Services - Managerial Development

Using the information for whatever data gathering technique was used in the initial phase of an organization intervention, the process of managerial development is initiated. Working with either individuals or teams or both, Hill-Weston & Associates helps the organization improve the management skills of its people for the benefit of the employee and customer.

Hill-Weston & Associates bases its services on five factors of the management star (the concept of the management star was developed in Galbraith, J. R. Designing Organizations: An Executive Briefing on Strategy, Structure and Process. San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1995.) The five points or managerial factors of the management star are:

Typical consulting services in the five factors of the management star are the following:

Strategy
Environmental scanning – Evaluating the factors in the environment that influence the organization’s performance is a critical first step in formulating strategy.

Identifying resources – A firm’s core competencies are rare, valuable, difficult to duplicate and non-substitutable. Core competencies must be identified and developed for every firm.

Strategy formulation – Making the match between the environment and the firm’s core competencies is the essence of strategy formulation.

Strategy implementation – The action plan of strategy is key to its implementation. This is the plan that takes the firm from where it is now to where it wants to be.

Structure
Job design – Grouping tasks necessary to accomplish the strategic plan is the essence of job design.

Organization design – Grouping jobs into efficient patterns of communication and support is the function of job design. It begins by linking the jobs related to each core competency, then linking the core competencies for effectiveness and efficiency.

Team-based structures - Teams are often an effective means of communication and efficiency. Team structures can exist within traditional functional or client based designs, or can be a structure unto themselves.

De-layering – An efficient result of team-based structures is often de-layering, or reducing levels of hierarchy in the organization. Organizations can improve response time and reduce costs with de-layering.

Reengineering - This is the process of reassembling tasks (often as a part of a new strategy) into new job designs. It rids the organization of tasks that add little value to the organization.

Rewards
Motivation programs – For the firm, motivation means employees doing what is necessary to accomplish the strategic goals. Matching rewards to strategic task completion is a motivation program.

Performance-based reward systems – Rewards that are tied to achieving specific goals or completing specific tasks are performance-based rewards. Performance is always evaluated relative to achieving strategic goals.

Matching rewards to desired behavior – Desired behaviors are employee actions that efficiently complete strategic tasks. If sharing information is a behavior that facilitates task accomplishment within the firm, then rewards that match that behavior help achieve strategic goals.

Process
Information-flow analyses – This is the analysis of who needs specific information and who has that information. Developing information flows is the process of getting the needed information from those who have it to those who need it, in a desired format and through an efficient medium.

Participative management - This management style begins with the premise that employees at all levels possess knowledge critical to the accomplishment of strategic goals. It is through participation in decision making that this knowledge is brought out and utilized.

Customer feedback - Another critical aspect of organization process is customer feedback. Developing mechanisms to obtain that feedback and internalize it for productive benefit is important to the firm’s survival.

Organization change and development – Organizations must continually adjust and change to meet changes in their environment. Building change into the organization’s process means the organization will be continuously adjusting to environmental changes and will be less likely to require major strategic restructuring.

People
Selection criteria - Documenting the skills and personality of the ideal candidate for a management position is a critical first step in securing the right people in the organization.

Personality assessment - Evaluating skills is relatively easy compared with determining that the personality of a candidate is right of the job and the organization.

360º Performance assessment - An effective tool in evaluating management performance is obtaining feedback from those who rely on the manager: superior, subordinates, peers, customers and suppliers.

Executive coaching - Working one-on-one, Kenneth D. Hill develops a specifically tailored plan of skill development identifying specific behaviors to be changed for the manager. The behavior changes emerge from the results of the data-gathering phase of the investigation. Then over a period of months the manager and Dr. Hill work together, using daily on-the-job incidents, to gradually change target behaviors from nonproductive to productive.

Team Development – Working with managerial teams and workgroups, improved communication and productivity are targeted for development. Critical to any group intervention is a focus on the organization strategy and goal attainment. Communication improvement is centered on discussing actions that will help goal attainment. Often moving a team’s communication form routine actions to discussions of strategic implementation can improve team cohesion and job satisfaction.

Leadership Skill Enhancement – Hill-Weston & Associates Identifies the appropriate leadership style for the situation in an organization or work group, and then trains the leaders of that organization in the skills necessary to become the leaders the organization needs. Many organizations advance good, loyal workers into supervisory positions and then to managerial positions without giving them the proper training to fulfill their new jobs. In addition, the organization may impart quite different demands on its leaders as the organization evolves and new governmental requirements are enacted. Once satisfactory managers may fail to transition to the new more demanding leadership roles. Training managers with specific organization needs can be timely and more cost effective than sending managers to outside, more generalized programs.