A TRANSFORMATIONAL MODEL OF MANAGERIAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT (endnote 1)

Robert E. Quinn, Neil B. Sendelbach and Gretchen M. Spreitzer

"... If, as I suggest, most of these [managerial development] programs are good, why do I not become the supermanager of my aspirations? At various times I've learned how to approach my job as a total business system, how to quantify and measure everything, how to plan strategically, how to manage change, how to manage my time, how to get results by motivating others, and umpteen other proven approaches to successful management. ... All this leaves me confused as hell. My management instincts have been watered down. I've now been conditioned to stop in the middle of some management activity and try to remember which techniques might apply. The different management techniques seem to meld into an anti-synergistic mixture, in which the sum is less than the totality of the parts."

-- Michael Brown as quoted in Sandelands (1990)

Managerial development appears to be in a quandary. A key assumption across many of the chapters in this volume is that traditional cognitive approaches to managerial development are insufficient and that managerial skills development has much to offer. This line of reasoning is not new. Boyatzis (1991) suggests that this movement away from traditional cognitive approaches takes root in the early 1960s under the label affective learning, and is reborn again in the eighties as competency-based learning.

With thirty years of effort, we might assume that much has been accomplished. This assumption, however, may be overly optimistic (Bigelow, 1990). Whetten, Windes, May, and Booksaver (1991), for example, review the last ten years of literature on skills development with some disappointment. They suggest that many see the teaching of managerial skills as a very limited cult movement. The majority of faculty members are ignorant of the content and suspicious of the methods in skills courses. These courses have difficulty spreading to a wider base, they argue, because of course size assumptions, differences in teaching methods, student discomfort, political implications in business schools, the lack of widespread familiarity and demand on the part of business, and the infrastructure of the greater educational world. In short, teaching skills violates the core assumptions of traditional management education at nearly every level and hence has made little progress as a widespread innovation. It is seen as unproven and too radical.

To this discouraging situation McKnight (1991) brings the argument that current assumptions about skills education are, however, not radical enough. Building on Polanyi (1966), he claims that skills knowledge is both responsive and subconscious. He suggests that individuals have metaprograms that direct behavior. In responding to an interpersonal situation a metaprogram is evoked and an individual responds somewhat spontaneously. Over time these metaprograms develop and change. Using the Whetten and Cameron (1984) skills text, Developing Management Skills, as a point of criticism, he argues that the use of cognitive information in the skill development process is of very limited use.

On one hand, McKnight fails to understand the mission of Whetten and Cameron and all other authors of skills texts. Precisely for the reasons specified by Whetten et al. (1991), skills texts must be structured to at least be comprehensible to the "opposition." Publishers are well aware of potential markets and are simply not going to produce a book so radical that it will be rejected outright. The Whetten and Cameron book has done more to advance the cause of skills education than any other volume. Many authors of skills texts understand McKnight's message. They, however, believe that they must make some compromises in order to be heard.

On the other hand, McKnight provides some very important insights into the nature of skills development. Skills learning should be student centered and experiential. The educator's role is not professor but coach. The student experiments with a behavior, becomes aware of its meaning, and uses cognition to develop hypotheses about how to behave more effectively. Each experiment slightly alters or reinforces the metaprogram. Theory is useful only if assists in generating more and better alternatives for the next trial. Skill learning is possible, and knowledge becomes the source of empowerment.

In essence, what McKnight is advocating in his discussion of metaprograms is deep change or what is sometimes called second-order or paradigm change (Levy, 1985; Bartunek and Moch, 1984). A central assumption in such arguments is that metaprograms both serve and bind us. While they help us to know and understand some things they blind us to others. Over time our maps of reality become increasingly less accurate and our strategies increasingly less effective if they do not change as reality itself changes. When individuals are supported in the difficult task of reassessing reality and thus altering their metaprogram or paradigm, they become more aligned with reality, more self-empowered, and more effective. One reason for this increased effectiveness is that they are not only able to develop new skills but that they are also better able to utilize the skills they already have. What McKnight is advocating, then, is a different more transformational approach to skills building.

For the past thirty years a cognitive, competency-based model for managerial skills development has dominated the field. We label this traditional approach first-order, transactional skills development. The objective of this first order model is to develop specific skills through traditional teaching methods. The goal of this type of skills development is to nurture and maintain existing paradigms and the status quo. This model assumes a stable, certain, and somewhat predictable environment. This type of skill training is the focus of many of the chapters in this volume and has traditionally been the focus of the few skills courses in business schools.

