Link Africa growth targets to right training, practice

In every organisation there are talent gaps and sometimes it will cost a company a fortune to develop the right skills and retain good managers. But how do companies develop these managers?

Recent research by the Africa Management Initiative (AMI), a social enterprise dedicated to building management capacity, showed that the continent needs a million effective and responsible managers to translate the opportunities of the next decade into a better life.

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be confronted by many complex challenges in its development efforts and aspirations.

In this region, including Kenya, many organisations lack strong management skills. Clear directions and goals, systems for supervision, monitoring and evaluation are often lacking or ineffective; organisational, departmental, unit roles and responsibilities are unclear or not well communicated.

Financial and accounting systems are weak; formalised and effective partnerships are few and the absorptive capacity for the available resources is low.

AMI Research, based on interviews with dozens of companies, experts, investors and managers, showed that good management is the missing link in the African growth story.

Separately, worldwide academic research by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and his colleagues demonstrates a clear link between better management practices and company performance. The research goes on to link the average quality of management in a country, to the poverty or prosperity of its population.

So developing managers clearly has an impact. It, therefore, goes without saying that Africa urgently needs effective and responsible managers to build competitive global companies, thriving SME sector and effective public and civil society institutions.

Textbook cases

How do you develop great managers to foster prosperity? Recently, we started working with a service business in Kenya. Their learning and development strategy before we started the engagement was ad-hoc, at best.

From time to time, they would respond to a staff request for ‘training’ by sending a handful of managers on an expensive programme at a local business school.

Occasionally they would even pay for a consultant to run an in-house workshop for staff. After the training was over, the managers would typically say they enjoyed.

But then they would file their books and papers away to gather dust in their offices. There was no attempt to help managers actually practice what they learned on the job. There was no attempt to measure whether knowledge, competence or performance actually improved.

This company needs an approach that is intensely practical. Textbooks are not enough: there should be a focus on ongoing improved performance.

Africa at large needs an approach to management development that is accessible to the average small business as well as large corporations. The best training should be grounded in the realities of African economies and business practice, not imported from elsewhere.

Managers are in charge of their own progress by combining formal courses with ongoing coaching and development tools and they apply what they learn on the job. They connect with their colleagues at work and across, making learning fun and engaging.

The best outcomes happen when managers learn new skills, they practice them with a structured process for feedback and ongoing improvement.

It is possible to customise each company’s programme to meet its managers’ needs and measure the progress.

The writer is the CEO & Co-Founder of the African Management Initiative.