I’m a secret admirer of Ruby Wax (“secret” because, up until now, there is no way Ruby Wax could have known). I have always enjoyed her bubbly, cheeky style on the telly and I admired her even more when I read her first-hand accounts of depression. And now there is another reason to admire her: she has been back to college and completed courses on psychotherapy and neuroscience and reinvented herself as an executive coach.
In a recent copy of the Times (9 September 2009), Ruby is interviewed and is quoted as saying: “I’m undoing a lot of the fancy management training they [her clients] have been on. I’m undoing it because it is garbage.”
As a psychologist and a management trainer myself, I couldn’t help wondering what management training she was busy undoing? Ruby specialises in promoting self-awareness (“Before you can understand what someone else is thinking and feeling you have to be aware of yourself”), self-management (“It’s about knowing how to stay calm in a storm”), social awareness (“Sensing what the other person is trying to say, under their words”) and relationship management (“Adjusting your style to shape the outcome of a social interaction”). I wouldn’t be able to resist adding self-development to this list, but let’s not quibble. These are all splendid capabilities that would surely help any leader and/or manager make a difference for the better.
In my experience, these are the very things that management training extols - I’ve been doing it for years. So, the hunt is on to track down the management training that Ruby wants to undo because it is garbage. Suggestions please. And, if she is right, how come so many of her clients fell for it in the first place? If managers allow themselves to be hoodwinked with garbage, perhaps the most urgent priority is to sharpen up their critical faculties. Or, if you are a management trainer, might that be an unwelcome development?