The
cold, hard math is that EVERY business or endeavor has finite resources. Even
the most successful companies like Amazon or Apple must make decisions
regarding how they will invest their resources (though I would like to have
their limitations on what type of delivery drone to buy or whether to create a
self-driving car or go with the IPhone chip that is implanted in our heads . .
. just kidding about the IPhone chip in the head thing . . . I hope!). But what
if the best investment was not on THINGS but on PEOPLE? This has got me
thinking out loud about the Return on Investment for doing so.
For
someone who is in the crowded marketplace of leadership development and
personal effectiveness, it is important that I make my case for why individuals
or organizations should redirect resources from THINGS to PEOPLE. According to
the Carnegie Institute, 85% of FINANCIAL SUCCESS is due to your ABILITY TO
LEAD, COMMUNICATE, and NEGOTIATE. Technical skills account for only the
remaining 15%! But what do we spend most of our time and resources on?
Further,
data on employee engagement generated from Gallup demonstrates that EFFECTIVE
managers and leaders can decrease disengagement, double engagement among team
members and drastically reduce staff departures among millennial employees. But
again, very few of us come “factory equipped” to lead and manage effectively (I
know I wasn’t!) so that requires us to INTENTIONALLY equip ourselves to do so.
Further, employee SATISFACTION is not a sufficient metric for success. ENGAGEMENT
only happens when team members are aware of their ROLES, confident of their CONTRIBUTIONS, have CONNECTIONS with other organizational members and are CONSTANTLY PROGESSING
in their DEVELOPMENT. Again, no mention of expresso machines or bean bag chairs
in the office! Finally, Gallup researchers have found that TOP PERFORMING
organizations (as defined by measures such as profitability, innovation, staff retention,
market share, expanded customer base, etc.) make a STRATEGIC
INVESTMENT in manager and leader development and hold those managers
accountable for the DEVELOPMENT of their own teams!
So,
what would constitute an effective leader development initiative? Whereas the
specifics are more involved than a blog reader’s attention span (!), such an
intervention would include content such as:
Managing
Change
Collaboration
Effective
Communication
Ethical
Leadership
Sustaining
Personal Development
Creativity
Organizational
Values and Mutual Expectations
Leadership
Equipping
Others and Developing Emerging Leaders
Resilience
and Failing Forward
Team
Building
Etc.
Etc.
Now
I know that any business owner, college administrator, hospital director,
non-profit board member or faith leader must make the tough call every day as
to how direct their finite financial, human, time, and energy resources. Often
in such calculus, leadership development often falls to the side. But in an
environment where employee disengagement costs the U. S. economy $450,00
billion dollars a year (along with international disengagement rates that
produce an additional $500,00 billion in losses annually per Gallup data), can
we still afford to do so?!?!
As always if I can help you and the
people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would
invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the
training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a
bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will
send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your
organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your
organization!
Yours in Leadership (and
still walking both roads!),
Bill Faulkner
Principal Consultant –
Out Loud Strategies
Independent Coach,
Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team TM
Email = bill@outloudinc.com
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