Are you wasting your money on leadership development?

Behaviourist B.F. Skinner maintained that education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. There has been much written about the need to create learning organisations and more resources than fleas on a stray dog have been spent on leadership formation (learning) within organisations. The fact that leadership formation assumes such a high priority within most organisations is fully justified but in terms of how it is done, is it money well spent?

In the face of this learning avalanche, a nagging question persists: Is the effort surrounding leadership formation producing learning or education (as per Skinner’s definition)?  In other words, are organisations and the individuals within them, better off for all the attention on leadership development? Are our leadership programmes really making a significant impact on the way we think, do business, and live our lives? … Continue Reading

Presenting TomorrowTraining

If you have been following Keith, Barrie, Graeme and Dean’s informative, intriguing, interesting and investigative antics via ezine over the past while, you are no doubt becoming familiar with what the New World of Work implies. You have probably been introduced to some of the challenges people face, in the vein of feeling like nobody really understands your perspective because you all labour away in multi-generational workplaces. The Tomorrow Today team have surely talked you through how the economy has changed over the last 100 years, from agricultural, to industrial to service-orientated to where we are today: in an emotional or connective economy. What’s fascinating now is how people’s collective behaviour has shifted in response to a more EQ based mindset in reaction to a need to build relationships because ultimately we are all emotional beings in a competitive market. We can access knowledge at the push of a button, so really to cope with the New World of Work one has to develop versatile and diverse skills, an open-minded attitude and appropriate values for this contemporary climate. Selling, in particular, in this connective economy requires a completely different focus and big players like Coca Cola; Pepsi Cola; JP Morgan and American Express have been selling charity to attract attention to themselves because consumers increasingly want to give back as they spend. Is this in response to what the world needs environmentally or are people just discovering their philanthropic side?

Being experts in societal change, generational clashes, people adaptability and communication Tomorrow Training can offer you and your colleagues a wealth of information, skills transformation and application tailor-made to suit your line of work in the context of the new world of work. Essentially we can provide your workforce with skills that will enable them to do things differently in order to increase productivity. Whether it’s working with your sales team, your call centre, your receptionists, your management teams, internally and interdepartmentally or with your clients, we can help you communicate more effectively. Whether that’s formally or informally, verbal or written communication, the insights we provide will prove invaluable to you as you progress through this ever-changing, fast paced, technologically driven, competitive global village that the world has become. We will help you see how this change is exciting and can be used to your advantage, rather than something to be afraid of.

For more information, to request details of our courses or to make a booking, please contact Laura Eickhaus in South Africa, or Dean van Leeuwen in the United Kingdom.

Knowing What You Don’t Know is Important

Yes it’s true. I’m getting coached in ‘Social Media’. “About time” some might say but it’s not just about how to engage in the various kinds of social media available – it’s about learning how to, ‘connect the dots’. It is about understanding how to work with all the options in an integrated manner that makes professional and personal sense. I suspect many more of my ilk could do with some time with my Coach and the reality is that knowing this stuff simply isn’t optional – it’s an imperative.

W. C. Howell is credited with the model with which most of us are familiar when it comes to acquiring a skill. The model moves from a level of ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious competence’ to ultimately, ‘unconscious competence’.  So what does this look like when applied to my development path in the area of social media education?

Unconscious incompetence: A what? ‘c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r. Don’t only major international companies and governments have access to this kind of thing?  I’m not sure I’ll need one, but thanks anyway. The future? Yes, yes…(late 1980’s – early 1990’s)

Conscious incompetence: Wow…how do you switch this thing on? It sure takes up a lot of desk space but looks important, even impressive…where did you say I turn it on? How come there is this blue screen…and what’s that noise? Show me how you did that…that’s really cool, I need to be able to do that stuff. Hold on, not so fast…I just need to make a note of that. (mid 1990’s – early 2000’s)

Conscious competence: Sure I’m on Facebook and I even know that ‘Twitter’ isn’t a term of insult nor is it some sort of birdcall heard only in the mating season. Sure I know how to access that information, open multiple windows and load useful software. How did I ever survive without email?  I know how to solve that problem…just reboot…there see, anything else I can help you with? With some concentration and focus I can link some of my technology gadgets and to really impress fellow travelers, even produce my iPod on flights whilst banging away on my laptop keyboard. Laptop? Apple of course.  Check out that cool little Apple logo that lights up on the lid! (mid – late 2000’s)

