Page 285 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

270 enhancing performance through training
Managers who are highly successful in their first management position (subject matter

experts) should be interviewed. The principal aim of the interview should be to find
out which skills and areas of special know-how are crucial to successful performance
in the candidate’s workplace.
Interviews could also be conducted with senior management to ascertain which strate-

gic management skills they think should be implemented broadly throughout the or-
ganisation. Simple questions such as the following could help to underscore certain
training needs which may be of great use: What are your people doing that new man-
agersshouldnotbedoing?Whataren’tyourpeoplenotdoingthattheyshouldbedoing?
Future training course participants who have recently assumed their first management

position and consequently are seen as prime candidates for a management training
programme could also be interviewed to help to determine their own training needs. If
they are given the opportunity to provide direct input for the development of a training
course which, in essence, is being designed for them, then they may be much more
receptive to the activity as a whole.
Last, but by no means least, you might wish to interview customers to gain an outside

perspective. For instance, you could have customers describe what is important to
them when dealing with a branch manager of a firm, and have them list the kind of
skills and knowledge they expect from such a person.

It is important to conduct interviews in a structured and systematic way if you wish to
obtain accurate and reliable data. Interview questions are generally designed beforehand;
but the interviewing process should remain flexible enough to allow the interviewer the
opportunity of pursuing other pertinent issues should they arise during the course of an
interviewinorderforhim/hertogainamorecompleteunderstandingofthetopicsathand.
The interviewer can then return to the original questions. One very good interviewing
technique is the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954). This technique stipulates
that interviewees are asked to describe situations in their jobs which they consider critical
as well as the skills necessary to respond properly to these situations.
After the interviews have been conducted the answers should be categorised by ques-
tion, making it easier to extract the main results from the interview. Qualitative data is
not as easy to summarise as quantitative data—but interpretation is easier because the
answers are normally registered in full detail by the interviewer, thus facilitating a better
understanding of the data.

SURVEYS
Surveys may be of use in an analysis of training needs if you are interested in asking
a large representative sample of people about their training needs. A survey could be
circulated among the same groups of people listed in the interview section.
Surveys are less time-consuming than interviews, since there is no need to arrange
interview appointments. Quantitative data is easy to appraise and summarise, though it
can become more difficult if you use open-ended questions like, “Please name the skills
and knowledge areas, in which you feel further training is required.” As with interview
data, you will need to summarise and classify the answers to open-ended questions.