Columbia County considers Madison College for management training

From wiscnews.com: “MATC proposes to train department heads” — Columbia County Supervisor Sue Martin had a blunt question: “How do you teach an old dog new tricks?”

Mike Baldwin replied that the Madison Area Technical College’s Center for Community and Corporate Learning can, indeed, help Columbia County’s department heads maximize their skills in leadership and management.

Baldwin, assessment facilitator for the training program, fielded numerous questions — some as blunt as Martin’s — at a meeting Wednesday for the county’s department heads and the supervisors who are chairs of the County Board committees that oversee various departments.

County Board Chairman Andy Ross said the county’s 2013 budget includes about $20,000 for leadership training.

Such a need was identified for managers in the county’s highway and transportation department, in a 118-page report from Baker Tilly, a Madison-based consulting firm that has spent the last several months analyzing the department’s operation.

But all of the county’s departments, and even experienced managers, should benefit from leadership training, Ross said.

“We put a lot of money into buildings and things like that,” he said. “But one of the optimal aspects we have is you folks. We should be doing some investing in you.”

Baldwin and Barbara Martin, outreach training liaison for the MATC program, spoke to the County Board’s executive committee earlier this month, and laid out a proposal that would entail:

• Meetings between county department heads and representatives of the MATC program, starting at the beginning of next year, to assess each department head’s strengths and weaknesses in management.

• A report in February to the executive committee, regarding the results of the assessments and a proposed list of training topics.

• Training in leadership and management, to start the first week of March.

The proposal must get approval from the executive committee next month before the assessments can begin.

Ross had been the outreach training liaison for the MATC program until his June 2011 retirement. He noted Wednesday that he would receive no financial benefit from the county paying MATC for the leadership training.

Ross said he recommended using the MATC program because of its success.

Baldwin said private-sector entities are the main users of the program, though the state of Wisconsin has used it. Columbia County would be the first county government body to utilize the program’s management training, he said.

Barbara Martin said the proposal for management training indicates the value that the County Board places on county department heads.

“Columbia County is taking you seriously,” she said, “and wants to invest in you.”

Susan Martin, chairwoman of the County Board’s human resources committee, said her 30 years of experience in human resources in the private sector has shown her that management training programs work best when they include an assessment of the organization’s overall effectiveness.

“This is a very tight timeline,” she said, “and I don’t recall any attention being paid to the overall organization.”

Also, she said, it may not be the department heads who most need leadership training, but rather the lower-level managers in some of the county’s larger departments.

Supervisor Fred Teitgen, chairman of the County Board’s planning and zoning committee, asked whether the assessment conducted before the training could offer insight into the workload of various departments; determine whether departments have the right size staff for their workload; and identify opportunities for different departments to share staff.

Baldwin said the assessment would factor in the county’s limited financial resources, and the effect of those limitations on staffing.

Ross said the executive committee, of which he is chairman — whose members include Robert Westby, Vern Gove, Richard Boockmeier and Mary Cupery — would exercise ongoing oversight of the leadership training process.