Management Development That Works

Management development is big business. Yet much of the expenditure, corporate or individual, has tended to be an act of faith, rather than an ‘evidence-based’ investment. The authors of the chapters in Management Development that Works all have extensive involvement with the area, as well as having Business School appointments. Here, their chapters provide a compelling description of what actually works in management development.   

Today, organisations and their leaders face complex, interconnected challenges, often spanning national borders and having significant global consequences. How they can be helped to tackle these challenges is a significant responsibility. This important book therefore should be essential reading for all those concerned with the making of managers, both today and for the future. 

The book’s sections address in turn how managers learn, where they learn, what they need to learn to tackle future challenges and how to make management development work now and for the future. Management Development that Works discusses the importance of emotional as well as intellectual stretch in the learning process and reinforces the fundamental idea that management learning is facilitated most effectively through practical experiences and active reflection. This process places a particularly challenging responsibility on facilitators and educators.

Off-the-shelf solutions will no longer do. Learning is the only viable competitive advantage for organisations, and ‘sticky learning’ – learning that transfers effectively to the workplace – is vital. In future, effective management development interventions will be a crucial driver of sustained success, and must move beyond simply responding to traditional perceptions and outdated ways of working. They must offer cutting-edge thinking and practice which feeds, nurtures, develops, cajoles, challenges and stimulates managers to be the best they can be.