3 minute read
Welcome: You’ve got this!
by CMI_
ANN FRANCKE OBE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CMI
Many economists and commentators believe that we’ll that see a productivity uplift as a result of the coronavirus. But will we build back better? That’s one of the key themes in this CMI magazine. The past year has been an enforced hiatus, a time to reflect on and improve the way we go about things. As you’ll discover in several stories in this edition, the best managers and leaders have seized the opportunity to accelerate digital developments, improve the way they communicate and engage with their people, become more agile, and be more aware of the community and context in which they operate.
We’re all part of the process of building back better; how you behave as a manager is the key to unlocking great performance. The secret, as you’ll read on page 26, is to dial up the behaviours and skills that got you this far. Keep up the process of self-reflection (a cornerstone of the Chartered Manager process) and commit to learning and development.
For example, at CMI, we have focused on self-improvement and delivering on our mission over the past year, and this is producing some great results. There are now a record number of Chartered Managers (11,500, up from 8,500 at the end 2019/20) bringing a positive and professional approach to organisations around the world. More than 100,000 learning with us, and ever greater numbers of students are becoming CMI members. This means our management community is now more than 150,000 strong. And we’re supporting those managers and leaders with digital events, content and forums, as well as new benefits such as access to mental health and well-being resources.
As ever, we also strive to encourage the latest best practices in management. To that end, I’m pleased to be on the advisory council for the UK government’s new ‘Help to Grow: Management’ scheme, which aims to help small and medium-sized companies boost their productivity.
If you have any feedback about what we’re doing for CMI members and how we can improve, please contact me direct or email us at editorial@managers.org.uk
CHARTERED MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT
In the spirit of driving up professionalism, we’re excited to be officially launching the Chartered Management Consultant (ChMC) award at the end of April. This is the product of a joint partnership with the Management Consultancies Association (MCA), the trade association for the UK’s leading consulting firms. The award celebrates commitment to excellence, ethics, client trust and assurance. We’ve been running various pilot waves of the award for the past 18 months, and we now have 350 ChMCs and a further 1,500 people on the path to assessment. At present, 25 consulting firms are working to accredit their in-house training programmes.
ETHNICITY PAY REPORTING
As well as building back better, we must also build back more inclusive. At CMI, we were disappointed that the government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities only recommended a voluntary approach for organisations to report their ethnicity pay gaps. Organisations of all sizes benefit from greater transparency – as we’ve seen with gender pay gap reporting – and it would have been a catalyst for change to make this requirement mandatory. We’ll be keeping up the pressure on this.
HRH THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH
All of us at CMI were deeply saddened by the passing of His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, who died on 9 April aged 99. The Duke had a 50-year association with the Chartered Management Institute, having become an Honorary Fellow in 1969 and CMI’s Royal Patron in 1992. We were very grateful that he was a guest of honour at our 2017 President’s Dinner, shortly before his retirement from public life.
The Duke devoted his life to public service and made an invaluable contribution towards CMI’s mission to increase the number and standard of professionally qualified managers and leaders. Our thoughts are with his immediate family and with the countless people and organisations around the world on whom he made such a powerful impact.
