The management skills of senior personnel within an Agency are self-evidently of profound importance to success in terms of both
    - ensuring the Agency is commercially and creatively successful
    - ensuring staff are motivated and effective.
Yet many find themselves in a management position without being coached how to manage.

The purpose of this programme is to develop the senior management team, both individually and as a group, by exploring effective and practical concepts and ideas involved in the running of a communications agency.

Typically, the programme will cover such themes as:

• Latest Management Thinking - what's hot in business schools, that is, or soon will be, preoccupying clients.
• The Role of the Board - strategic planning, priority and goal-setting.
• Values - clarifying and communicating the company's core values.
• Culture Definition - agreeing the attitudes and behaviours that are important for the company.
• Benchmarking - what is the best practice from other communications agencies and service organisations?
• Group Problem Solving - how the board deals with complex decisions and issues.
• Conflict Resolution - how to manage disagreements productively.
• Morale - understanding the key drivers, and how to move employees from compliance towards commitment, building loyalty and identification with the company.
• Delegation - freeing up more time for strategic issues whilst building employee motivation.
• Teamwork - how to handle groups of largely autonomous individuals, as well as working more effectively as a team.

Format

Group Sessions
Typically, these comprise a series of half-day group sessions with the members of the board, over a period of weeks. Each group session will centre around a discussion building on key ideas from modern management thinking and related fields of study. There will not be any role-playing or assessment, and the sessions will be informal. Short readings will be sent out before each session.

Individual Sessions
Each senior manager will usually have two individual, one hour sessions: one after the second group session, and one at the end of the programme. These sessions provide an opportunity to explore the themes covered in the group sessions in a way that is both personally relevant and more in-depth.

This programme has been devised and is led by Richard Jolly, Teaching Fellow at London Business School.

Contact Mike Imms - email us or telephone 01243 814777.