The day one stops learning, Stops growing

Hello, welcome to another Monday newsletter.

Nothing in life happens without input, the same is true for better outcomes. If you continue to do nothing, you will continue to get nothing. Or if you continue to do the same thing, hoping, praying expecting things will changes besides actually doing the work, you have it all backward.

Sometimes it’s beyond our control because we are not trained in the business of outcome management or input management.

T.S. Eliot wrote, “between the idea and the reality falls the shadow”.

In companies, this shadow between where they are and where they want to be is known as a lack of skills or know-how.

Boards and leadership of firms come quickly to the realization that everything is easy until people get in the way.

Telling people that change is good, threatening them with job loss if they do not change, or creating communication materials and slogans to goad them into a cult like devotion to the new dear leader or the way forward rarely works in the short run and will likely fail after the threat of flagellation fades.

Because if there is nothing in it for them, people will out-wit, out-wait, out-pretend, and out-maneuver “management”. Until then they will fill the time genuflecting and bowing and going through the monitored motions of attending the right meetings, muttering the motivational mantras, and stating the slogans required.

If one wants an organization or team to grow and change, we will need to deliver answers to three questions:

• Why are the recommended changes good for them?
• How can it help them grow?
• How do these changes impact their compensation?

If you want people to behave differently, think differently, and work differently in addition to communicating why it is good for them and incentivizing them to do so. In that case, companies must also provide ways for them to learn and grow the new skills and capabilities that will be needed.

Whether it be rotating into new groups, secondments, or other strategies they must all be accompanied by self-serve, guided, and enabled training.

The single most significant ROI in most companies in time will be the ability to upgrade the mental and emotional operating skills of their talent.

Upgrading skills is more cost-effective, humane, and culturally positive than laying off people and bringing in new teams, and will be increasingly key as we enter the Third Connected Age of Blockchain, AI, AR/VR, and 5G.

It is imperative that companies have a significant commitment to learning and development agendas with senior management committed to it and members of the talent leadership being included in the highest echelons of power.

No company can grow unless its people grow.

And the day one stops learning one stops growing.