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Q: I keep hearing about management development. What is it? And why should I be concerned about it?

A: Today's whirlwind of a market place insists that employees grow and learn more rapidly than ever before. As your business grows, new and unexpected challenges present themselves, issues that you never had to deal with before become common, new solutions are demanded. Unless you and your management team are able to adapt and think outside of the proverbial box, your firm's growth can be stunted if not reversed.

Mentoring and coaching programs in many industries and organizations are tailored to meet these demands. However, the managers and executives who would normally implement these programs have rarely been taught how to do so. They are simply expected to know how.

First, let's make some distinctions. Management development overlaps with, but is not, supervision, teaching of a particular skill or knowledge base, mentoring or counseling. Supervision's goal is the successful completion of a task. The aim of teaching is for a student to learn a particular skill. Mentoring helps in career planning. Counseling deals with problems and dilemmas.

In contrast, the executive tasked with aiding in the development of his or her direct reports is a coach. He carefully plots the tasks assigned to a direct report in terms of the kinds of challenges presented and just as carefully debriefs the direct report on the process of how the task was accomplished.

The goal of coaching is a broadening of the direct report's repertoire of behaviors and insights in anticipation of a variety of situations that can be expected down the road. The broader his repertoire, the more responsive he can be in a variety of situations; the more responsive, the more varied the tasks he can be assigned; the more diverse the tasks, the more aspects of his style can be held up to scrutiny resulting in new learnings- all of which strengthens his professional and personal development.

Since the dynamics of the assigned tasks is so crucial to professional development, a typology is needed. Research (a) on the nature of tasks indicates that there are basically six types: Scope, Scratch, Fix-It, Project, Line-to-Staff and Staff-to-Line and Supervision. Exhibit #1 lists the major themes or issues characterizing each task, as well as examples that are particularly illustrative of the themes.

In mapping a developmental plan, the the executive or manager, in negotiation with his direct report, has to consider the following at the least:

• The kinds of professional experiences and opportunities the direct report has already encountered
• The personality style of the direct report
• The kind of exposure and challenge the direct report is going to need for both his professional development as well as what the organization needs
• The available tasks that could be assigned
• What she will focus on during the debrief

To illustrate, the managing director of a medical practice was quick to make decisions and, in many instances, too quick. Many of his decisions (e.g., hiring consultants and employees, about business issues, etc.) had to be undone because of the lack of adequate pre-analysis. A factor motivating this style was his need to see himself as a "strong leader", i.e., in his mind, someone who arrived at conclusions rapidly and by himself without consulting with others. He did not allow himself the time it took to explore the "scope" of his decisions.

Coaching focused on how to expand the field of information he would need to make decisions. Thus, for example, in hiring an accountant, a great deal of time was spent, first, in charting what exactly he considered to be "ideal" in terms of reports, services rendered, relationships, etc. He then had several accounting firms present proposals that took into account his "ideal" accounting firm. In comparing the firms, he wrote down the pluses and minuses of each firm and then went back to each and reviewed his evaluation.

A "scope" task entails dealing with unfamiliar territory. Unless a manager has a method of gathering the information necessary to function in that type of arena, he will fail. The manager of the medical practice did not have one. Coaching focused on helping him develop one that can be used in a variety of settings and for a host of issues. Though his position and responsibilities in the practice did not allow him exposure to "scope" tasks per se, he did widen his field of vision.

The owner of a large privately owned conglomerate had selected a senior manager to run the "old" business while he was beginning to develop another endeavor. The manager had already demonstrated his abilities in "fix-it" and "project" type assignments, but he hadn't as yet had the experience of a "scope" task. If he was going to run an entire business, he needed to widen his perspective in several areas. His prior work revealed a man who was clearly goal-oriented. However, if something had to be done, he would tend to do it himself rather than delegate the responsibilities to others. Also, he was a nice guy. He found it difficult to keep his direct reports on target, to insist that deadlines be met and objectives be attained. He dreaded having to give negative feedback to his direct reports.

The assignment he was given was to change the entire marketing and sales scheme of the business, the scope of which was so vast that delegation of responsibility, hewing to deadlines, developing goals that had to be met were mandatory pre-requisites for success. The coaching process focused on these dynamics, pointing out how his not delegating enough forced deadlines to be missed, how his being a "nice guy" contributed to not meeting goals, etc.

This experience allowed him to reconsider his assumptions about how work can be accomplished and, particularly, about himself and how he functioned as a leader. The success he realized when he did became president of the business no doubt can be attributed to a large extent to his learning in the "scope" assignment.

In contrast to this approach to management development is the typical debriefing by a manager of his direct report's behavior in an assignment. The spotlight is often and (usually) exclusively on the end product, the result. Rarely will a manager parse the specific actions taken by his direct report and, if he does, he usually does not have in mind the goal of professional and personal development. The manager's stance is understandable - he is responsible for the performance of his division or section and the assignment's main function is to contribute to that. The executive/coach, on the other hand, has to consider both functions - the end result and staff development. Melding these abilities is the hallmark of the successful executive/coach.

(a). Adapted from Benchmarks: A Manual and Trainer's Guide, by Maxine Dalton, Michael M. Lombardo, Cynthia D. McCauley, Dana McDonald-Mann, Ross Moxley, Jill Wachholz. Center for Creative Leadership, 1997