Leadership and Management Grant Funding – Is It’s All Over Now?

The Leadership and Management Grant Funding Program was due to come to an end in February 2012 but the Government has decided to claw back whatever is left in the pot, so for the moment it is ll over. But will it be resuscitated next year and what value did it add?

Now is a good moment to reflect on the value and benefits of the Leadershop and Management grant funding program, so here are my thoughts from my perspective as a training provider. Actually the word training is used loosely as all the programs I have delivered are a hybrid mixing mentoring, personal development and corporate development activities.

From an administrative perspective the Leadership and Management grant funding was really good, at least in London where the application and claims process is uncomplicated and relatively speedy.

So far I have delivered seven Leadership and Management grant funded programs (had two more in the pipeline that have disappointingly fallen foul of the claw-back), each one tailor made to fit the individual needs of each client.

My clients’ represent a diverse range of businesses and industries including PR, diet delivery, domestic cleaning, a mental health charity, family health and adoption services, fitness and contract furniture.

All programs must be designed to support the business owner/manager, or for larger businesses, one of the senior managers. Plus Leadership and Management grant funding was only awarded where businesses met eligibility criteria, which included that the business expects to achieve at least 60% growth in staff or turnover, over the next three years. Most receive a grant of £1,000 and match that with £1,000 of their own funds, although £500 grants are also available.

What have I delivered under Leadership and Management grant funding programs?

I feel the key value I have added to my clients and their businesses is to bring focus to their thinking particularly in terms of what they need to do to grow their business and realistically what they can achieve over the next couple of years. This thinking is usually turned into hard facts and figures along the way i.e. a strategic business development plan with sales and profit and loss forecasts – I always want to see the plan, as without a plan things remain in the realm of dreams and wishes.

So basically the essential momentum of each program is driven by strategic planning activities, but these are almost always contextualised and accompanied by activities to address weaknesses in my client’s planning processes, information systems and/or personal management style.

This might all sound a bit processes orientated and it is, but equally important and for some more important is the role I play in motivating my clients and simply being there as someone to talk to about their business and the people within it. If you run your own business you will probably know how lonely the management role can be.

Here is a summary of what a few of the programs looked like:

• Issues: business owner jaded with the business, no sales process but a strong need to grow the business with a future trade sale in mind;
• Activities – inspire the business owner to feel positive about the next few years (every session), look at profitability, develop sales forecasts and realistic growth targets, decide how to build sales to achieve targets and motivate business owner to take action.
• Issues: marketplace has changed with new opportunities but company does not have the management function in place to drive change and take advantage of the new opportunities;
• Activities – identify organic growth potential and opportunities to roll out new services, suggest new working methods e.g. using project management methodology to work with partners to pilot new services, suggest and support review of profitability of cost centre/services, setting sales growth targets, discussing how to engage the management team in planning and delivering change/growth, succession planning as key people are approaching retirement.
• Issues: Desire to rapidly grow the business but no plan for how to do so and relationship issues between shareholders/owners;
• Activities – discuss what is holding the company back and identify plans to address issues, mediate achievement of a joint/shared vision of the future and current issues, review performance data for previous year and forecast potential for growth, look at what marketing activities worked last year and how to ramp them up to increase sales – growth strategy, identify corporate KPIs to be used to monitor progress and manage staff performance.

The above is just a flavour of the issues encountered and activities undertaken. I think the Leadership and Management grant funding program is excellent it helps persuade smaller business owners to seek the help and advice they need without too much worry about cost.

At the moment it is anyones guess as to whether there will be more funding post April 2012 when the new financial year start.

I would like to hear about other people’s experiences of the Leadership and Management Grant funding and if you did not get a grant, whether you think this type of support would benefit your company.
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