In the past few years, many have come to view the transactional, first-order model of skills training as limited. In this chapter we introduce a second model of skill training and development which is complementary to and builds on the first model. While this second model recognizes the need for traditional skill development, it focuses on transformational, second-order skill development (Levy, 1985). The objective of this transformational model is to stimulate individual paradigm changes and to empower individuals to take charge of themselves in the organization and to initiate change (Jantsch, 1980; Sheldon, 1980). In contrast to the first model, an assumption of this model is that the environment is ambiguous and uncertain; therefore, skills must be dynamic and transformational in order for individuals to effectively adapt to a changing environment.

The outcome of this second model of skills development is empowerment. By empowerment we mean managers who take risks, who initiate action, who make change, who have a personal vision for themselves within their organization. Empowerment is a radical departure from more traditional approaches as it challenges many of the assumptions inherent in managerial development within business schools.

In order to more fully understand second-order, transformational change in university life, and the barriers inherent in this type of change, we turn to an analogue. The analogue is corporate America. We focus first on the generally accepted assumptions of management education in corporate America by examining that which is most false. We then turn to a radical management development program to find new insights about change. Here we begin with some basic assumptions.

Though some organizations are taking this task to heart, many have not. In many companies middle managers are to American corporations as students are to American universities, disempowered and ignored. During the last ten years the ranks of middle management have been decimated due to downsizing efforts (Cameron, Freeman, and Mishra, 1990; Business Week, 1988). While their resources have dwindled, individuals are now doing the work previously assigned to two or three people. Although there are some noticeable exceptions, most companies tend to take for granted their middle managers. Relatively few organizations have introduced development programs to help their middle managers respond to new situations and make deep change. As a result, middle managers tend to be burned out and unresponsive.

Innovation and transformation entail high levels of risk. Many executives have no previous experience, nor incentive, for change; rather, most have been socialized in the assumptions of preserving equilibrium. Like the average management professor, they are tied to tradition. Interestingly, here the tradition is skills, though primarily first-order, transactional skills. However, the notion of a course that would bring the fundamental, developmental changes suggested by McKnight (1991) is first, difficult to comprehend and second, difficult to sell. Hence skills, only in the most traditional sense, are what is taught.

To a great extent this assumption also tends to be false. In many organizations, middle managers are frustrated. Organizations tend, first and foremost, to disempower people. Providing new skills to a disempowered manager simply increases frustration. The greatest dissatisfaction is that the middle manager is not allowed to use the skills already possessed. Like the typical business student, the middle manager has to learn to "play the game." Just as the typical student is accused of "not wanting to learn," so the middle manager is accused of "not wanting to lead." Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Both want to learn, grow, and have impact. Both, however, have learned that the respective systems tend to constrain such efforts, and consequently their metaprograms reflect the environments they encounter.

Here again, the answer seems to be disappointing. Just as most management professors do not teach self discovery, interpersonal relationships, and leadership (Boyatzis, 1991), most corporate training efforts deal with these topics only superficially. Transformational topics tend to be taught in safe, transactional ways. Just as most leadership researchers are not transformational people, most corporate educators fail to be visionaries capable of helping participants discover their way into new metaprograms or paradigms. Even when they are capable and dedicated to the implementation of second-order, transformational skills development, chances are they will not be permitted to do so unless sanctioned by key organizational leaders who commit the company to these efforts. Skills programs thus tend to provide more highly skilled transactional managers, better able to preserve the status quo, and thus more likely to exacerbate the original organizational problem.

The above picture of management development is not promising. But the situation is far from hopeless or irresolvable. Empowerment and deep change in the underlying philosophy of management development can be cultivated when a more transformational, second-order model is integrated with more traditional models (Conger and Kanungo, 1988; Conger, 1989). This very process is underway at the Ford Motor Company. A radical approach to middle management development has been designed, developed, and implemented. Instead of focusing on maintaining equilibrium, this program promotes change and new direction. It stimulates the capacity for transformational behavior. In the spirit of continuing the corporate analogue described above, in this next section, we will describe this more transformational, second-order approach to management development at Ford.