Unconscious competence: My tweet directs people to my latest blog which drives folk to the article and website resulting in conversations, connections and further helpful information, relationships and opportunities. There, dots connected and a seamless integration of knowing the why and how behind it all. By catching up I’ve actually been able to slow down and I feel an intricate part of an amazing reality that is unfolding all around me…connections, information and well, relevance. (the future)

Knowing what you don’t know is important. It is your learning pathway into Tomorrow, and it is a journey that shouldn’t be delayed. Let me know and I will put you onto a great social media Coach…

Free video course on Managing Generation Y at work

In December 09, Graeme Codrington recorded a series of short videos on Managing Generation Y at Work. This was done with Success.tv in London. These videos are now available for free:

The videos are:

• The New World of Work – an introduction to what we do, and the concept that drives our thinking
• The New Generation
• Managing Young Talent
• Personalising the Workplace
• Managing Meetings in the digital age

Feel free to use these videos in your companies. But, if you’d like more details or have one of our team speak live at your next event, why not contact us and make a booking enquiry.

Which movie does that come from? (Wonder know more!)

I picked up a tweet recently which talked of a great new resource called MovieClips. Simple concept – you can remember a line from a movie, but cannot for the life of you remember which movie it’s from. You could search the Internet Movie Database or Google, of course, and find a text reference to it.

But why not search a movie database where the output is both the movie AND the clip you were looking for? That’s what Movie Clips does – 3 minute clips from movies with an exciting search feature. They have kicked off with about 12,000 clips, so you won’t find everything you’re looking for. But hopefully it will be supported and will grow. What a great idea!

But, I want to say more about this. When I checked it out, it told me that the content was only available in the USA and Canada, and that I should email them (link was provided) if I was from another country and wanted access. I was disappointed, but sent the email anyway. I expected very little. The next day, I received an email (from a real human being) saying that they had just switched on the functionality for the UK and that I had access. Oh, and could I comment on the speed and usability, too, please. They’re phasing in different countries, so as not to overwhelm their servers. Good thinking! Great service! Excellent connection! Superb product!

I’m already a huge fan! Long live MovieClips. Check them out.

S+B’s Best Business Books of 2009

Booz & Co’s Strategy + Business ezine is one of my favourites, and one I always make time to read. Last week’s edition looked at the best business books of 2009, selected by their top team, and helpfully categorised.

If you want to read their reasoning, and some excellent background comments, start here. All I am going to do is list the books (and make it easy for you to buy them – choose from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net – for South Africa):

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The James Martin 21st Century School – understanding the future

I am a huge fan of James Martin. Not the celebrity chef. Nor the inventor of the aircraft ejection seat. Nor any of the other famous James Martins. I am a huge fan of James Martin the futurist and author of one of the best books of all time, “The Meaning of the 21st Century” (see a previous post about the book here).

I recently discovered that a think tank “school” has been created at Oxford university, and named in his honour. It’s the James Martin 21st century school. It seems to be a fantastic institution. You can see an 8 minute video of the Dean of the school, ex-South African, Ian Goldin, speaking recently at TED. Follow the school at Twitter/21school.

The school’s aim is to tackle the toughest challenges of the 21st century, and provide input and resources for the Oxford university community on these issues (see the list below). They aim to formulate new concepts, policies and technologies that will make the future a better place to be. Very nice!

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Help! Linking Theory & Practice

I am attending a leadership symposium titled, Indigenous Knowledge and Leadership in Africa Colloquium: Leading in Africa hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Leadership Centre and Africa Ignite. Gathered here are some of the Continent’s most impressive minds when it comes to the subject of African leadership.  Academics are a strange lot. They are a unique species with their own norms and ways of interacting and engagement. They have a hard language to understand, one they use effortlessly but one that can be somewhat exclusive and act as an intimidating ‘barrier to entry’. If you want to enter, to engage…you best learn the language. Speaking simply comes a distant second to complex terminology. Perhaps this is true of all knowledge enclaves be that accountants, lawyers, the medical fraternity and yes, consultants.

The challenge is that theory needs to inform practice and one without the other creates problems. As I listen to what can only be described as ‘deep knowledge’ I am challenged by how best to ensure this is translated, applied and expressed in ‘mainline’ leadership streams. This wisdom seldom impacts the corporate reality where it is so needed. Responsibility for this failure rests with both ‘sides’ and this ‘failure’ creates a new opportunity.

