Leadership Training: Management Training - Solve Problems by Seeing Similarities

The Leadership Training Institute offers seminars that teach participants to confidently use proven methods of management leadership to lead people and help them plan, organize and control their work assignments. Workshop participants will also learn to use resources made available to them more effectively.

On-Site Classes: can be tailored to the needs of client organization and delivered on-site at time and location of client choice.

Seminar Objectives:

At the 90-day post-workshop assessment, participants will have:

Demonstrated (on the job) an understanding that the intuitive style of leadership (self-centered, directive) will only work in special circumstances and will have made noticeable improvement in working themselves toward a management leadership style (participatory, empowering)

Spent more time "leading and managing" and less time "doing"

Used the action planning process to plan and implement at least one important initiative that has a positive impact on business results

Used the decision-making technique on the job to arrive at sound decisions that have or will have a positive impact on business results

Demonstrated greater ability to function in teamwork situations

Developed and successfully used a system of control by exception

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Management Training - Solve Problems by Seeing Similarities

Over time, recurring events in the workplace are recognized and remembered by management. When the once unfamiliar becomes familiar, knowledge of situations, people and activities expand and deepen and you can see similarities across contexts. Because you can identify commonalities over different situations, you can select an appropriate management response from a variety of solutions you tested in prior experiences. Increased expertise emerges when you examine a new experience by searching for a solution or decision from previous experience rather than relying strictly on established rules or prescribed management procedures.

Recognizing and responding to similarities across situations was first revealed in a classic study by a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. Physicists were presented a series of problems and asked to sort and analyze the problems based on shared characteristics. The more expert scientists used underlying mechanical principles to organize and solve the problems. The less expert scientists categorized the problems based upon surface and literal factors stated in the problem description. The research team concluded that those with greater expertise could 'see' underlying similarities in a great number of problems, while novices 'see' a variety of problems that they consider to be dissimilar because the surface features were different. In other words: Experts classify and solve problems based on principles; beginners see problems based on surface features. The lesson from this study suggests that to fully understand the nature of a problem, the principles and commonalities the current problem shares with previous problems must be identified.

When you can recognize similarities across situations, you can make applications from one situation to the other. This was a principle that Sam Walton embraced when he first started in retailing. With a yellow legal pad or tape recorder, he would march into every competitor's store he could find. He would seek out their pricing, displays, and how they did business. The lessons he learned he brought back to Wal-Mart and applied the lessons that fit to similar situations in his stores. "We're really not concerned with what competitors are doing wrong; we're concerned with what they are doing right." From his competitors he learned the retail management principles that worked, and seeing similarities in his business, used those principles to solve problems and gain an advantage. There are few discount retailers who would argue that Sam Walton got it right.

Source: Dr. Paul G. Schempp link

Related: Management Training