Improving Manager Capability in Startups

Large companies spend millions on managerial capability development every year. Is there a better approach?

Today, we see many start-ups focusing only on achieving the business goals and growth, and things like manager capability development and culture building take a back seat. You can’t argue against it. In the initial year years revenue and growth matters. But yet, if you want to win in the long term, you need to win the talent war.

Most startups hire young people in managerial roles who haven’t had much experience managing teams and diverse people. Also, there aren’t many experienced leaders in startups to mentor and coach these young managers. So they are out there in the company, hustling to get things done and figuring out things on their own.

It would have still worked out in the past, when there were fewer companies and talent was abundant. But today to succeed, you have to compete for the top talent. The top talent out there doesn’t want to be micromanaged on their work, but to be micromanaged in their development. They want to work in high freedom and less bureaucratic organizations, which means most decisions would be made by manager decretion. In the days of open glassdoor reviews, that’s leaving too much to chance if you are not investing in managerial capability development.

Most of the large companies spend millions on managerial training and capability development interventions every year.

Today MOOCs and e-learning platforms like Coursera, edX, udemy, and others offer a variety of courses on managerial capability development either free of cost or at a very minimal cost. There are enough and more articles and videos out there which provide guidance and best practices for managers.

External content and training can provide great insights and learnings for your managers, but the problem with most of them is that they lack appreciation of the context under which managers operate on a day-to-day basis.

That's where internal training by your own best managers and leaders could be helpful. They are not only better than most managers in your company but also understand the specific context of your company, customers, and employees. Ask your best managers to conduct internal training for others.

Informal internal meet-ups where the group manages the agenda, shares, and discusses their perspectives, experiences, and learnings on regular basis are also a great way to build and disseminate skills and capabilities at speed.

Although this article is about improving manager capability development, a similar approach can be taken for capability development across other areas.

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