Caribbean managers meet in Belize
Middle managers from the public and private sectors in the Caribbean and Canada are meeting in Belize this week to try and figure out how both groups can work more closely. Over forty top-level officials including permanent secretaries from Belize are attending the three-day conference, which opened today at the Radisson Hotel. Organizers say the conference is not a training seminar but a forum where participants can share ideas and discuss issues to enhance the contribution of middle managers to the development of their respective countries. According to the managing director of the Belize Institute of Management, Reynaldo Guerrero, for too long now, middle managers have not been recognized for the valuable contributions they make to the development process, even though they are better equipped than their predecessors of only a couple of years ago.
Reynaldo Guerrero, Managing Director, B.I.M.
“The theme has to do with enhancing middle management skills or performance and how they impact on the public and private sectors. As I mentioned earlier in the presentation, the middle managers seem to be the forgotten manager. And even as the minister spoke, the middle manager is caught between the almost the devil and the deep blue sea. But what has happened is that the middle manager has changed. You know, we know and from my experience, the middle manager today is much more educated than in the past, but yet he’s still treated the same way as it was in the past.”
Wendell Kellman, President, C.M.D.A.
“As indicated earlier, there was the view that senior managers are the, really be all and end all of management, but I think we all recognize that the senior managers are the knowledge professionals; they are the people who are better qualified in this day and age. Most of them have excellent managerial and technical skills, and it is on them and from them that we look to the future. As our work force gets older, the whole business of succession planning has to be looked at. We have to think in terms of moving our middle managers up to take the senior positions and the leadership positions.”
Q: “How important is the role of middle managers in development, so far as Belize is concerned?”
Marian McNab, P.S., Ministry of the Public Service
“Personally, I believe that middle managers hold the key to the future of the public service, speaking from the public service perspective, simply because they are the core group that we depend on for continuity; that is how important they are. As you are aware top management are politically appointed and we do not have security of tenure, so that focus has to be placed on middle management to carry on the work of the public service; that’s where all the knowledge, all the skills, should be embedded.”
The three-day conference, which ends on Thursday, is being sponsored by the Caribbean Management Development Association under the theme, “Enhancing Middle Management Performance, impacting Public and Private Sector Development.” Participants are from member states of the Caribbean Management Development Association, including Belize, the Bahamas, St. Kitts, Grenada, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
