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By Steve Choi - Vice President, Educasia
Succession planning and globalization are priorities in companies today. Preparing the next generation of managers to lead their global organizations is an exciting and daunting challenge. Online training can be used as a tool to not only help managers develop skills to lead globally but also to orient them to their new role so they can begin to get things done in their company — in other words, execute — at home and abroad.
When these managers participate in an online class together with colleagues from around the world, new knowledge about what works and what doesn’t can be generated quickly across a variety of topics including strategy, organization change, and people management. This knowledge is valuable to managers because it provides them with the right information to get things done successfully in various management situations.
For this type of knowledge to be created — we call it Strategic Knowledge — the online training class needs to be designed properly. Important design elements include:
- Managers from different countries are enrolled into the class. These managers bring diverse perspectives that reflect the unique opportunities and challenges of their local environment
- Class is facilitated by an expert instructor who helps managers learn concepts through one-on-one coaching and facilitates discussion so that managers share their own experiences and insights about how concepts apply to their specific situations
- Managers learn concepts and participate in discussions based on their own schedules, which provides time to reflect and develop thoughtful comments
- Discussion comments from managers are saved digitally. This information is summarized and formatted so that it can be readily used by managers as an effective management resource
In a Fortune 500 insurance company, newly promoted managers in the U.S. took an online change management course together with their overseas colleagues in China, Brazil, England, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, and Italy. During the class, these managers learned how change management tools such as “tinkering and kludging” can be used successfully in their own organization. One manager from China said that tinkering and kludging cannot be used on their own, rather they must be combined with good communication, coordination, and leadership so that employees embrace whatever changes are made. Another manager from Brazil said that certain changes, such as implementation of an IT system, should be done gradually, while other changes, such as restructuring, should be done quickly to minimize loss of morale.
Although these comments could have been just as easily made by the managers in the U.S., the value to these newly promoted managers is that they now know how to address a broader range of change management situations, in this case, in other parts of the world.
Strategic knowledge can also be created through classroom-based workshops, communities of practice, and other activities. At the same time, given the speed with which a diverse class can be created and new knowledge can be thoughtfully generated through instructor-led online learning, this methodology deserves further exploration and investment.
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