Management Fundamentals in China

The first years of the new millennium brought an explosion in business development inChina. The pace and scale of growth in that region has been enormous. In this context, one Fortune-10 company had a clear need: bring up to speed the many people from many different backgrounds who had joined the organization.

It was decided the best way to achieve this goal was to create a training program that covered all their standard managerial practices, basic knowledge of the organization, and its specific characteristics, values, structure and rhythm. The program was delivered to all their Chinese operations as fast as possible. The organization decided to train internal trainers to guarantee speedy and thorough coverage; furthermore, internal trainers, recognized as an intrinsic part of the company, were deemed potentially more effective in communicating with the new employee population.

Because most of the material the organization used in other programs was either too sophisticated or too specialized to be effective with this assignment, EDI began by defining the content and delivery needs of the Chinese operations.

EDI collected all materials that would be appropriate for the expectations and level of the audience in China . Based on these, EDI began putting together a new program that was to become an overview of management fundamentals.

EDI adapted the existing materials and designed additional materials to cover areas that were not part of the available inventory. The task included not only creation of materials to deliver the course, but also participant materials.

In order to guarantee the quality of the product, EDI developed a Leaders' Guide that the organization's executives who were selected as trainers would use to teach management fundamentals.

As a second quality checkpoint, EDI conducted a pilot session with the trainer-candidates. This way, the trainer-candidates were able to experience the program just as other session participants would. Following the pilot session, trainers participated in an additional three-day (Train-The-Trainers, TTT) session.

After very specific feedback was given to these candidates and the program was adjusted according to the results of the pilot, EDI disengaged from the project and will not be involved in further programming or delivery. However, EDI made a commitment to be available virtually to the trainers for support prior to their first teaching assignment. Both the strict TTT and EDI's availability throughout the process contributed to the quality assurance process which helped ensure the success of the initiative.