To Train or not to Train?
 

Managing in the new world of work is less about being in charge and more about being a builder. The old command and control model of management won’t serve you well with today’s knowledge workers. Instead you need to be more of a developer of people. An educator. A coach.

Your organization can’t remain competitive if it doesn’t leam as fast as its competitors. And your people’s learning must somehow keep pace with the sizzling rate of change. So just as we’ve grown accustomed to the idea of continual upgrades for our computers, we need to push for continued knowledge upgrades with our workforce.

Learning simply doesn’t last as long as it used to. The National Research Council says that it used to take 7 to 14 years for 50 percent of a workers skills to become obsolete. Today it takes only three to five years for half of our skills to become outdated. And the “hang time” of solutions and skills will keep shrinking.

A generous training budget should just be accepted as a basic cost of doing business. In fact, it’s one of the investments that will enable you to remain in business. Training and development also represents key elements in the new “psychological contract” with employees. The new deal goes like this:” We’ll help grow in your career if you’ll help us grow the company”. Mutual development is the name of the game. In fact, in the war for talent, skills development can trump compensation.

Arie De Geus, Vice President of The Royall Dutch/Shell at the central offices in London published an article in the Harvard Business Review calls “Planning as leaning” which argued that ability to continually rethink one’s purpose, methods, was not just a valuable addition to a corporate practice, but the single most advantage responsible for competitive advantage.. Companies could have their assets devalued or their ideas stolen, but as long as they possessed the ability to innovate and develop people, they would always remain one jump ahead. Success depends on the ability of it’s people to leam together and provide new ideas.

Peter Drucker said in his book Excellence, “Managing non-profit organizations that ‘any organization develops people, it has no choice. It either helps them grow, or stunts them. It either forms them or it deforms them” Wow! That is a lot to think about and it is a huge responsibility. A responsibility though if pursued and directed will lying many rewards both intangibly and tangibly.

What is the cost of not developing people? In the last ten years, I have seen that it will cost a dentist a minimum often times the investment of the entire course. What is it worth to be in control of your life and practice? To spend more time with family, friends, and exercise, etc,? To actually increase your profitability while doing so and work less! The paradox meets with the reality that one must risk a little in their investment strategy; risk in yourself and your people to achieve the reward. The greatest risk is not ever taking one. Take twelve days out of your life. Some of the best money you spend will be on building people’s competencies and your own. So join the movement. Make learning a top priority in your part of the organization and watch the excitement and profits grow and grow.

“The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of the people in his/her organization is going to blow the competition away”