Essential Management Skills

Day One
09:30 - Welcome, introduction and outline of objectives
10:00 - What 'management' really means and putting it into practice
· Identifying the key skills, qualities, competencies of an effective manager
· The 'cycle of management' and the importance of planning, organisation, control, leadership and motivation

11:00 - Leadership versus management and how that applies to you
· Leadership: the path to management. Where are you on the pathway? What are you aiming for?
· Understanding your management style and how it affects others in order to achieve best results

13:00 - Lunch
14:00 - Putting it into practice: team leadership and decision-making
· Planning and decision-making: building up your manager's toolkit
· Developing a systematic approach to decision-making

14:45 -Team working and how to improving team performance
· Why teams succeed and fail: stages of team development, team roles and team building exercises
· Setting personal and team objectives: creating a high achievement environment

15:30 - Tea
15:45 - Generating motivation and improving team performance
· Whose job is it to motivate?
· What are motivators and de-motivators?
· Understanding your team's motivation
· Dealing with sickness, absenteeism and staff turnover

16:30 - End of day one

Day Two
09:30 - Working with others: how to communicate and encourage
· Questioning techniques and listening skills
· Interpersonal sensitivity, body language

11:15 - Coffee
11:30 - How to influence: improving the impact you make
· Reviewing and improving your personal influencing style
· Communicating assertively: key communication tools and techniques
· Knowing who you are dealing with

12:30 - Lunch
13:30 - Communication and problem solving
Participants will be split into small groups to work on a case study based around communication and problem solving.

14:30 - Running and participating in meetings
· Defining the purpose and objective of a meeting, setting the agenda
· Rights and wrongs
· How to deal with difficult employees and situations

15:00 - Tea
15:15 - A practical approach: working on business-related scenarios
Participants will learn how to give feedback and to deal with conflict successfully through a mix of practical exercises and case studies.

16:30 - End of day two

Day Three
09:30 - Time management and prioritisation
· How to manage time effectively and efficiently: planning and organisation
· Prioritising workload: handling the 'time bandits'

11:00 - Delegation and empowerment
· Dos and don'ts of delegating
· Barriers to delegation
· Empowerment and the need to trust individuals

12:00 - Essentials for performance management
· What the process comprises: from objective setting to performance monitoring
· Best practice performance management tools and techniques
· Approaches to shaping performance, coaching and mentoring staff

14:00 - Appraising and developing staff
· How to handle underperformers and challenge high achievers
· Practical approach: conducting an appraisal interview

15:15 - Tea
15:30 - Managing change successfully
· Understanding the drivers of change
· Dealing with differing reactions to change
· The change transition curve: immobilisation versus integration

16:30 - Action planning: the key actions to be implemented when back at work
17:00 - End of day three