Essential Management Skills

Cardinal Health's past management and supervisory training programs dealt mostly with technical know-how. Seeing the need to expand beyond that, their next focus was to better equip their managers, supervisors, and team leads with the competencies needed to manage people, lead change, and engage employees. Collaborating with Cardinal Health on this project, rapidLD and O/E proposed a program that is based on an immersive simulation model. By reproducing actual challenges and their business climate, the simulation will not only be relevant to the learners, but it is also very effective at uncovering individual gaps in management skills and driving both business and people results. During the analysis and design phase of the project, the following items were assessed and evaluated:

• Cardinal Management Business Priorities
• Current Performance Management and Management Evaluation Processes
• Lean Six Sigma Transformation Development Activities
• Existing Manager Training Resources

Design Approach & Best Practices

Managers learn best in an environment that is relevant to the challenges facing them in the marketplace and through experience. It is the single most cost-effective way of developing managers, yet few organizations take advantage of it. The design included liberal use of business simulations and hard-hitting business cases to create the critical experiences that we wanted business level managers to have in the training. Furthermore, the program was enhanced by connecting to critical business experiences the managers have once they return to the field through debriefs and action journaling.

The learning experience envisioned in this approach centers on a real-life business simulation incorporating many of the tools currently used by Cardinal Health to manage their business and lead their employees. Other tools were developed to support the learning process, such as the Circle of Influence model, simulation response worksheet, and other assessments.

The simulations followed an approach that began with the end in mind and worked backward to mimic how employees learn on the job. During the simulations, employees discovered where they have gaps in knowledge and skills and compared these with best practices and research. Then, they prepared action plans to address them after the classroom experience.

From a content standpoint, the Manager Effectiveness training program was built around the following key content areas: resolving conflict, setting goals, coaching, giving feedback, managing performance problems, managing and leading change, communicating effectively, and managing yourself.