practical management training

How to manage people

Cambridge Cognition is the leading global provider of cognitive assessment software for use in clinical trials, academic research and healthcare provision – advancing research, diagnosis and treatment in mental health worldwide.

Background

The business has experienced the typical growing challenges of any organisation experiencing growth in a technological field. A new role of team leader was created to oversee teams of people in all the different departments.

Needs

The need was to help these team leaders with a comprehensive overview of managing people.

Activity

We met with the team leaders and senior management to gain a good understanding of both the training needs but also the business culture. The latter is important for us to put the training into context of the participants’ reality.

We then designed a programme of one day training interventions spread over 6 months:

Part 1

  • Challenges of managing people.
  • Definition of managing & team leader roles.
  • Team meetings; purpose, structure, practice.
  • 121s; purpose, structure, practice.

Part 2

  • Review of personal actions; what worked, what didn’t, what needs further work.
  • Handling difficult situations; bad news, redeployment, conflict.
  • Managing disruptive people who are otherwise good performers.
  • Personal action plans

Part 3

  • Review of personal actions.
  • Managing performance.
  • Creating the right culture in your team.
  • Managing upwards.
  • Building relationships with other teams.
  • Celebrating success.
  • Action plans.
Coaching follow up

Outcomes

The main outcomes of the people management training were:

  • Participants gained clear ideas on the fundamentals of people management, including the key processes
  • These new team leaders had an opportunity to discuss their challenges and get ideas from the ITD training consultant on what to do.
  • Confidence was built by having the programme spread over several months.

Participant Feedback

“It was good to keep the training focused on our situations”

“We enjoyed discussing our challenges and practising possible solutions”

“I liked the idea that the sessions were spread over months, so we had time to learn and then get together to discuss what happened.”

Client Comment

“Very pleased with the approach and the delivery which really focused on our people and their needs.”