‘Myopic management’ threatens UK’s growth
The UK is suffering from “myopic management” that threatens its global competitiveness, an independent commission has warned.
The country will need 1m new managers by 2020, to replace those retiring and allow for business growth, but 71 per cent of business leaders and managers confess they could do better at training first-time managers or do not train them at all, according to research.
This could lead to 150,000 employees taking on management roles every year without being prepared for the job, the Commission on the Future of Management and Leadership said.
The commission, founded by a cross-party group of MPs and the Chartered Management Institute, a professional body, said Britain faced a “crisis in management”.
It urged companies to define their long-term aims beyond narrow financial targets, ensure staff were properly trained for management roles, and do more to hire young people who could be the next generation of managers.
A survey of 2,000 business leaders and managers found that three out of five admitted their organisation performed poorly or could do better. The report said “short-sighted” behaviour was squeezing out the approach needed to achieve real growth.
Business leaders such as Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, Harriet Green, chief executive of Thomas Cook, and Sir Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, gave evidence.
The UK lags behind US, Japan, Germany and Canada in the effectiveness of its management practices, the report found.
Peter Ayliffe, CMI president and co-chair of the commission, said: “We’re faced with a ticking time bomb of myopic management in this country, with widespread under-investment in the next generation of leaders. We’ve got some brilliantly managed organisations in the UK, but there are simply not enough of them.”
Unless all those responsible for leading businesses, public services and charities acknowledged the UK was at a tipping point and committed to improving management, long-term growth opportunities would not be fulfilled, he added.
Ann Francke, the CMI’s chief executive, said organisations promoted people for their functional skills in areas such as IT and engineering, but left them to “muddle through” without management training.
Source: ft
