Learning and development in corporates

At a breakfast meeting, Paul McKey of redbean talked about his experience with approaching corporate for learning implementation. One quote which stood out was

if you (first) energize and excite your people, they will serve your clients well, and you'll (then) make lots of money [David H Maister, Practice What You Preach]

That led to the importance of learning and development in an organisation - how to energize and excite your people.

I did a search to the citation and found an article (free registration required to read) written by David Maister. In the article, the affirmative of following nine questions are a good indicator of greater profits and faster growth.

1. Client satisfaction is a top priority at our firm.


2. We have no room for those who put their personal agenda ahead of the interests of the clients or the office.


3. Those who contribute the most to the overall success of the office are the most highly rewarded.


4. Management gets the best work out of everybody in the office.


5. Around here you are required, not just encouraged, to learn and develop new skills.


6. We invest a significant amount of time in things that will pay off in the future.


7. People within our office always treat others with respect.


8. The quality of supervision on client projects is uniformly high.


9. The quality of the professionals in our office is as high as can be expected.

The conclusion from the author is that

The success of a business is a matter of choosing the right managers, not choosing the right corporate policies.

If people is so important, spending time to choose the right people to fill a managerial role is linked to the success of the corporate. Providing learning and development for people to build the kind of attributes which can energize people is where learning can focus on.  ¶ 6:54 pm