Management Development: A Guide for the Profession

Citation

Roscoe, J. (1999), "Management Development: A Guide for the Profession", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 31 No. 6, pp. 46-47. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.1999.31.6.46.1

A good basic textbook for someone new to both training and management development. The book has 28 chapters organized around five sections. These are: Perspectives (five chapters), Management Development Cycle (four), Methods (eight), Management ÑDevelopment Programmes in Practice Ñ(seven), Developing Effective Trainers (four). The chapters are written by a collection of 22 authors from around the world who are generally recognizable as credible experts in the areas of their contributions.

The book′s content is structured around the systematic approach to training. It deals with identifying training needs, design of training, implementation and evaluation. The first section provides an overview of management development. The second section′s four chapters are structured around systematic training, and apply general training principles and techniques to a management development context. The third section explores a range of techniques which may be used in the design and delivery of management development programmes. The fourth section describes examples of management development programmes for supervisors, scientists, women, the public sector, and small‐ and medium‐size enterprises. The final section on developing trainers presumes the trainer starts from being a classroom instructor in a training institution delivering parts of a management development curriculum.

There is no index in this book of 600 pages although there are good contents pages and lists of figures, tables and boxes. Eighteen pages of references are drawn mainly from the 1980s with the most recent 1996 and a sprinkling of early 1990s.

The theme is of centrally designed and administered, all‐encompassing management development interventions possibly funded through government grants rather than in‐company activities. The training curriculum is referred to in the book and reinforces a training‐institution‐based model of management development.

Reference is made to changes from trainer‐centred to learner‐centred approaches but to my mind this is an overwhelmingly trainer‐centred approach book. No point in looking here for new ideas on learner‐centred ways of supporting management development although self‐development is covered.

The authors seem to reflect on the 1970s and 1980s, and signpost the 1990s rather than focus on new millennium issues. This feels strange as the book was published in 1998 and many of the issues included have developed significantly over the past five years. One illustration is using the Management Charter Initiative Management Standards from 1991 when they were revised and republished in 1997. Another is that the COLD Standards for open learning tutors are referred to as new when they have been around for ten years and have not had the impact suggested here.

Flatter and leaner organizations have arrived with major implications for careers in general and management development in particular. The emphasis on individual responsibility for professional and personal development and individual career management escapes this book.

The target reader appears to be someone about to start contributing to a management development programme as a trainer working in a management training centre. For someone new to training in general and management development in particular there is some useful material in this book. It sets the scene for management development and introduces some well‐founded and proven principles, tools and techniques. It can be dipped into as each chapter is free standing as illustrated by Malcolm Knowles′s “Andragogyî” appearing four times, Kolb′s “Learning Cycleî” appearing three times and the “Directive and non‐directive consulting Ñcontinuumî” appearing graphically twice. Good as a basic text but of limited attraction as an addition to a library of management development materials.