One of the most dramatic business turnarounds of the 1980s occurred at the Ford Motor Company. One key factor in the turnaround was Ford's investment in its people, its human capital. In the early 1980s, a major program called "Participative Management and Employee Involvement" was instituted to increase participation across all levels of the organization, from the assembly line worker to the line supervisor to top management. By 1987, Ford Motor Company had extended its transformational efforts and had successfully implemented a development program for the top 2,000 executives in the company. This program was established as part of the overall transformation process evolving at Ford as a result of the crisis the company had experienced in the early 1980's. This effort provided a forum for executive dialogue and reinforcement for the strategic direction the company was charting.

While this effort was successful, it was viewed by top executives as inadequate. The question was asked "What are we doing to prepare the next generation of leaders?" Failing to satisfactorily answer this question, the company recognized the need for a developmental program for its middle managers. This provided the basis for the design, development, and implementation of the Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) program.

From the beginning the LEAD program was different. It continued to build on the company's other transformational efforts but also extended its horizons. It continued to break the mold of traditional management development programs. Instead of following the traditional, internal "staff" route of program development by the Employee Relations Staff group in the Employee Development Office, individuals from the staff initiated and coordinated the involvement of a cross-company effort. A steering committee made up of executives from different operating units was constructed to investigate whether some corporate-wide development program would be necessary for the next tier of management. From focus group interviews with potential targeted participants, the steering committee found overwhelming support for a managerial development program targeted at the company's middle management. The focus groups indicated that the middle managers as a whole felt neglected and uncertain of their role in the overall transformation of the company.

With this support, the steering committee then turned its attention to the content and process of the program. The committee decided that a program which integrated aspects of both the top management strategically-oriented program and the supervisory skills-oriented program was necessary. The emerging need from the interviews and the contemporary literature was for training in leadership, empowerment, and managing and creating change. The committee reviewed several leadership/management programs available commercially and decided that a Ford specific program would be more appropriate. The committee established basic criteria for the program. These criteria include: (1) the program should provide integration with other company efforts, (2) it should reinforce the Ford Mission, Values and Guiding Principles, (3) it should be targeted for participation by all middle management, (4) it should be application-oriented, and (5) it should provide a cross-functional and international perspective.

Given these criteria and the focus on leadership, empowerment, and change, the committee initiated an international search for appropriate theories and models. Through this review, the Competing Values Framework (CVF) (Quinn, 1988) was seen to provide the most insight and utility. Many of the problems articulated by the middle managers had a paradoxical nature. "I need help to become more creative and innovative but I also need to stick to schedules and maintain structure in my department." "I need to nurture and develop my subordinates but must also focus on enhancing the bottom line." When viewed in the perspective of the CVF these seeming contradictions became reframed as understandable and manageable.

At this time, the faculty at the University of Michigan were invited to become involved in the program. This collaboration required the design participants themselves to be transformational and become empowered. The implicit question was how intensive would the collaboration be? Would the University faculty take ownership of the project with Ford providing support and resources? Would Ford maintain ownership but elicit theoretical contributions from the faculty? Or would it be a more true collaboration with both sides sharing ownership through the design, development, and implementation of the program? Each option provided specific benefits. The first two options were basically traditional approaches requiring little risk. The third, true collaboration, represented a radical approach for both institutions.

Both Ford and the University of Michigan had successfully developed education and training programs in the past using the two more traditional approaches. Moreover both institutions questioned whether they in fact could collaborate. Nevertheless, both were curious about the potential benefits of collaboration: (1) greater capability to utilize expertise of individuals from both institutions, (2) improved integration between the "academic" theoretical perspective and the "real world" issues and applications, (3) a potentially greater impact on the participants than could be achieved by either organization "going it alone," and (4) the opportunity to build a bridge between the two institutions by reframing their differences as strengths. But, collaboration also entailed risk. Collaboration would require two very strong and independent institutions to work together, to create an environment where both were dependent on the other. By definition, the purpose and goals of both institutions were different. Further, neither group had a commitment from their respective organizations for what could be a three to five year commitment of resources and personnel.

The spirit of the program won them over. The decision to proceed in the design and development of the program collaboratively can be seen as a transformational action by both the Ford steering committee and the faculty from the university. The decision empowered the individuals involved; the risks were clear and the benefits potentially significant. There was the opportunity to create a new process that could model an on-going, value-adding relationship between business and industry and the academic community. Yet if the resulting design were not approved, the developers would have expended much time, energy, resources, and personal commitment for a "failed effort," or one that might be just traditional.

