You can learn to write management training objectives for your small business that are precise and measurable, and that help advance the goals for your company. Effective training objectives enable you to measure the extent to which each management trainee met the standards your objectives set. Although a variety of objectives are used in management training, they generally describe four major management capabilities: knowledge, planning ability, people relationship competence, and leadership capacity.
Managers need knowledge of the financial, industrial and social environments in which their company operates. Knowledge of the products and services provided by their company are other essentials. Management training objectives should distinguish between the acquisition of information about the company and its environments, and the capability to understand and use the information in relevant ways. Trainees may know the sales record of each person in the sales department, for instance, but the objective of training is to understand how to increase sales. Management trainees may be able to explain a procedure on a test, but the objective of training is to increase their ability to get employees to properly implement that procedure.
Management training objectives should distinguish trainees who think clearly about the future from those who focus solely on immediate tasks. Planning requires managers to define production or service goals, assess the company's internal and external situations, and structure work to accomplish the plan. The training objectives you prepare should enable you to determine how well management trainees developed their capabilities in and understanding of each of these areas, and how effectively they accomplished the required tasks.
Objectives that set standards for managers to improve their skills of relating to people help you assess trainees' ability to direct their employees. You may also want objectives that relate to managers' abilities to represent their companies with the public, government agencies, investors and vendors. Objectives in this area sometimes are not as precise as in other areas because of the subjective nature of many observations of relationships. Effective training objectives for people relationship competence set standards for attitudes, effective communication, appropriate behaviors, and consistent functioning over time.
Training objectives you write must fit many leadership styles because no single style describes every manager. Some effective managers exhibit more directive traits, while others are more collegial. If the leadership objective is enabling employees to perform at high levels, your training objectives need to set standards not for a predetermined style of leadership, but for an approach that produces the desired results. Effective training objectives in this area might include drills for providing reluctant employees with the motivation to accomplish a specific task, accomplishing disciplinary actions that employees accept as fair, and persuading coworkers that a plan the trainee supports is the desired course of action.
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