On the side of academia, there is the need to work harder to connect their knowledge by way of application to ‘the real world’ from which they extract their knowledge in the first place. They need to find ways to invite greater diversity into their discourses and deliberations. They need to open the greenhouse door to others who would benefit from witnessing firsthand the growth in knowledge as it occurs. They need to work harder at the ‘so what?’ question and look to connect their deep knowledge to a pragmatic context. They need to ‘interrogate’ (a popular academic word) the process whereby their own insights and understanding finds practical expressions. And just to answer the anticipated answer already forming on the lips of academics: Publishing journals isn’t the answer. Such publications serve to fuel internal debate and form part of the peer review knowledge process but, for the most part, remain secret code hidden and inaccessible to those who need it most.

On the other side, executive leaders need to do more to become learners and to engage in a learning process through which current assumptions and paradigms can be challenged and informed. All too often corporate leaders are seduced by the operational demands they face and so choose what they know (and the area in which they feel competent) over the opportunity to learn and explore unknown terrain. The learning journey is all too threatening to many senior leaders who for the most part give lip service to the need to learn.

And so the gulf widens. The two sides view each other with suspicion and an initial sense of helplessness as to how to embrace the value and lessons embedded within each reality, gives way to a denial that one has anything worthwhile to learn from the other.

This gives rise to the ‘opportunity’ that this divide creates. The opportunity is for bridge-builders, for interpreters to step into the gap: Those capable of translating the best of both sides for the benefit of both sides. Who are these people? I am not sure but one challenge they will face is how to develop and maintain credibility with both sides. Some attempts at translation have met with distain by academia, viewed as a type of ‘commercial sell-out’. ‘ In the same way, anything ‘theoretical’ carries little weighting in the fast paced and measured pragmatic world of the corporate.

So, fancy yourself as a ‘bridge-builder’? A start might be to attend some relevant symposium should you have a large desk and corner office; on the other hand, if your office is filled with strange trinkets and ‘stuff’ – as well as piles of papers, journals and books, best try to get into a board room sometime soo

A Sandpit to Entice

Just been part of a conversation that happens all too infrequently. You know, one of those conversations that leave you buzzing, unable to sleep or concentrate on the ‘next thing to be done’. A conversation that ‘gets the juices going’ – a conversation in which you suspect the seeds of greatness sit; A conversation in which you see and sense the future. Around the table sat a person with years of experience of managing the Comrades Marathon, an Everest of event management if ever there was one. The other place at the table was taken by one of the most respected Educators in South Africa, a man who has presided over some of the best that SA schools have to offer. The subject? The need to rethink…to seriously rethink, how we go about leadership education.

The current models of leadership education are tired; they are not doing the job. There is lots of effort and endeavor but nothing much is changing. Imagination has given way to efficiency; conversation given way to curriculum; thinking given way to planning. Something is wrong but leadership education is big business and we all know that rethinking current ‘successful’ business models is not something we like to do.

This conversation will see other voices drawn into the mix. It will see a leadership ‘sandbox’ being build and just wait and watch what emerges from such a playground! The genie is out the lamp…it is going to be magic!

Was I only dreaming?

Last night I had the wierdest experience. I woke up in the early hours of the morning, wakened by a disturbing moment in a fairly vivid dream (the contents of which are not important for this story). My throat was parched, and I needed a glass of water. I knew I had an empty glass next to my bed on the bedside table, and so, not wanting to switch on a light and waken completely, I stumbled out of bed and peered through my bleary eyes into the pitch darkness of the hotel room, trying to find the glass.

I saw the shadowy outline of the glass exactly where I thought I had left it as I went to bed, and reached for it. But it wasn’t there. The shadowy circle that I thought had been the glass immediately shifted a few inches to the right. I reached for it again. It wasn’t there either. Now I became half aware that my brain was telling me where it thought the glass was, rather than actually showing me what was on the table. I ignored what I thought I could see, and swept my hands across the table until I found the actual glass.

OK, so this was not a science experiment. But it did remind me of a TED video I watched recently on optical illusions and why we need to be carefully of thinking we can know anything objectively and how we learn. Check out Beau Lotto on Optical Illusions. You can also see another example of an illusion here. Finally, there is just a fun look at optical illusions here.