To start the process, several design meetings were conducted with a host of participants from both institutions. First, the basic parameters and processes of the program needed reexamination in view of the collaboration. After examining various needs and options, including extensive discussions with managers at all levels, the group concluded the necessary skills were not the traditional, basic behavioral skills, but rather the more transformational, second-order skills.

In keeping with the above discussion of typical assumptions, this decision was radical and important. What was recognized here was that traditional skill training was an equilibrium preserving activity and what was needed was not more "information" but more "transformation" (De Bono, 1971). Conveying the right "form" to passive middle managers by training-experts was the tradition. Recognizing that middle managers are really the experts and only they can determine the right "form" for any given situation calls for an approach that entails creativity, empowerment, and risk on the part of designers, participants, and the company (Nonaka, 1988; Kanter, 1982).

The design group also decided that while the program was to focus on the issue of leadership, the leadership focus needed to have a context -- a context in the company's strategic issues (Davis, 1982). Ford was striving to align the whole of the organization around several key issues, and these became the context for the program. Learning, thinking and managerial-leadership are the content for the program while key strategic issues of customer focus, quality and continuous improvement are the context.

Throughout the program, the participants are provided general concepts and principles which they are then required to translate into the company context. Two different group configurations are used: (1) groups which are mixed cross-functionally, and (2) groups which are functionally similar. The cross-functional group configuration provides an broader overall company system perspective while the functionally similar configuration provides a deeper understanding of specific issues and challenges.

The focus on application and implementation of the program's concepts and principles supported another innovation. To reinforce the emphasis on application, the program was designed in stages. The basic content and context are established in stage one, the core session. During the core session the participants are encouraged to reflect on how the content and context applies to their specific job responsibilities. Figure one represents the basic design themes for the core session of the program. At the end of the core session, each participant is asked to record insights and learnings and develop action plans for application. The core session is followed by the interim period. The interim period is a six-to-eight month time period when the participants are back in their normal job responsibilities. After six-to-eight months, the participants are reconvened for a follow-up session.

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Figure one about here

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The follow-up session extends the content and context from the core session. The new focus at the follow-up is the specific experiences of the participants during the interim period. Figure two illustrates the foci of the follow-up session. While the themes are the same, the purpose is now to analyze the experience, assess current conditions, and determine required next steps. This program is the first at Ford to incorporate a structured follow-up process. In terms of changing metaprograms and empowering middle managers, this part of the design is crucial. It is during the six month period that participants are able to test their new mindsets by attempting to take new initiatives. During the follow-up they are able to present and compare their failures and successes.

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Figure two about here

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Another aspect of collaboration by the design and development team was the issue of program delivery. As with the design and development, several options were available: Ford presenters, university faculty presenters, or a collaboration between Ford and University presenters. Once again, the collaboration option was selected. Each day of the session involves two program faculty presenters -- one from the University and one from Ford. The faculty member frames the content and provides a theoretical background while the Ford executive provides context to the issue and discusses current company initiatives. This dual presenter process provides both the rationale and logic as well as the credibility of the message.

Equally important was the need to design the program so that it had meaning for Ford middle managers from many countries and that some sessions could be delivered in overseas locations, yet with an international mix of participants.

Process is the key to the transformational approach of the program. A transactional approach would be one defining the situation for the participants and prescribing an action/skill approach. The LEAD program process allows the participants to determine both the nature of their specific situation and the type of action they believe they can and should initiate. The process of allowing the participants to choose the type and degree of action is critical to the empowerment process.

Here again we see a divergence from normal approaches. Here the assumption is that the participant knows more and knows better than the organization. This ability to determine their own applications in their own job setting is critical to the empowerment process.

While the design and development of the program had many unique features, the product processes reflect interesting aspects that have contributed to the program's success. First, the program is providing overall organization alignment on key strategic issues. This is difficult with a company as large as Ford and with such strong functional ties. The objective is to provide a broad perspective and then to allow the individual participants to determine specific applications for themselves to their area of responsibility.

