|
Accelerated Experience Programs™
Accelerated
Experience Programs™ use the experience of technical innovators and
avant garde managers to identify the problems and opportunities other
managers should be prepared to deal with tomorrow.
-
New
managers, for instance, learn how to deal with problems and
opportunities successful managers have already handled.
-
Users
of old technologies learn how to handle changes that managers who
have adapted new technologies have already experienced.
Prior
to attending an Accelerated Experience Program™, participants are
given a comprehensive briefing book which gives them all the
background information they need to handle the job they are expected
to perform. The document describes the organization and the
position to be managed. Each of the individuals the manager will
supervise are described, as is the person to whom the manager will
report. The organization’s products and its customers are
described in detail.
The
briefing book provides a comprehensive profile of the participants’
roles and responsibilities. Its
thoroughness makes it possible for the case studies utilized in the
Accelerated Experience Method™ to include only essential information
on the problems, opportunities and tasks participants must deal with
during the program. It is
the brevity of these case descriptions that makes it possible for
participants to learn at their peak rate of assimilation.
This is one of the reasons why it is possible to compress so
much learning into so little time.
Prior
to attending an Accelerated Experience Program™, participants are
given an assignment which requires them to become familiar with the
contents of the Briefing Book. This
assignment assist them to decide on a plan for “taking charge” of
the organization they are expected to manage.
It helps them formulate a vision of the kind of managers and
leaders they intend to be and to identify the results they want to
achieve.
When
managers participate in the program, their first action as a team is
to define their goals and to agree on a strategy to achieve them.
Not surprisingly, the teams that develop the best strategy to
attain their goals and then pursue that strategy despite the
distractions they encounter during the program, often achieve the best
results.
Participants
take part in Accelerated Experience Programs™ both as individuals and
as members of a team of five or six peers.
The teams may be cross-functional or from a single function,
depending on the specific objectives of the program.
Participation takes place around a table that is equipped with
a PC. This arrangement
promotes discussion, which is the vehicle for arriving at consensus
concerning the best approach to handling each situation presented in
the simulation.
Each
team is also served by a facilitator whose assignment is to guide the
team but not to assist it in making
decisions or taking action. The
role of the facilitator can be expanded when the use of application
exercises and other instructional techniques are appropriate.
Participants
decide individually how they would handle the situations that are
presented to them. The
then attempt to reach agreement as a team on the course of action.
Both individual and team decision-making are used to ensure
that participants accept personal responsibility for their decisions
and gain the benefits inherent in decision-making.
The
active, team-oriented approach of the Accelerated Experience Method™
is a distinct shift from the more passive approach of instruction-led
courses. Through
involvement in team-run discussions and in the team decision-making
process, participants in Accelerated Experience Programs™ learn
important management and teamwork principles in a realistic context
that closely resembles what they encounter—or can expect to
encounter—back on the job. The
role of the instructor is to periodically draw out the lessons learned
and to assist with action planning for on-the-job application of the
skills and practices learned. Accelerated
Experience Programs™
are decidedly participant-centered learning
experiences rather than instructor-centered ones.
The
new method uses three unique techniques.
First, it reproduces in brief written or video cases all the
significant problems and opportunities handled by a successful manager
in a similar job. The
underlying concept is that if new managers learn how to handle all
these problems and opportunities effectively, they will learn what
successful experience in that job would teach them.
It
should be emphasized that all significant problems and opportunities
actually handled by a successful manager over a period of one to three
years must be reproduced—people problems as well as numbers
problems. That is a lot
of problems and opportunities but all must be reproduced in order to
enable managers to learn what experience would teach them.
A typical program would include from ten to fifteen situations
or cases per day.
|
