I was going through a design of a MDP program for Project managers. After going through the entire design of a 4-day program, I understood that we want project managers to 'bat like Tendulkar, bowl like Kapil Dev, field like Yuvraj, and lead like Ganguly'.
When I verified this 'design' of MDP with my trainer friends, I was surprised to note that all MDP programs are designed on this premise: the premise that we want our managers to be all rounders. We want all rounders. Although we know that the world is full of specialist, we still dream in having our managers as 'all rounders'.We want either square pegs or round holes.
When I pondered over our requirement of manager, I realised that Managers are also unique human beings; each peculiar in his/her style, responses, strengths and blind spots. Each of the manager is different; but when we want to develop our managers we want them to be 'similar'. And precisely because they cannot be homogenous, they demand the most impossible from the MDP program participant: change and twist himself or herself into a role model.
Instead, if we concentrate in enabling our participant managers retain their uniqueness and practice 'managership', we might be better off. We make two mistakes. We believe that all managers are moulded into one 'ideal'. However this is not true. Like a cricket team requires different kind of leader at different times, we also need different kind of managers in our organisations for different teams as well as different times. Then we make the second mistake: twisting every person into the 'ideal' manager. Both objectives are difficult to attain. When will companies learn to have realistic expectations from their managers?
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