When we are developing strategies and looking at the world around us, we need to be careful not to allow our brains to tell us what it thinks we want to see there. It happens all the time. Watch the TED videos – they’ll amaze (and humble) you. Then, check out our presentation on “Seeing the world through other people’s eyes“.

How, when and why I Tweet and Blog

I’m often asked how I use social media, so I thought it might be helpful to do a quick blog about it. Not because you really care about me, but because it might help spark some thoughts about how you use social media and because it might help you get more out of this website and TomorrowToday’s other resources.

Firstly, then, this blog site. I use it as my filing cabinet for good ideas and good stuff I’ve seen. I focus on tracking trends that are shaping the new world of work, with a particular focus on demography and shifting societal values. But I’m also interested in the impact of other major forces, such as technology, institutional shifts, the environment and ethical consumption. I use this blog as a way of capturing case studies, ideas, trends and especially for writing up bits and pieces that I can later use in longer articles, white papers and books. The categories on the right hand side are linked to existing and expected frameworks (which we use as presentations or workshops with our clients).

As an author, I try and keep a discipline of writing about 200-400 words every day. Sometimes these words are rubbish – those are filed in fragmentary documents on my hard drive. Sometimes they start something that then inspires me to develop an article length entry – most recently, for example, I wrote a monster entry about Good to Great – that took nearly a week to complete. But every now and again, the 200-400 words produce a great thought – and that becomes a blog entry. My aim is one of these every other day.

Our blog has an automatic widget that then reports the new blog entry on Twitter (the feed is at @tomorrowtodayza). I wait about 30 minutes and then Retweet that auto notice using my own Twitter account (@codrington).

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From Hawaii: The Real Learning for Teams

Had an insightful conversation today.

As with any education programme orientated around leadership, standard practice is to have participants work in groups, teams or in business-speak, cohorts. Where do they come up with this terminology, some of which is part of the problem but that is another subject!

There are always two main arteries to such group work: The end product (usually some sort of plenary presentation) and then the process itself – the journey towards realizing ‘the end product’.  What happens in a performance driven culture is that the end product – the presentation, becomes the total focus. The pressure to perform, to impress one’s colleagues in many cases becomes a major source of stress. While this is an important aspect to the purpose of the group work, I suspect the ‘real learning’ gets missed.

The ‘real’ learning is embedded in how the group got to the delivery point. It is in the team dynamics, the process of reaching the end goal. Questions that explore this journey seldom get asked and because of that, the very real dynamics of teamwork get ignored. For instance, questions pertaining to leadership in the group and how that evolved, participation, getting stuck and making progress, negotiating differences, handling conflict etc…provide the courageous conversations of real learning in this example.  These tough conversations and analysis this is dependent on the ability to give and receive authentic feedback, and therein sits another problem for without the anonymous forms and HR methodologies to hide behind, many simply do not know how to do this in a constructive, mature way.

My insightful conversation involved an individual who felt excluded from participating in the group process. Repeated efforts to be heard failed, resulting in the individual simply ‘going along’ in silent ‘agreement’.  The group was the poorer for this omission.

The chances of this type of exclusion occurring are significantly increased when working in a diverse or cross-cultural group. The barriers represented by generational difference, cultural differences and personal differences, to name but a few, mean that inclusive cooperation in not easily achieved.

Naturally the APLP programme cannot prevent the difficulties that emerge in doing such group work. However, unlike most executive leadership type programmes, the learning emphasis sits not in the presentation but in the process. Today, having done the presentations, we will be allowing time for unpacking how the respective groups traveled the road towards that goal. It will provide some insightful learning and certainly tee up the opportunity for the teams and individuals to grasp some deep learning. With responsibility for learning resting with the Learner, that will be their responsibility to realize.

I look forward to the session!

From Hawaii: What Survives?

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten (Skinner). The real test of any educational programme can only be truly tested after a significant period of time. This makes a mockery of the way in which the majority of executive educational programmes are currently measured.  The measures are usually immediate and because there is a ‘programme’ mentality towards education in this context, there is seldom a process in place that would allow a more authentic measure, one that stands the test of time.

