Local Training of our Middle Managers: Concept and First Experiences

Starting point: What´s the problem? Problems of our middle managers observed from an outside perspective: Problems and weaknesses of our middle managers expressed by themselves:  Communication skills  Capacity to convince people  Dealing with conflicts  General analytical capacity  Problem solving skills  Uncritical execution of «orders»  Technical knowledge  How to motivate people? How to lead people? How to convince people?  How to manage conflicts?  Effective comunication, presentation; how to transmit a message?  How to build an environment of trust?  How to deal with other people?  How to organize my working day?

Overview: Key Facts

Overview: Key Facts  Purpose:Strengthening the management capacity: professional and personal development of our middle managers  Focus:Dealing with their problems, finding practical solutions  Curriculum:Pilot course with 4 blocks of one week each; distributed over a period of 8 months  Blocks: 1-Comunication, 2-Conflicts, 3-How to build an environment of trust, 4-Organizational and other practical issues  Participants:typically branch managers, heads of departments, experienced loan officers, credit coordinators/supervisors  Start:May 2014  Graduates:2 groups with 12 participants each expected to graduate until 12/2014

Course Content and Forms of Learning

Course content and learning form Learning form: Example 1: How to introduce new colleagues in our HR principles and values?  Courses with physical presence  Learning from each other instead of «ex-cathedra teaching»  Dealing with practical cases from the daily working experience  Role plays and similar excercise with posterior critical analysis  Discussion oriented, students develop their «lessons learned» from the exercises  Problem: Principles of our HR policy and our values are often not very well known by staff in the branches  Exercise: Role play: Participants had to transmit our values and principles to new colleagues  Lesson learned: Debate instead of monologue; bring it down to day to day experiences

Course content and learning form Example 2: How to gain people for participation in a private health insurance?  Problem: Almost half of the employees did not want to participate in a private health insurance scheme which was offered to them  Exercise: Role play: inform your colleagues in the branch about the health insurance  Lesson learned: Difficulties to present a clear message and to focus on key aspects Example 3: How to push the business development?  Problem: BMs and Supervisors do not dare to push loan officers; low portfolio growth  Exercise: Role play: develop an action plan to improve PF growth and implement it  Lesson learned: Dont’t be afraid of going into these debates; be concrete; listen to the people Example 4: Bottleneck created with new credit procedures  Problem: Although some people were aware of the bottleneck created by the procedure nobody mentioned/changed it  Exercise: Discussion about causes and consequences of this problem  Lesson learned: More critical thinking and acting needed; open daily communication required; cultural change needed

Students’ Experiences

Students’ experiences … … expressed at the end of the course:  «practical way is the only way how to improve these skills», «it’s not the same thing reading it and doing it», «less theoretical than other courses»  «I’ve lost the fear to talk in front of my loan officers»  «In my 10 years in the institution I’ve never been in a training like this»  «In other training courses they give us theoretical concepts, here we received practical tools»  «The practical approach helped me a lot»  «At the beginning I felt a bit stressed, now I go back with a broader mind»  «I’ve experienced now that FINCA is really interested in my development»  «Sometimes we don’t follow a long term vision in our daily work – I will change that…»  «I couldn’t imagine to be in a course led by the CEO for a week; I feel more confident and secure now»  «We have a lot to improve. We are the multipliers of a cultural change»

Lessons learned so far…

 Form of learning is crucial for the type of people in mm positions (practical approach)  Developing our people is about opening their mind  Cultural change