Most NFP organisations realise just how important having great managers is to the success of their organisation – and they should also have a pretty good idea of what makes a great manager.

So the goal is clear. But as a senior leader or HR manager, how do you get your organisation and its managers to that point?

While there are lots of tips, nothing beats training. There’s mountains of evidence that it works, especially for new managers.

For NFPs in particular, the evidence shows that

“For each dollar spent on the training there [is] a positive return of about six dollars that can be attributed to the gain in knowledge and skills from the training, and the resulting behaviours, decisions and their flow on effects on the organisation and its mission success.”

Despite this – and despite the fact that when an employee becomes a manager, it might be the first time they have professionally managed other people – one study found that leaders on average only received leadership training a full decade after they started managing people!

Google’s New Manager Training

Thankfully, search-giant Google has been generous enough to help solve this problem for organisations around the world.

Google has decided to offer organisations like yours their entire new manager training course – that has been used to train thousands of their managers all over the world to help them transition from an individual contributor role to a manager role – for free.

That means with a little time (and ideally, the support of an experienced facilitator) your organisation can get started right now on upskilling some of your most important assetts.

In addition to building skills, the Google curriculum includes introspection, perspective shifting, and awareness building. It has been influenced by years of iteration, internal and external research, and feedback from new managers.

The training course is designed to be run over two full days, builds six key competencies:

• Mindset & Values
• Emotional Intelligence
• Manager Transition
• Coaching
• Feedback
• Decision Making

The resources include all the materials needed to train your managers, including:

• A 44 page editable facilitator guide (to download it as a Microsoft Word document, click the “File” menu at the top LHS, go to “Download” and choose the “Microsoft Word” option.)
• 121 editable slides for presenting the training (to download these as a Microsoft Powerpoint file, click the “File” menu at the top LHS, go to “Download” and choose the “Microsoft Powerpoint” option.)
• And an editable workbook for the participants.

All the training materials, which have been adapted from Google’s internal manager development resources, can be downloaded, edited and customised to reflect the culture and scale of your organisation, and meet the needs of your managers.

When to run this training

Google says this curriculum has been designed for managers with little to no prior management experience.

But given that many activities require reflection on a current or past challenge, they say

it is ideal if the manager has been in the role for a brief period (45-90 days). While it makes sense to prepare someone for a job they are about to perform, we’ve found managers are most receptive to learning after they’ve had some time in the role and experience upon which to reflect. 

What are you waiting for?

Click here to download the resources and get started on developing great managers in your NFP.