IBSA - Innovation & Business Skills Australia

Manager 2020 principles: new project

Background

In 2005 IBSA commissioned the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to undertake a study into the changing role of Australia’s senior leaders and managers (Manager 2020), and to identify the skills and attributes needed to respond to those changes. The impetus for the report was IBSA’s commitment to guiding and advising industry and training providers on management skill needs to ensure that Australia’s international competitiveness continues to grow in the 21st century.

The BCG report highlighted the potential challenges for senior managers/leaders of the:

• emergence of a global economy in which leaders will need to be culturally aware and knowledgeable about global markets and complex environments;
• need for managers to focus on the implications of greater workplace flexibility, and
• shift from generalist management to a reliance on maintaining technical expertise.

A follow-up report commissioned by IBSA from Ernst and Young validated the findings of the BCG report, identifying five areas of management development where Australian businesses need to focus their efforts – global business awareness, talent management, stakeholder and customer expectations, employee engagement and retention, and technology, information and infrastructure.

In relation to management development strategies, a key requirement for the success of management development programs was found to be the ability to identify ongoing learning needs across the entire employee life cycle. Indeed, further success is realised when management development initiatives are linked to performance management measures and new knowledge is transformed into practical application. Earlier this year, IBSA commissioned a follow up report, Future directions in management and leadership training, to provide directions for incorporating Manager 2020 principles into IBSA’s Training Packages.

The project: where to next?

Using the Future directions in management and leadership training as a basis, IBSA will explore ways of incorporating Manager 2020 principles in skilling solutions at all levels of management and leadership. It is anticipated that a project will commence in late September to evaluate the BSB07 Business Services Training package and all other IBSA Training Packages. The work will identify the current coverage of management, leadership and innovation competencies, with a focus on those identified in the BCG and Ernst and Young reports and the current work on IBSA’s Innovation and Creativity Platform. More details about the project will be made available in the next few weeks.