Few owner-managers have the time to spend going on management training courses. They are often put to the pin of their collars keeping the show on the road and, while they may consider training for other members of their staff, their own needs in this respect often get overlooked. As a result, lack of management capacity is one of the main reasons why small and medium-sized businesses fail.
Owner managers have slightly different training needs to managers working for others and few feel comfortable about spending time and often quite a lot of money on external training programmes.
Recognising this dual problem, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) and the Small Firms Association (SFA) have come up with a distance learning training video aimed specifically at owner managers. It can be worked through in between four and six hours and the cost is just £35.
"We spent over three years researching the whole area of effective owner-management and its implications for owner management training and the video is the result of this research," says Liam Doherty, senior human resources consultant with IBEC.
"A team of occupational psychologists from Saville and Holdsworth interviewed a large number of owners-managers and identified common themes which the managers saw as critical to their effectiveness in business. "From this we drew up a competency model which comprised a total of 18 competencies which owner-managers felt they needed. This were distilled into four key areas and eight competencies covering:
people orientation
strategic vision
analytical capability, and
energy for enterprise."
The video features four owner-managers demonstrating how these core competencies operate in their working lives and there is an accompanying workbook which encourages the owner-manager to produce a personal action plan around these key skills.
Doherty hopes that the video will encourage owner-managers to look at their own competencies and to identify areas which need improvement.
"We are not suggesting that the owner manager has to be able to do everything him or her self," he says. "Instead, it may be appropriate for them to recruit someone to fill a particular need within the company, but recognising this is half the battle. "Alternatively they could decide to go for a mixed approach where they decide to improve aspects of their own skills set and to bring in outside help in an area where they lack the necessary competence."
Over 500 copies of the video have been circulated so far and a series of workshops have also been run at which business advisors from County Enterprise Boards, financial institutions and other organisations have been taught how to use and deliver the new training programme.
"Basically we were trying to tap into all the possibilities for distributing the programme as widely as possible," says Doherty. "We also gave copies of it to secondary schools and third-level colleges on a pilot basis. That has worked out so well that we're developing a similar package specifically for the education sector.
"For example, it could be used by business studies teachers, guidance counsellors and others within the education sector who have an interest in encouraging an enterprise culture among younger people.
"When we came up with the idea in 1996 we were responding to the fact that there was no training specifically for the owner-manager," Doherty continues.
"Most of the courses available did not differentiate between those managing their own businesses and those managing for others. As a result, owner-managers did not feel they were being catered for and they tended to be slow to go on training courses, not least because they were often centrally located and required several days away from the business.
"They can do our programme from the comfort of their own armchair and at their own pace, and, at two in the morning, that's what suits them," Doherty says.
Copies of Have You Got What it Takes? are available from IBEC at telephone (01) 605 1633 or fax (01) 661 2861.
