Bruce Crowe Consulting

Management skills

Management skills coaching assists people to transit from specialist and professional roles to management roles. It works around the management cycle and uses related concepts of planning and delegation. It aims to broaden the outlook and to develop a balanced perspective that is appropriate for newly promoted and prospective general managers.

Case Study

A newly appointed general manager acquired responsibility for departments that were different from the activities in which he had spent his professional and managerial career to date. The listed corporate client wanted this person to use management skills to run his division as a whole rather than keep on personally delivering some of the services his subordinates were there to provide.

The initial agreement was to use informative and educational coaching about the management cycle to provide a knowledge base for the manager to use. The next phase involved getting the manager to operationalise the cycle in his work practices, so that he had routines to follow. The third phase was to develop the behaviours and skills to make the manager comfortable implementing the routines and delegating and working through others.

The three phases were spread over twelve months, and followed the corporation’s business planning cycle. The manager’s progress was evident and was regularly reported during the project; he reported to his superior who sponsored his coaching, and the consultant reported to the HR Manager managing the service delivery. The general manager has since weathered a top management succession change and a major restructure, and retained all his responsibilities.