I’m enjoying myself professionally at the moment - I’m currently in the process of rolling out 3 separate stand-alone leadership development programmes for one business. I developed these programmes for the senior and middle management teams and also the emerging talent from within the business.
The development work was carried out in close consultation with both the MD and HR Director who wanted to ensure that the training intervention was going to have the maximum ROI for the business. I love working with businesses who have a people focus; by investing in this type of learning and development they are growing their talent pool whilst at the same time strengthening the capability of their middle and senior management teams. The programme concludes in November when the delegates will then present back to the key stakeholders with the aim of demonstrating how the training has enhanced their abilities. In the meantime I have regular update meetings with the MD because he’s passionately focussed on improving the capability of his people; he is relatively new to his role and really wants to cultivate and encourage a culture of personal development.
Lets compare this forward thinking and people-focused organisation with one that an acquaintance of mine is unfortunate enough to be associated with. This person had an issue relating to the behaviour of their manager (a person in dire need of some self-awareness training) – having tried unsuccessfully to resolve this issue with the manager in question they then tried to contact HR. Except they couldn’t. Apparently, in order to speak to someone in HR they had to ‘raise a ticket’ in very much the same way that you would if your printer was broken or you’d forgotten a password.
Eventually they got to communicate with someone in HR (however this could only be done via email and not in person). The outcome of this is largely irrelevant (in fact it remains unresolved and unsurprisingly the person involved is disengaged, demotivated and actively seeking employment elsewhere) but lets compare and contrast – One business has a people-focused leader who embodies Covey’s Leadership Model (more on this in another blog). The other? Well I did some research on the leader of this business and apparently they believe that the important things at the heart of their business are design, engineering and technical ability. I didn’t see anything in that sentence about people.
I wish them luck; because when their products and services begin to age in the marketplace and fall behind their competitors the only thing that will remain is the culture. If they want to change the culture perhaps the staff will need to raise a ticket?