for debate how much value is generalized management experience in the field of transport. Sir Joseph Hunt, chairman of the Management Training and Development Committee of the Central Training Council, says in the foreword to the latest report of his committee, "Training and development of managers—further proposals" that basic needs remain constant. ". . . The essential features of management training and development are applicable in appropriate forms to all industries, and indeed to all firms, whatever their size."
Bearing in mind that the Central Training Council is the guiding body for all the 26 industrial training boards so far established, its views are important. There is always a lamentable time-lag in the general adoption of well-proved ideas through a diversified industry such as road transport. The RT1TB has made a modest start with management training courses. The "meat" in this 6s booklet (available from HMSO) will provide scope for development for many years ahead.
Management is a controlling activity and managers are concerned with the use of the firm's resources to satisfy the firm's aims. The booklet stresses at the outset that successful management requires managers to: identify objectives and set them in order of importance; design and construct the means by which these objectives may be attained; and measure from time to time the progress being made.
Of course the resources available differ markedly in quantity and kind in particular businesses and environments. The resources in transport may include such things as money, buildings and plant, vehicles materials, possibly patents, certainly "knowhow" and equally certainly, human skills and ingenuity. The practitioner of management at any level must understand the resources available to him and his limits of authority and be able to assess them quantitatively and qualitatively in relation to his objective, in a skilled manner. Communication with others and the motivation and co-ordination of the Work of subordinates is important.
Not always easy The assessment of progress is not always accomplished easily. Some things can be measured with precision but in business generally many measurements have to be based on incomplete or indirect evidence; subjective judgments may be necessary. Because one of the purposes of measurement is control—a key function. of management —managers must perforce become skilled in the best available techniques of measurement, however crude some may be, and use them in the most appropriate ways.
In a world too often domindted by accountants it is interesting to read that "money is a convenient measure for many purposes, but it is not an appropriate means of measuring and controlling the use of all resources. The techniques of accounting and their application in the circumstances of a particular business are important for the manager; but it is also important that he should have some means of measuring, for example, human performance, or at least of making comparisons of attainment". Why are some firms much more successful in developing managers than others? Is it due to the "luck of the draw"—fortunate recruitment of high-quality staff—or to some less tangible reason? The report of the Central Training Council says categorically that experience of working in a wellmanaged organization where the "climate" is right for the development of managers will have more value than even the most elaborate training arrangements in an organization where it is not. In a favourable climate managers are allowed to manage and to learn from the consequences of their decisions; they know that achievement will be recognized and rewarded; that enterprise and new ideas are encouraged and there is no fear of the unorthodox; that senior managers not only talk to their staffs but they also listen to them.
Good sense
Does not this make good sense? We have all known firms where the personal ambitions and growth of individual managers contribute to the effectiveness of the business as a whole. Fortunate are the employees and managers in such enterprises. Conversely, there are not a few firms where the exercise of initiative or unorthodox thinking is actively discouraged.
The report rightly points out that a suitable climate for management development can be more easily created in expanding companies and in those concerned with the exploitation of new technologies. Rather surprisingly, it adds: ". . . it may also be more easily achieved in small or mediumsized firms than in larger organizations, depending as it does on the direct influence of the chief executive".
The increased competition brought about by the Transport Act 1968 will compel innovation; those firms pnwilling to exploit new ideas in mechanical handling, pooled services, grouped maintenance and training facilities, modern telecommunications and office aids and—needless to add—advanced labour relations methods, will be likely to lose ground rapidly.
But how many small or medium-sized road transport firms offer scope for an enterprising and energetic youngster to progress very far? Asked to advise a potential recruit to the industry, would not many senior managers recommend the career prospects offered by a large concern such as the National Freight Corporation or Transport Development Group companies?
Everything depends, as the Central Training Council recognizes, on "the direct influence of the chief executive". I know some managing directors of medium-sized transport firms whose reaction to the RTITB, long after its inception, Was hostile in the extreme. The prospect of drivers, let alone clerical staffs, having to be released
for training sessions was sickening to those executives. "When they come back they'll tell us how to run the business and demand more money for doing so."
Attitudes like this die hard. Given a free vote, how many heads of road transport businesses would abolish the RTITB and all its works at short notice? I hope the Board's commendable efforts to sell itself
and its most necessary products to the industry in the past year would result in a
positive demand for its continuance but only the most purblind enthusiast for training could say the matter was beyond doubt.
The point surely is a simple one: staff released for training will be worth more money when they return. They will seek to apply the lessons learned immediately; if they do not stimulate—and often aggravate—the boss or bosses of the business the training will have been a waste of time and money. In short, the existing managers of road transport businesses must swim with the current of change. Those who can swim even faster than the current—provided they pick the right objectives—will prosper.
The Central Training Council report insists that every board of directors must promote a viable policy of management development. Often it will be necessary to delegate to a senior executive the task of reviewing training policies as a whole but directors are told firmly that their continuous interest is essential. Small and medium-sized firms are encouraged to face the difficulties of releasing key staff for short period training courses. Modern management concepts and techniques learned may be particularly applicable to smaller firms "and are often more easily and effectively introduced in them than in larger organizations".
Important points Two further points in the Central Training Council's report stand out clearly. Managers at all levels must accept that it is an integral part of their job to harness and develop the potential of their own subordinates; and every manager must learn to improve his own performance.
As to the first point the report stresses that managers must be held responsible for the development of subordinates as much as for their other functions. While senior managers must be concerned with the calibre of middle managers, the latter in their turn must ensure there are well trained and able men in the junior ranks who are capable of promotion.
The self-improvement of managers is a relatively new concept. In the past there was a tendency to think that managers, by definition, were all-knowing and beyond criticism; today it is a foolish manager who pretends to know all the answers. (Perhaps some managers would retort that whether
this is so or not the impression must be left with staff that the boss is all-knowing!) The report rightly stresses that managers learn by managing. ". . . In the 'last resort performance can only be improved by the manager himself though he may be helped by the guidance of his superior to build up his strong points and make good his weaknesses, and to gain wider experience and enlarge his perspectives."
It follows that managers must be endowed with the appropriate degree of authority and facilities to do the job. The individual manager's efforts to develop himself and to "define the objectives against which he can measure his performance" are of crucial importance, to be discussed on another occasion.