If two people applied for the same management post and one had several years of varied and appropriate management experience but no formal qualifications and the other had an MBA from a prestigious university but very limited experience I know which one I would consider the stronger candidate. I was surprised to learn that students were accepted on some MBA courses who were not managers or who had very limited management experience. I assumed these courses were for experienced managers, middle managers looking to strengthen their application for senior management posts or senior managers with considerable experience seeking an academic qualification in order to present a more rounded CV. I had a very positive experience of doing an MBA and I am convinced it was because my fellow students brought so much experience to the course and were willing to share it. In this way theory quickly came to life grounded in real life case studies provided by participants. So I am bias in favour of experience first supplemented by academic learning later. Not so keen on fast track schemes that propel individuals into management and then senior management positions without serving a proper apprenticeship. I should stress I am very supportive of management development not just for individuals in their first managerial post but for managers at every level in the organisation. I have designed and delivered coaching and mentoring schemes for senior managers to help them gain insight into how their behaviour affects others and short courses for first line managers on tackling poor performance, challenging bad practice, under taking one to one supervision sessions, best practices in recruitment and promoting EDI. I have however seen the consequences of promoting ill prepared professionals into managerial posts. These individual often struggle with the people management side of the role. Some organisations persist in throwing people in at the managerial deep end and hoping they swim, if they sink then they have reached their,” level of incompetence”. I was surprise, by my experience from working in Local Authorities, that it was common for individuals to be appointed to senior management posts with very little experience of managing big budgets or large staff groups. Suddenly from managing a dozen employees they are responsible for delivering a strategic approach to absenteeism, negotiating changes in working practices across the organisation, implementing a management restructuring, identifying where £ millions can be cut from the budget whilst protecting essential services/ vulnerable people. In such cases they rely heavily on HR who are often more street wise.
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