Consulting Is Awesome — And You Can Do It, Too

Posted on: 7 February 2023

Management training is essential to organizational success. While people often treat leadership as an innate quality, the reality is that consultants teach people the necessary skills to be great managers all the time. You should understand the tools of management development before committing to the process, though. Organizations should be aware of how consulting firms use the following four tools to train current and future managers.

Workshops    

Hands-on management experience is hard to come by without just doing the job. Throwing people in the management waters and hoping they can swim, though, is setting many of them up for failure. Especially if you're dealing with inexperienced managers in key positions, you want to have a controlled environment for management development.

Workshops offer an opportunity for consultants to present scenarios and discuss ideas with students. If someone signals that they're having trouble communicating with new subordinates, for example, the consultant can walk through a version of the scenario. The student can react to the simulated situation, get quick input, reset, and try again.

Seminars

Management training should try to keep people as up-to-date as possible. Seminars offer the chance for managers to learn about emerging technologies, social trends, and best practices. If a senior manager has been in the business since before the days of social media, for example, they might need to learn how to communicate effectively with digital natives. A seminar can introduce ideas and provide time for questions.

Courses

Some managerial jobs require an understanding of systems, techniques, and processes. Frequently, managers dealing with something like data analytics need to simply learn the technologies and practices. An online course is often best for introducing such professionals to certain kinds of software and how to do things.

Suppose someone needs help learning how to turn spreadsheets into a presentation. They can take the course, get familiar with the software, and then make several presentations to polish their skills.

Mentoring and Coaching

Many people need one-on-one guidance. An experienced manager might jump from a highly familiar part of their industry to something less so, for example. Suppose someone who has managed a software development team wants to move up. They might not be as familiar with the finance and budgeting side of the job at the higher level. A mentor can field their questions as they interact with the job at the higher level, providing feedback as their management development progresses. If they need practical input about how to do specific things, the mentor can coach them through it a couple of times.

Learn more about management training services.