In many ways the participants are as diverse as those attending public eduction. They come from all functions (manufacturing, engineering, finance, general council, supply and distribution, sales, etc), all nationalities (American, Canadian, European, South American, Asian), and from various staff levels of responsibility (from individual contributors managing major programs, to managers of major operations with responsibility for many people). This wide diversity requires program processes that allow for individual participant interpretation of program content.

We have discussed the impact of the program on those involved in the design and delivery of the program. But what impact has the program had on its participants? How are they different as a result of their participation? Has the program achieved what it intended (i.e. empowerment)?

When the middle managers first come to the LEAD program many describe their role in the organization as highly constrained. To a great extent, they see their job as simply "following the rules" and "seeing that the status quo and the system are maintained". These managers, much like business students in the classroom, learn to play by the rules and focus on fulfilling what is expected of them. The managers articulate their struggle with barriers that inhibit them from being responsive middle managers. From a series of interviews, surveys, and factor analyses, the five types of barriers emerge: (1) a lack of strategic vision in their unit, (2) the inevitability of organizational conflict and consequentially low commitment, trust, and teamwork, (3) the bureaucratic culture, (4) personal time constraints, and (5) the disempowerment of their co-workers. These barriers are common in most large organizations. The result of these barriers is middle managers who tend to feel disempowered and virtually ignored in the organization. Taking a traditional skills approach to people who feel so disempowered would only increase their sense of disempowerment. Clearly the traditional cycle must be broken.

At this point, the managers participate in the core session of the LEAD program and then return to their jobs with action plans for the interim period. Few changes in the individuals' work units accompany the LEAD program. Nevertheless, when the middle managers return for the follow-up session of the LEAD program, there is substantially less focus on how organizational and individual barriers inhibit their effectiveness. Instead, the middle managers share examples of strategies they developed to help them overcome those barriers, strategies they developed to facilitate their own and others' empowerment.

From interview data, surveys, and factor analyses, four types of strategies emerge. First, they describe strategies for personal attitude changes as a means for reframing their environments. For example, one manager described a strategy whereby he made a conscious effort to reframe threatening situations as potential opportunities. He focused on remaining optimistic in spite of seemingly insurmountable barriers. Second, they articulate strategies for challenging organizational mindsets by bringing up new ideas and questioning consensus. One manager described how she became a devil's advocate, continuously challenging her workgroup to question the way that things were done in their unit. Third, they reveal strategies for building trust and commitment among their co-workers. Many managers discussed the importance of breaking down "chimneys" or cross-functional barriers. Fourth, they share strategies for taking initiatives and trying new things, many times bypassing the traditional, hierarchical approval process. Overall, they perceive their role expectations to be expanded and enriched with less focus on traditional, transactional skills and more focus on transformational skills.

What stimulates the middle managers to change? What happens in the LEAD program to energize the managers in such a positive way? In this chapter, we argue that these middle managers have become empowered. The dual process of both overall alignment and individual application has resulted in significant empowerment of the participants to determine an application based on their own judgement. The participants feel empowered as they are able to choose the initiative based on improved perception of company direction and have a broader understanding of the overall systemic impact. A process of managerial empowerment is described below.

The primary objective of the LEAD program is to stimulate paradigm changes in the middle managers about their role in the organization. This objective is the first step in the empowerment process. The program serves as a stimulus for the managers to think deeply about how they can refocus their perceptions of themselves and their work role. As one manager described, "The program forced me to reevaluate my core values, goals, and methods of operating as a means for reinforcing them and/or changing them. I made a conscious effort to become aware of my paradigms and then expanded my own and other's mindsets toward change." Another manager described a co-worker who had been through the LEAD program as "born again, having a complete attitude change. Where he previously fought any mention of change, [this manager] immediately began preaching the virtues of having a mindset favorable to initiating change." This first stage of the empowerment process involves an in depth personal evaluation and cognitive reframing which allows the middle managers to see themselves and their environment through different lenses (Bartunek & Moch, 1987). This deep change may be thought of as a second-order personal transformation, a change in the individual's metaprogram

As a result of this self-transformation, the individuals perceive themselves and the organization in a new light. This fresh interpretation is then accompanied by new approaches to old problems (Bartunek, Gordon, and Weathersby, 1983). In this stage of the empowerment process, the middle managers initiate new patterns of action. They experiment with out-of-the-box thinking and behavior. They take risks, try unorthodox methods, and are more creative and innovative. In this stage, old habits tend to be broken, and many times action is taken without going through traditional channels. There is greater trust in oneself and reliance on intuition and "pure guts" (Manz, 1986).