The implications of this are significant given the investment involved in such programmes coupled with the gaping need to develop adaptive leaders capable of effective leadership into the future. The heart of the issue is one of transferability: How to transfer knowledge from the classroom / learning environment to operational leadership. Whilst leadership pedagogy has shifted somewhat in recent decades from didactic teaching to highly experiential methodologies, nagging questions linger as to whether or not the shift has been sufficient and how best to measure the change. Applying the old measures to new methodologies is clearly problematic.

Three important questions posed to the Asia Pacific Leadership Program (APLP) fellows at the outset by Professor Nick Barker include:

• What do you think I want you to remember 10 years from now?
• What do you think you will actually remember 10 years from now? (Regardless of what I hope you remember). What will actually survive?
• Most important, how will you ensure that you remember a combination of what you want to remember and what I hope you remember?

Responsibility for learning rests with the Learner; Responsibility to provide a structure that develops a learning process rests with the organization; Responsibility to provide the material and learning stepping-stones on the learning journey rests with the Educators.

Certainly, if companies investing in executive leadership education are concerned about achieving greater, ‘bang for their buck’…some urgent questions need to be asked.

Conferences of the future – more online / more connecting

New and ever improving telecommunication technologies have improved how we communicate. From the first telegrams to virtual reality holographic conference rooms, we’ve come a long way. The key now is not so much the technology (we have the technical ability to put a 3-d representation of a person live on stage anywhere in the world, after all). Of course, we still need better, faster and cheaper broadband to be more evenly spread around the world, but that will happen – sooner rather than later. It’s now more about our acceptance of these technologies, and the user friendliness of their application.

It won’t be too long before a significant number of our conferences go fully digital. That is, the speakers and delegates will all hook up to the Internet, and participate digitally. This will take many forms, the best of which will include video walls and full interactivity.

There are many reasons to go this route, including: making it easier for people to work from home, reducing commuting time, office space, the need for conference rooms (which often stand empty for long periods of time – especially the big auditoriums), reducing the number of flights around the world and the amount spent on corporate conferencing. So, save money, reduce pollution, save time… why would we not do it?

Of course, what we lose is the time between sessions. Conferences are a lot more than just information transfer meetings. Lots of networking happens, and relationship development. It’s often the time between formal sessions that is most important. We can’t change this, and virtual conferences will not replace this aspect.

However, this means that those people who put conferences together need to know exactly WHY they need to get people together physically. There are good reasons to do this – but these need to find their way into the design of the conferences themselves. This is a challenge for the next few years for this industry.

Online video training on saving energy and saving money

For some years now, we’ve been tracking the issues related to climate change, global warming and the business case for sustainability. We are convinced that these issues are critical for businesses everywhere – not as a nice to have, but for very good business reasons.

We’ve put our money where our mouth is. Working together with one of our clients in the UK, Sustainable Energy Design Solutions (SEDS Ltd), and an online learning team, the 8.45 Club, we’ve developed a series of online, video-based courses designed to help your company and the people who work for you to not only understand the issues, but also do something about them.

The concept of the 8.45 Club is simple. Courses are delivered in 10 minute segments, just right for 8.45am before work gets going properly at 9am. You get an email at 8.45am, giving you the link to a video (if you don’t have access to high speed broadband, the courses can be delivered on video to you). It takes you a few minutes to watch, and a few more to go through the notes, and then you’re ready for the day. Courses typically have 10 modules, and can be done once per day over two weeks, or 2 or 3 times per week over a few months.

We’ve used this format to develop three courses aimed at helping companies to save energy. Doing this will obviously save money, and ultimately help us to secure the future of the planet and our companies. The courses are:

• How to Save Energy and Save Money: All you need to know about emissions trading, improving energy efficiency and saving money
• How to Make the Public Sector Green: All you need to know about reducing energy usage, saving money and improving public service
• The Carbon Reduction Commitment: All you need to know about emissions trading, improving energy efficiency and saving money. NOTE: In October 2009, the CRC was delayed by one year to be implemented on April 2011, and was given a new name: The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. There are a few regulatory tweaks as well – the course is being redone to take this into account, and is now available at a new website as well: click here for details.
  

You would need to choose just one of the courses (if you don’t know which one, then the first one is for you). For just £ 47 per course, you get 13 video modules and supporting materials delivered direct to your inbox. If you have 100 or more people who’d like to do the training, we would be happy to chat about a bulk license rate.

You can see the first two modules of each course for free, before signing up. Just follow the links at the bottom of the main pages.

