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There's a well entrenched school of thought that says that 'you can't teach turnaround', which I must admit was my initial gut feeling too when the subject first came up.
It's a natural enough reaction I think in a business characterised by practitioners who have traditionally been broadly qualified by their experience of 'doing it'; and one where there has been no formal career path to train new entrants.
After all, until relatively recently, with the establishment of the Institute for Turnaround (IfT), there hadn't been any form of UK accreditation of professionals. What's more, while the IfT is currently consulting on developing a practising certificate for turnaround professionals, which will in part require the development of a more structured approach to ongoing continual professional development, the current accreditation basis remains an experience based one of referenced case studies, professional referees and panel interviews.
The contrast here is with the United States, where the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) has an established exam and experience based Certified Turnaround Professional qualification. While the 'body of knowledge' on which this syllabus is based is somewhat US centric, a fact which has so far held back expansion of this qualification into other markets, it does suggests there are some elements which can be taught.
So if it is being done in the US already, why does the idea of 'teaching turnaround' seem so strange?
Again, I think this is also quite a natural reaction given the characteristics of the work involved. It's an area where experience in the practicalities of what you can and can't do, and how you do it is key; and one where you need the ability to rapidly assess a situation and a willingness to take what you judge are going to be the right decisions, often in the absence of good (or sometimes any) evidence or information on which to base them.
How, this school of thought asks, can you possibly teach any of that in a classroom? Not easily is answer (although with simulations and role play using professional actors you can sometimes get a lot closer than you might think!).
However you could also ask the same question about say some insolvency work, where my experience as a junior in the early nineties was one of being chucked in at the deep end to see if you could sink or swim. Preparing reports was a matter of following any example you could find so it was only about 18 months later, after a partner pointed out that my 'Section 48 report' didn't cover the requirements of Section 48 IA86, that it ever occurred to me that perhaps I ought to read it and find out what I was supposed to be reporting on.
The point I learnt then was that in insolvency, as in any profession worth its name, there are a number of elements that practitioners need to have, which I would characterise as:
- a personal appetite and aptitude for the work;
- the practical and personal skills to undertake the work and deal with the circumstances that you will find yourself in;
- the analytical tools and experience to undertake the job and make the right decisions; and
- the specialist body of knowledge to do so correctly and successfully.
I would agree that you cannot teach the first.
In turnaround, the second and third have usually in practice been learnt 'on the job' but, just as with insolvency staff appropriate training can help. For example negotiation skills are a practical expertise that is often needed in turnaround situations. People will have naturally varying levels of innate ability in this area but these are something that can be taught.
Similarly, experienced practitioners will tend to have their own approaches that they apply to assessing situations. But there are a number of well established models and tools that are generally accepted, for example the concept of the decline and recovery curves. While taking nothing away from the need to have the experience with which to appropriately apply such tools, it is possible to teach a theoretical framework and tools for assessing businesses in difficulty and formulating and implementing turnaround plans.
Finally as in any profession, there is specialist technical knowledge. As a turnaround professional you really do need to know about the basics of insolvency legislation, such as wrongful trading and your responsibilities as a director or shadow director. These are all clearly 'technical' subjects which can and are taught to other professionals.
Therefore it seems to me the answer is that there is a body of technical, financial, commercial and legal knowledge needed for turnarounds that can be taught and tested by way of exams; and there is a level of practical aptitude and experience that is needed before someone can really be judged to be a professional. It also therefore seems to me that the turnaround profession, if it is to be a real profession in the UK, will inevitably need to move down this route towards a formal qualification.
So pending the development of such a professional structure, where is training in turnaround skills available in the UK today?
The TMA hold regular regional meetings which are generally structured around some kind of presentation, so giving varying degrees of technical or training content on a somewhat ad hoc basis. They also run an annual one day conference which is normally designed more specifically to deliver some training element, and the one day Fundamentals of Turnaround Management course provided by Minerva Training Associates discussed below was developed in conjunction with the TMA in the UK.
The IfT have similar regular regional members meetings, again normally based around a presentation and also run an annual conference. In addition, they are currently in the process of publishing an updated set of practice notes for members giving guidance on a wide range of issues. While they no longer seem to be running the series of four half day workshops which they used to provide, they are now launching a series of two hour CPD workshops for members.
The Insolvency Practitioner's trade body, R3, runs a large number of training courses targeted at the insolvency community. While some of these can be quite technical, some can be of relevance.
Two university business schools which used to provide some teaching in the field of turnaround seem to have scaled this with the departure of Stuart Slatter from London Business School and the reduction of the turnaround elective at Manchester Business School. I understand two other business schools are looking at launching programs in this area but details are limited at present.
In the private sector, Minerva Training Associates has been set up by turnaround practitioner David Hole and training facilitator Dominic Reimbold to address the need for a generally available program of courses available as either an introduction to the area, or as a systematic training and development program. Starting with their one day introductory program 'Fundamentals of Turnaround Management', Minerva are also creating a range of technical and practical courses. These will all be registered for CPD and are eventually intended to build into a full turnaround training syllabus, offering a range of courses from introductory to advanced level, designed to help those looking to specialise or develop in this area. Minerva is also partnering with well known professional training provider BPP and will be providing a number of stand-alone turnaround focused courses for inclusion in BPP's programs.
