I’ve often heard the deep philosophical question “If a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” and thought it stupid. Quite frankly, I’d rank it right up there with the guy who closes himself in the refrigerator to see if the light really does go off whe...
If we want to have any hope of capturing even the slightest bit of the profit we’re currently throwing away by not developing the most authentic influence we possibly can with our teams and eliminating all that waste that’s so often tied to miscommunication, we need to have an extremely clear pictur...
Organizations of all sizes invest significant amounts of time, money, and energy on improving their processes with hopes of becoming more profitable. Sometimes this is based on a goal of becoming best-in-class but sometimes it is just to stay competitive with customers or in attracting talent. All t...
Career development is critical for each and every one of us! And like I shared last time, a poor leader will never build a great team. Great people may be part of that organization, at least for a while, but poor leadership will never change a group with great people into a great team. As individual...
If we really want our investment into leadership development to make a visible difference on productivity over the long haul, there’s a hurdle we cannot afford to stumble over! Even after making sure expectations have been clearly communicated and the necessary support has been provided to initiate ...
Every single time Cindy and I kick off one of our Emerging Leader Development courses, whether it’s tailored and delivered on-site for a specific organization or in a public session with folks from multiple different organizations, we open by setting the expectation that they identify the specific a...
As we started looking at whether or not Leadership Training Is Worth It, I shared the story of the construction crew getting the fancy new tool they had been asking for then leaving it in the box the next time they performed the task the tool should have been used for… I also explained how frustrate...
Now that we’ve looked at what we’re up against when we can’t find anything in the budget for developing our leaders and we’ve worked through some things we need to consider to make sure any leadership training we do provide is really worth it, let’s start closing the loop by looking at how we can be...
If we need measurable results from anything we do to develop our leaders, and I can’t think of any reason for doing it if those results don’t matter, who delivers the initial training and how they go about it is critical! If they can’t earn credibility with our team or they’re just spewing something...
When the organization I worked for started the initial rollout of a new safety initiative in 1998, everyone being trained to participate in even the basics of the process went through a three day workshop. The folks who were to be part of the steering committee” went through an additional week of tr...
Now that we’ve identified multiple areas where there really is room in the budget to invest in leadership development, let’s answer a more important question: Is Leadership Training REALLY Worth It?
Several years ago, I was with a friend of mine who owns a construction company. A few of the guys on...
But Wes, you’re not hearing me… It’s just not in the budget and that’s just the way it goes with turnover, we’ve got to keep our focus on doing the work that pays the bills! I know that feeling all too well… Heck, that was the reality I lived with every day of the nineteen years I worked in manufact...
