Does Britain Have A Culture Of Bad Management?

27/03/2012

By Bruce Johnstone, Director of the Business Growth and Development Programme at Cranfield School of Management

“A culture of bad management continues to damage UK plc” according to Christopher Kinsella, the acting chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), quoted recently in the Financial Times. His organisation was sounding a warning that the UK economy is failing to achieve its potential because too many of our managers are ineffective and poorly trained.

Mr Kinsella points out that British bosses are less likely to have a professional management qualification than their counterparts in France and Germany, and 43% of UK managers rate their...

...own boss as ineffective. These insights came from recent research carried out by CMI and Penna that suggests a dismaying number of British firms suffer from a bad management culture.

Such a culture is bad enough in a firm that is exploiting a niche in a mature or declining industry, or a sector that offers little potential for growth. However SMEs in developing industries and sectors that offer the potential for rapid and profitable growth cannot afford to accept a culture of bad management. It is essential that ventures with good opportunities to grow invest in developing the management talent needed to exploit those opportunities and drive economic growth.

But how can a growing SME go about developing its management? The most important person to develop first is the owner-manager of the venture. They often start the business with technical skills in their specialist field and perhaps some management experience gained working in a larger firm. They often need to rapidly improve their ability to manage finance and understand the numbers in their growing venture. Sales and marketing skills are also crucial and they face the challenge of recruiting and managing a great team of people. As the business... continued on page two >

 

 

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