Company heroes must keep sight of their goals

The idea that "only the paranoid survive" set out in Roger Trapp's column ("We've put paranoia on a pedestal and now we can't relax", Business, 21 February) scarcely disguises the deeper implications behind the "pace of change" debate.

At Cranfield, managers arrive, apparently hard-pressed, seeking panaceas in the form of toolkits which they can take away and apply to today's crisis or tomorrow's competitive threat.

But slotting a few more tools or techniques into a manager's portfolio provides only superficial respite. New tools for managerial effectiveness are easily replicated by competitors, and the stakes are raised again. Sustainable competitive advantage comes from human attributes, not from the mechanistic application of consultants' fads.

We believe that there is a fundamental misunderstanding at work here. The traditional approach to the development of managers' capabilities has implicitly treated those managers as machines. The new ideas, methods, tools and techniques are delivered as add-ons. Just as all cars have to have power-steering and anti-lock brakes, so managers have to be able to play with Boston matrices and value chain analyses.

People are not machines. Machines do not suffer from paranoia. Paranoia is a mental state, one which taps into emotions and values. Emotions and values are not incidental to success, but central to it. Developing managers and organisations effectively means going beyond the superficiality of the "seven steps" approach, and the "thrive on chaos" mentality.

In times of change, especially when paranoia sets in, people can lose sight of the "why" as opposed to the "what" they are doing. Individual managers in organisations can lose contact with their deeper values and lose sight of their personal visions. Getting wrapped up in the hectic pursuit of their roles as managers, they can forget that their jobs are means to a broader end.

Few managers I talk to want "I made my targets year on year" carved on their headstones. They are people with a life story that transcends the crises of today and tomorrow. Effective management development draws strength from the deeper recesses of people's personal ambitions and visions. It is value-centred. It recognises that paranoia is not a firm base for long- term success.

Modern writers often suggest that business today is an exciting adventure - fast-moving, full of twists and turns and only for the brave. But managers who claim they don't have time to examine how closely what they are currently doing matches their deeper sense of self and vision forget one of the most important lessons of successful adventure. As the myths and legends of the ages tell us, those who lose sight of the goal - the vision, and the values that underpin that vision - are the ones who fall by the wayside.

When it comes to management development, in particular, it needs to be remembered that managers are not roles - they are people.

People do not leave their fears and concerns, dreams and aspirations at the door when they go to work. Nor do they undertake management development as fulfillers of functional roles. How people feel, what they believe in, and where they are going with their lives are major parts of the learning process.

Many of our programmes are now confronting this. What would be seen in the past to be an impertinent intrusion into people's private lives is beginning to be recognised as a critical success factor in learning. We help to develop people who happen to be managers.

This needs to be taken into account when designing a programme. To be effective, it needs to balance and harmonise the personal with the functional. Too much focus on "me as a person" generates a sense of impracticality and intrusion for some. Too little means that the learning will slide away, like eggs on Teflon, once the manager returns to work.

We have to throw away the old comfortable approach which says "if you do this you will get that result," and make management development a more robust and lasting contribution to people's success. When people-as-managers are clear about their personal goals and aspirations, it enables them to develop better personal strategies. It is these strategies, not management toolkits which break through the old barriers to effective implementation of learning.

Keith Patching is a member of the Management Development Unit at Cranfield School of Management and author of `Management and Organisation Development: Beyond Arrows, Circles and Boxes' (Macmillan, pounds 50 hardback, pounds 18.99 paperback).