FIP 007: Developing Middle Management in Africa with Rebecca Harrison

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“Effective managers hold the key to Africa’s prosperity”. A bold statement, but fair. So much focus by companies in Africa has been on technical training of employees, and management skills are woefully lagging. In this episode, Rebecca Harrison gives us some practical advice on how to start now on strengthening that middle management layer in your company, and why it’s the best investment you can make in your company today.

You’ll learn about:

How talent management gets tougher as your social enterprise scales, so setting up systems early pays off down the line
Some of the early roadblocks that caused them to pivot their early offering, including the challenges taking payment in Africa
Critical training that any manager should be given, including goal setting, personal productivity, time management and accountability
Formal learning is useless unless you practice on the job and create a feedback loop – check out some tips on how to create this structure around trial and error and form the right habits
Instead of thinking about training as a checkbox for your staff, think intentionally about the culture you want to build, the competencies and habits that need to underpin the culture, and then train and practice specifically for that
Tools to underpin staff development, such as goal setting, accountability partners, daily reflection through journaling.

References:

rippleworks
africanmanagers.org
africanmanagers.org/trainingtalent – data on Africa’s talent gap and new insights into how effective workplace learning and development can transform organisations

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