Museum staff get leadership and management training

Citation

(2002), "Museum staff get leadership and management training", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 26 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2002.00326iab.001

Museum staff get leadership and management training

Museum staff get leadership and management training

Britain's Imperial War Museum is running its first ever leadership and management development programme for senior managers, to equip them with key skills for team working and communication across its branches.

The museum has commissioned training provider Roffey Park to design a six-day programme, split into two modules, for its 60 most senior managers. It will run five times with groups of 12 attending each session. The target audience includes directors and heads of department from the Imperial War Museum in south London, as well as from the Cabinet War Rooms, HMS Belfast, the Imperial War Museum in Duxford and the new Imperial War Museum North, Manchester.

"As a museum, we are facing many challenges, such as improving our collections, generating revenues and meeting our attendance targets," said Janet Atkinson, head of personnel. "This programme is a positive and imaginative response to these challenges as it will equip our managers with appropriate modern management skills."

Roffey Park began by running a series of focus groups, involving staff from all branches, to identify the competencies, skills and attributes needed for management success at the museum. The programme was designed around the resulting competencies, and Roffey Park developed a 360-degree feedback questionnaire, which participants use to identify their strengths and areas for development before starting the programme.

The first module lasts three days and covers leadership, strategy, managing change, self-awareness, influencing others, personal power and control, organizational culture and micro politics. The participants receive feedback from the 360-degree process, and from other analysis instruments, and they each draft their own personal development plan. They also work as a team to apply their skills on an organizational development project for the museum.

"Each of the five groups of senior managers has been allocated a project – such as communications strategy or revenue generation – and they work together on the programme to develop a brief that will be given to the project team who will take the initiative forward," said Janet Atkinson. "It gives the senior managers an opportunity to apply their skills to a real-life issue and to define the objectives, methods and outcomes of the project."

The second module covers team development, teamworking, performance management, communications and coaching. There are a number of optional workshops, which can cover issues such as handling conflict, negotiation skills, managing from a distance, delegation, motivation, stress management and creative problem solving.

"The first module is very much about the individuals and their own personal style, whereas the second module is more about their teams and how they manage performance and motivate people," said Janet Atkinson. "Participants can pick and choose from the optional workshops depending on the needs arising from their personal development plans."

The Imperial War Museum's director-general meets each group on the final night of the second module. The groups present the results of their organizational development project work and discuss the practicalities of taking it forward. Individually, they also produce action plans detailing how they will follow through their own learning and support the development of others.

"As well as helping our senior managers to develop the key skills for the future, the programme has also enhanced team working and communication across the museum because it brings together cross-departmental groups who are based in different parts of the country," said Janet Atkinson. "In line with the government's lifelong learning agenda, it helps us to create a supportive culture which encourages individual learning."

All five groups will have completed both modules by the end of 2002. The Imperial War Museum will evaluate the results of the programme by measuring practical changes in the skills of the senior managers and the enhancement of their management style. It will then look at future ways of cascading the learning down to its middle management tier.