Case study - Future Managers Programme for an international engineering group

This three-year programme of five day residential courses was conceived and organised by Richard Winfield of Brefi Group for directors, senior managers and high fliers from the subsidiaries of an international engineering company, as well as some group staff. Delegates attended from companies based in Europe, America and Australia, with courses run in England, Wales, USA and Canada.

The five day courses were NLP based with a theme of learning to learn, improving communication skills and understanding the individuals' job roles. Each course included projects by small teams that were delivered to a senior visitor on the last day.

Delegates were told that the courses would address communications, strategic thinking and presentation skills, with opportunities to address personal issues, including personality style, inter-personal skills and career planning. They were expected to read a set book beforehand.

1996

Two Future Managers courses, in the UK and in Canada, each for 18 directors of subsidiaries, sponsored by their managing directors but selected jointly by the group chief executive and Richard Winfield. Both were attended at some point by the chief executive or other senior directors to demonstrate their commitment.

The courses were run by a team of three trainers which included Richard Winfield, demonstrating partnership and creating a link between the training and the job site. The first course, in the UK, for the more senior directors also featured visits from external experts and a whole day devoted to scenario planning.

The courses introduced the NLP skills described above and involved a significant amount of time working in three teams preparing presentations for the last day. This was to give them practical experience of team work and the application what they had learned. Each individual was able to have at least on intensive one-on-one with one of the trainers.

From most people the response was overwhelmingly positive. A few returned to their workplace with stories of weird exercises, suffering from an element of culture shock - these were generally cases where their bosses had openly resisted the programme.

1997

The third Future Managers programme was held in Texas and subtitled 'Agents of Change'. The previous courses had tended to select people in a line manager role, which left out financial directors. This third course mainly featured financial directors and human resources staff. One member of the training team was replaced because of pregnancy, but otherwise the approach was consistent. Line dancing and volleyball were added. On this occasion a divisional director flew out from the UK for the last day of the course.

The purpose of the early Future Managers programme was to sweep up those senior staff who had or were about to reach director level but had missed out on management training over the last twenty years.

The second course in 1997 was intended to set young high fliers on an academic career, and three of the delegates have since joined part time post graduate courses with Warwick University. But there were still others who felt they had missed out on the Future Managers programme and so selection for the course turned out to be a compromise between he two groups.

This course was held at Warwick University and based on a highly successful module of the Masters programme called Improving Personal Performance (IPP). The purpose of the course is to help participants learn to succeed in an unstructured environment, to take personal responsibility and to learn about their own learning style - to learn to learn. It is mainly unstructured and in many cases when participants ask for training it is refused - though lots of resources and one-on-one coaching are available.

1998

This year the course was called 'The Foundation for Development' and offered to 22 delegates. Selection for this course was different. The course was widely advertised and individuals had to make their own application and attend an interview in the UK or USA. Both the application process and the interview were designed to be thought provoking. The selection process represented a major breakthrough. In past years people had been 'sent' and in some parts of the company there had been continued resistance from managing directors. Self selection gave a surprising mix of well motivated participants, some of whom would have been unlikely to be picked out by more traditional processes. In addition, delegates were given pre-course activities and travelled to and from the venue together by coach. As a result, the course was able to start at a high level,

This course was based on the previous year's IPP course, expanded to include outdoor development activities. It was held on the Welsh coast and included an activity called 'coasteering' followed by sea kayaking at the end of the first day and a walk in the Preseli mountains on the evening of day four. The first activities were a metaphor for personal breakthrough and team support to match the indoor learning and the walk was an opportunity to reflect on the learnings. On day three the group was visited by two musicians with drums, didgeridoos etc, which individuals and groups enthusiastically took up at different times of the day - including a concert in a cave on the beach.

Interestingly, the most common learning arising from these activities was that these managers didn't always have to lead. They learned that on occasion it was quite acceptable to let others lead and even for them to ask for help.

On the fourth day delegates took over completely and ran their own activities for 24 hours. For the presentation on the last day guests included two directors who had been on previous courses, as 're-entry consultants', and two successful female entrepreneurs.

The programme's main objective was to develop self-motivated, dynamic managers and directors. At the end of one of the courses an ex-marine stated "If service personnel were given training like this, there would be fewer suicides after they re-entered civilian life."

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