Eddie
Please excuse me if this is too low level or if I have missed the point
completely! I also apologise for its UK orientation - I don't feel
qualified to comment about the more global picture.
We see at least five main models at play:
1. 'Need a new Drug' - the board / CEO ask the HR/Development Head to look
into what is possible as they feel that the top team need a new injection
of ideas
2. 'Me too' - a board level director becomes the sponsor through fear and
or motivation having seen, read, visited or spoken to another organisation
(supplier, competitor, customer etc.) who have achieved significant
results through learning / execdev programmes
3. 'Grand Strategists' (mainly Swedish and Japanese in our experience) -
who have long term (10 year +) development programmes and have various
levels of mgt dev. embedded into the prog.
4. 'Burning Platforms' - typically a number of strategic initiatives have
failed, results are poor, and there is a general sense of decline -
eventually someone or several people step back and identify that the root
cause is a lack mgt / leadership capability in an organisation that is by
its nature top down.
5. 'First to the Future' - as a result of scenario exercises, search
conferences and other such strategic activities, the organisation begins
to recognise that knowledge exploitation, learning and innovation are the
true keys to future competitiveness and you my see a wave of different
initiatives bubbling to the surface at the same time.
As a separate observation, we have noticed that the kinds of learning
Intervention required is changing. Increasingly the businesses we support
are moving away from chalk and talk and sitting at the feet of B school
gurus for a week in the hope that something rubs off. Instead they are
moving towards experiential learning events which try to match the style
and pace of normal managerial life and inject the 'theory' as part of a
problem solving / strategising initiative. I'm not sure if this is right
or wrong - merely a reflection on the nature of the managerial experience
today.
The process of initiating learning programmes can take up to two years in
some cases - often becuse of the financial justification required.
I am sometimes wary of organisations that appoint heads of learning - the
implication being that they can tackle the challenge on all our behalfs. I
think it requires a mix of:
1. high visibility learning based initiatives championed by executive
managent,
2. local management ownership for learning programmes in their own areas
3. company wide training, education and learning support (resource centres
etc) coordinated by HR / Training / Development etc.
I look forward to seeing how this thread develops.
Regards
Rohit Talwar
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>