Caterpillar builds multi-terrain loaders, hydraulic excavators, and other heavy equipment. They also teach their managers to nurture direct reports. While this may conjure up visions of awkward team-building exercises, or courses on developing interpersonal skills, Caterpillar’s goal is very pragmatic. According to an article from Workforce Management, they do it to stay competitive.
Managers at Caterpillar are expected to plot career paths for their direct reports, monitor their work, and keep an eye out for the brightest and best. The reward for these potential stars is structured training to learn other jobs and develop new skills. The reward for the company is a supply of highly-trained future leaders at a time when the lack of good managers is impacting companies in nearly every industry.
Caterpillar isn’t the only company to see the relationship between effective management and the bottom-line success of the organization. In 2001, management training was one of Campbell’s core strategies to transform “disengaged, untrusting and unhappy workers” into a productive workforce. For Mindy MacKenzie, Campbell’s VP of HR, six years of data points to at least one fact:
“The business units [whose managers] have the lowest engagement scores also have the lowest business results. Rarely is there an anomaly with that.”
Companies are investing more money than ever in management training and development (the figures are in the billions), but it’s a 180-degree shift from what the article refers to as “management-training fluff.” Managers don’t learn how to resolve conflict, they learn how to communicate corporate goals and strategies. As Jim Concelman, a VP at Development Dimensions International, notes:
“Executives aren’t losing sleep over training, but they are worried about how they’re going to execute global business strategies. They are beginning to realize that identifying and developing leaders is a key part of that execution.”
If smart companies are looking within to locate leadership talent, smart employees who want to get ahead should focus on (to paraphase a former leader) what they can do for their companies instead of asking what their companies can do for them.