One manager said "I felt like I could try new things without going through the bureaucratic approval process. I didn't feel like I had to monitor every detail. I could trust my own intuition and believe that I was doing the right thing." In this stage of empowerment, the managers often have dramatic stories to tell about their new patterns of action. For example, a loan approval process in Ford's credit company, which took two days for completion before a manager attended the LEAD program, was revised by the manager so that it only took eight hours. Shortly thereafter, the manager further modified the approval process so that it now takes only four hours. In most cases, these new patterns of action are second-order or revolutionary changes instead of the more typical first-order, incremental changes the managers had previously felt compelled to initiate.

In most cases, these new patterns of action are reinforced by the managers' superiors and the process of empowerment continues. However, in other cases, the managers new patterns of action are not supported or nurtured by their superiors for a variety of reasons. As a result, these managers become disenchanted with their new paradigms and regress to their previous behaviors.

In cases where the new patterns of action are reinforced, the managers reflect on and learn from their new experiences. Where the new pattern of action was successful, the manager draws on that success for future action. In cases where the new pattern of action was not successful, the manager learns from his or her mistakes and grows and develops. In this stage of the empowerment process, individuals recognize the importance of a continuous learning mindset and the need to remain flexible and adaptable in order to be responsive to a changing and ambiguous environment. One manager said "I learned how to nurture ambiguity and complexity in order to deal with the constantly changing environment." Another manager described a changed perspective on making mistakes, "I realize that it is okay to make mistakes, and when I make mistakes I try to think about how I can learn from them." In this stage of empowerment, cognitions become increasingly complex which allows for greater learning and growth (Bartunek, Gordon, and Weathersby, 1983).

In the process of empowerment, managers become more self-confident and energized. One manager said "I feel excited and invigorated about my role in the organization. My co-workers say that they noticed a difference in me. They say I am more self-confident and relaxed, that I have a special glow." The managers feel highly integrated with and committed to the organization.

What is more, this energy is transmitted to those around the empowered manager. The managers describe how they nurture and coach others to become empowered. "I empower others, helping them grow, develop, learn, and make decisions, giving them ownership of activities and wide areas of responsibility." These empowered managers report more communication with their colleagues, more social support, and more good citizenship behavior. In this way, the process of empowerment is synergistic. It draws individuals together to higher levels of effort. As transformational leaders transform their associates, empowered individuals empower their associates. In this way, empowered individuals band together to become an empowered work group.

As empowered individuals interact with one another, they develop new perspectives and have new experiences. For example, the managers describe how they share success stories and help each other diagnose situations to develop appropriate strategies. In addition, they build networks to expand their power base in the organization. These new perspectives and experiences then stimulate the managers to re-redefine their self and role, and the process of empowerment begins again.

Consequently, the process of empowerment is regenerative and deviation amplifying (Weick, 1979). It is dynamic and cyclical. It is transformational at multiple levels. It begins by transforming individuals' sense of self, stimulates them to try new behaviors, helps them develop a continuous learning mindset, and increases their self-confidence. This empowered individual, then, works to draw others into the process of empowerment in order that they too become empowered. The result is an empowered workforce which contributes to a more responsive and effective organization. This process of empowerment is illustrated in figure three.

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Figure 3 about here

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It is important to note, however, that not all participants are positively impacted by the program. A small number are disenchanted and cynical about the program from its beginning. Others feel stimulated to become empowered but then return to their work group and receive no support or reinforcement for their newly learned paradigm. As a result, these individuals become disenchanted and regress to past behavior. As one disillusioned middle manager indicated, "This entire program is a fraud. The program is nothing like it is portrayed to be. No one here wants middle managers to be leaders." However, these individuals represent only a small minority of program participants, well under five percent.

At the beginning of this chapter, we outlined two different models or approaches to skills development. The first model reflects traditional approaches to skills development. It is transactional and develops primarily first-order, transactional skills. The second model is complementary to and builds on the first. It focuses on transformational, second-order skill development. The LEAD program is highly consistent with this second, more transformational model of skills development. The program's objective, like the objective of this second model, is to stimulate individual paradigm changes and to empower individuals to take charge of themselves and initiate change, deep change. Like the transformational model of skills development, the LEAD program helps managers learn how to manage ambiguity and uncertainty. Rather than prescribing action, the program encourages the managers to assess a given situation and to think for themselves, to take risks, and to try new behaviors (Baird and Thomas, 1985).

