Training managers need to focus on operational development

Training managers, not so surprisingly, focus on developing the leaders ( which are supposed to be managers), while ignoring the development of their operational staff who actually do the work.

I guess that this 'studied ignorance' could be happening out of two reasons; one accidental and another deliberate. Accidental reason is that developing operational executives is boring because they only 'do' the work. That is 'content download' and can be delegated to the juniors. On the other hand, leadership development is interesting and involves direct interaction with superiors and managers who ultimately 'navigate' the company.

Therefore, in a learning and development plan of an organisation, you will not find any mention of how operational executives should be developed.

On the other hand, operational staff are the staff who do the actual work, whether the work is of programming, selling, or support work like quality control. Because they require expertise to do their work, development of this expertise is a constant 'challenge' for them. More so, when the expertise sharing is not easy.

Imagine a new batsman like Wasim Jaffer entering in a cricket team. Do you think other established batsman help him/share their experience and wisdom? In 4 out of 5 cases, the answer is no. Manoj Prabhakar has mentioned in his interviews his difficulty in learning from seniors when he entered the team. Experts, by their nature, face a constant dilemma: Am i competing or collaborating? Without resolving this paradox, no sharing of expertise can happen.

I have seen organisations have excellent salesman and non-performing salesman. Do excellent saleman share their experience with non performing salesman? You know the answer. Some companies 'actively' evoke competition, while some do it 'subtely'. Every company talks about the team work, but no one shares their pearls of wisdom so easily. Mckinsey, a company of management consultants, also faced this dilemma. And a software company also faces this dilemma.

Until one carefully answers the difficult questions, and resolves them through policies, direct and indirect incentives, a company cannot develop the expertise of operational staff on which the 'work' essentially depends.

This is just the first challenge in developing the operational capability of an organisation. There are others. Did you encounter any?