How Do We Know Which Training Is Good Medicine for Managers

Iraining blossomed in the federal service following the Government Employees Training Act of 1958 and Executive Order 11348, which spelled out how training was to become an Investment for Tomorrow. The U.S. Civil Service Commission estimates that government at the federal level now spends some $4 billion per year on training, while at the state and local level over half of the $54 million granted to date under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act has gone for training. Is the current volume of training too much of a good thing? Or, more precisely, which parts of this good thing are truly good, and good for what? If we are going to allocate our hopes for improved public management between civil service reform (a Herculean task, with no giants currently visible on the horizon) and the reform of civil servants via training,' then we need some secure knowledge about what training can and cannot accomplish. If we are going to allocate our dollars rationally among different means for maintaining services in the face of a shrinking fiscal pie, then we need to know which training to classify as good general medicine, which as prescription drugs, and which as having no known effect on the health of the public service. Answers to these questions are crucial and especially slippery when the questions are addressed to training in the general management area. The answers are crucial since it seems clear that training investment gains leverage when applied to managerial jobs. Through management training the organization's leadership hopes to

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