MMM - Management For Middle Managers

It is usually said that “Good followers make great leaders”, but why there is the case that sufficient “good followers” can’t make it the great leader?

The above are just two among many questions arose in regards of the competency of the “middle management”, which are bothering leaders and middle managers of many businesses.

The answers for those questions lie in the “Management for Middle Managers” (in short: MMM) training program, provided by PACE.

This program is designed for those who are middle managers (functional directors such as Business Director, Marketing Director, Sales Directors, Administration Directors, Human Resources Directors, Finance Directors, Production Directors, Technical Directors, IT Directors, Project Directors…; Head/Deputy Heads of departments), or those who have a desire to be middle managers and are preparing themselves with management skills to embrace the future position.

The program objectives are to address the following questions: What is the competency of a “middle manager” (MM)?; Which qualities need to be enhanced and practiced to become a good MM? On becoming a good MM, what to learn, how to learn and how to experience? Why the Big Boss always have to embrace tons of tasks but not delegate to the middle managers?...

The competency of a MM includes both “specialized competency” and “management competency”.

For instance, a great Finance Director is not only excellent in financial expertise but also good at managing his team and all the accounting financial system of the company; a great Production Director does no only have a deep understanding about technical issues and manufacturing technology but also have the capability to well manage the workshop/plants and the factory’s workers and technical labors  …

Most of MM are promoted from those who are skillful in their specialized major. So how is the “management competency” of an MM to be equipped?

The first and foremost important skills among “Management competency” is “people management skills.” However, to become a great MM, knowing how to manage people is just the “necessary conditions.” So, what are the “sufficient conditions?”

“Sufficient conditions” for a great MM include:

• Know the job and understand “the worries” of the Big Boss; understand the company’s strategy and know how to build the division’s strategy; understand the corporate culture and know how to build up the department culture; understand the management system of the company and know how to build up the management system of the department;

• Know how to “connect” between Big Boss and the department’s employees; know how to communicate effectively the ideas of Big Boss with employees; know how to implement successfully ever assignments from Big Boss; Know how to “take care” of the department’s employees on behalf of Big Boss;

• Know how to recruit and employ staff; Know how to assign and delegate to the team; know how to enhance the cooperation between the department’s staff and between the department and other departments; now how to handle the department’s internal problems based on the overall understanding of the whole company (not only for the sake of the department solely);…

Building up a “model” to improve the management skills for middle managers is the result of PACE’s best efforts over the past decade. And the copyright of this “model” has been registered by PACE under the name of “PACE’s MMM Model”.