Though designed to develop middle managers in a large corporation, the LEAD program is a useful analogue for managerial skills training in the business school classroom. It provides clues on how the second, more transformational model of skills development can be integrated into the curriculum of business schools. Moreover, the LEAD program and this second model of skills development are both found to be highly consistent with the four assumptions of skill development outlined at the beginning of the chapter.

In response to assumption one which asserts that American corporations are concerned with the development of managerial skills, this transformational model of skill training requires a high degree of commitment to the manager. It is student centered and experiential. The educator's role is not teacher but coach. This model provides overall organizational alignment and stimulates students to become empowered and to experience deep personal change. Its goal is to re-energize or unfreeze managers as they face unprecedented levels of change and continuous demands for increased responsiveness.

In response to the second assumption which asserts that executives are anxious to institute programs and teach managers to be transformational and innovative leaders, this model of skill training is transformational by design. Its primary objective is to induce managers to reflect deeply about their self paradigms and to transform those paradigms if deemed necessary. The goal is to simultaneously develop transformational leaders and transactional managers. Here the focus is not on following the existing rules and maintaining the status quo. Instead individuals are encouraged to be cognitively complex and to question the way things are done in the organization (Quinn, 1988: 10). Evidence of individual transformation resulting from this second model of skill training is provided above in the assessment of the impact of the LEAD program.

In response to the third assumption which suggests that managers are anxious to grow and develop and are desirous of skill training, the second model of skill training is very individually oriented. It allows individuals to integrate their personal values and needs. It is introspective and allows individuals to draw on and expand on their individual core competencies while also developing new competencies (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990). Instead of requiring conformity to a given managerial paradigm, it allows individuals to develop and nurture different paradigms.

Finally in response to the fourth assumption which asserts that skills training results in more effective organizations, this transformation model of skill training prepares managers to be responsive to the changing and uncertain environment. By expanding managerial role expectations to be both anticipatory and reactive, visionary and reinforcing, strategic and executionary, and participatory and directing, managers will be able to contribute to greater organizational responsiveness and thus organizational effectiveness. Beyond the need for "hard" management skills, this second model of skill training also emphasizes the need for self-discovery, interpersonal relationships, and transformational leadership. These more "soft" skills are viewed by many to be critical to individual and organizational effectiveness given greater environmental instability and change (Nonaka and Johansson, 1985). We do not, however, advocate the abandonment of traditional skills training. Instead, we suggest that traditional, transactional skill training must be supplemented with the complementary focus of the second, more transformational, model of skill training.

Unfortunately, this transformational model of skill training and development is not easily implemented. There are no recipes for successful implementation and little precedent to follow. In fact, this model violates many of the core assumptions of traditional management education at nearly every level. It is radical, requiring risk on the part of both the receiver and the sender, the student and the teacher. It requires experimentation and trial and error processes. Moreover, it requires openness to new ideas and trust.

The LEAD program reviewed here is delivered in the organizational context of one organization: the Ford Motor Company. Intriguing challenges for researchers, educators, and other organizations include whether variations of this model can be fashioned to have similar impacts when delivered to young "pre-managers" in a business school setting or in a setting of managers from many different organizations assembled in an executive development program.

Our experience indicates that it would be highly desirable to extend, with appropriate reshaping, the Ford learnings to other settings. The benefits are impressive and long range. This transformational, second-order model of skill training, we believe, is the key to developing managers who will be able to manage in the 1990s and beyond. Managers trained in transformational skills will have the cognitive complexity necessary to effectively manage ambiguity and uncertainty in their working environment and in their jobs. This transformational model of skill training will help managers become aware of the costs and benefits of managerial paradigms as well as the importance of paradigm change in order to respond to changing circumstances. In addition, this model of skills training will help managers become self-initiators, change makers, and risk takers -- all essential self-empowering skills. The end product is a more productive work force and effective organization.

1. We would like to thank Kim Cameron, Michael Thompson, and Ernie Savoie for invaluable comments on earlier drafts. The views expressed in this chapter do not necessarily fully represent the views of the Ford Motor Company.