Choosing Executive Training by Function, or Dysfunction? Part 1
Executive Training is such a popular search term that I felt compelled to ask, “What are all of the people who use it really looking for?” It would be logical to assume that companies invest in training for their executives to make their organization more 
effective and productive, giving them a good return on their investment. But one thing I learned during my 15 years in the corporate ranks is that organizational decisions are not always logical! So my next question is, “How do companies identify which executives stand to benefit most from what sort of training?” Is it industry specific? Function specific? Challenge specific? Are each executive’s training requirements unique to him or her? Or is the answer to be found in an executive training equation that combines values from all of these categories, and perhaps even more?
To find out, I conducted an informal and totally unscientific survey of recent reports and surveys that sought answers to the question, “What are the biggest challenges faced by executives?”
For oil company executives, in our current climate of high (and rising) gas prices, their biggest challenges seem to be:
- Changing the public perception of their companies from price gouging and monopolistic (quite a feat, given their industry’s penchant for mergers and over the top profits) to benevolent and philanthropic. In order to succeed in this objective, they must:
- Convince the public that their companies increasing sizes and profits enable them to serve their customers (and indeed, their countries) by funding the research and technological development necessary to explore and expand energy options.
- Explain to the public that maintaining (or growing) their ranking in a highly competitive industry is necessary for them to succeed with their above outlined mission.
How very interesting! It seems that the executive training that would best serve oil company executives would be programs that enhance their communication and persuasion skills. Media training would be helpful and debating skills could also be utilized.
Now let’s look at a the executive training requirements from a global perspective. Executives building global [for profit] enterprises state that their biggest challenges are*:
- “Maintaining a common corporate culture [throughout global markets]” 49%
- “Understanding local customs and ways of doing business” 44 %
- “Serving remote clients/customers effectively” 41%
What sorts of training would best serve executives facing these challenges? They might want to 
consider a culture enhancement program (which is another description for organizational brand development). Diversity training would also be useful, along with a high level customer service training which could be rolled down through the ranks to the people on the front lines who actually deal with the customers. Actually, it might be interesting to turn the tables by having the front line people educate the executives on the issues they face every day before launching an amended broad scale customer service training. Emotional Intelligence training, complete with before and after 360 assessments would benefit the executives as well.
Sadly, only 55% of the executives who participated in this survey believe that their organizations are equipped to “develop leaders with the aptitude and skills to adapt to rapid change and new learning.” So a solid, outsourced leadership development program is also required, which explains why so many Internet searches target “leadership training.”
(*Source: Accenture Survey conducted Jan. 25, 2007)
In Part 2 of this article, I will continue to search for the answer to the question: “Are there common needs for Executive Training that supersede individual, functional and industry specific challenges?” Tell us what you think, then check out Part 2 to see what we discovered.
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[...] within organizations? Is training introduced to address problems, as we discussed in our Choosing Executive Training by Function or Dysfunction Series (Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4). Or is it chosen on the basis of apparent analysis? Could it [...]