If you have any questions, please email Graeme Codrington.

How (not) to do business like Jack Welch

Since leaving GE, Jack Welch has refused to retire gracefully or quietly. He has continued to stay vocal and keep his profile in the media, especially by writing and disseminating business advice. I suppose one shouldn’t begrudge him this – after all, he was branded “Manager of the Century” by TIME magazine, after nearly a quarter century in charge of one of the world’s largest companies.

But, does he deserve to be heard so much? Especially now that the model of leadership he espoused has been shown to lead to disaster. In my mind he is an example of much of what we don’t want in the future world of work.

An article which put my thoughts into words was published a while back in The Economist. It was responding to reports that Jack Welch will be lending his name to a new online MBA course. It highlights some of the concerns I have with a “winner takes all”, “profit at any price” ruthless leadership style Jack Welch espoused at GE. It also hints at probably the biggest issue that all such leaders have – they leave no legacy. When they leave, the empire they created collapses. When Welch left GE, he was asked what his legacy would be. He said that this was a question best asked after his successor had retired. That is the right attitude for a leader to have – the long term view. Unfortunately for Welch, it currently looks as if his legacy is a bad one!

Read The Economist article at their website, or an extract below.
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What makes for good learning?

We have all been in ‘the classroom’. For some a refuge and brief respite from the turmoil of the office; for others a world they have never left for the reality of the outside world; and then for many, a world escaped and to which they have no intention of very revisiting.

But we have all been in the classroom and so the question, ‘what then constitutes good learning?’ or to put it another way, ‘how best do we learn?’ – is an important question. Never before has so much been invested in executive education, yet it seems, if we are honest, much of it is a waste of both time and money.  A ton of information,  detailed curriculum and notes…but real learning? I think not.

The problem is we – those responsible for the education, have opted for the safe, the broad road, the one more traveled. We have pandered to the stated measures of the client, measures that somehow do not, or perhaps cannot, measure effective learning.

What if effective learning is like disciplining a child. Parents, have you ever had this experience: At the point of disciplining your child, however you choose to exercise that discipline, your child turns to you and says something like: “Mom / Dad, thanks for that – I know it was for my own good and I know it hurt you more that it did me…thanks-you!”.

It is time for the classroom to become an experience, a laboratory, a playground. We need to be doing things differently. We need to learn, really learn – and ask some hard questions as just to what that will take.

The author as performer

The FT (Financial Times) had a great piece recently on how authors are now using the art of dramatic storytelling to enhance the value they add when doing live presentations based on their books. Specifically focusing on Malcolm Gladwell (who seems to be living my dream life) and TED, it’s a great read if you’re interested in writing, speaking, communicating ideas and the art of the dramatic in business life.

Read it online here, or see the extract below.

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Getting Gen Y into your businesses NOW

Michael Rendell, partner and global head of human resource services at PricewaterhouseCoopers recently said the following:

“With the global economic downturn presenting organisations with serious immediate challenges, businesses need to work even harder to balance short-term pressures with long-term objectives. This means acting now to manage the demographic changes that will impact their ability to compete effectively. Eventually, in many parts of the world, fewer younger people will be working to support a significantly larger older population, making people supply a critical factor for business success and potentially changing the power dynamic between employer and employees.”

PWC’s 12th annual CEO survey, published earlier this year, highlighted the issue of Talent attraction and retention as one of the key issues facing CEOs (alongside climate change, growth and dealing with economic downturn).

Here are some highlights from the PWC survey:

• * Tomorrow’s workers expect their employers to behave responsibly, with 88% stating they will seek employers with corporate social responsibility (CSR) values that reflect their own. Among UK respondents, this figure was 71%.
• * “The millennials’ adeptness with technology brings benefits in terms of knowledge sharing, and savvy companies are already taking advantage of this by replicating Facebook-style sites in-house. But companies need to manage the reputational risks associated with this open and instant style of communication.”
• * Globally, training and development is the most highly valued benefit for millennials in the first five years of their career – with one third of respondents electing this as their first choice benefit (aside from salary).
• * Almost all respondents (98%) stated that working with strong coaches and mentors is important to personal development. Rendell said: “Most businesses only provide coaches and mentors to senior employees, but providing this kind of one-to-one development to new graduates could help ease the sometimes bumpy transition from university to the workplace, while breeding goodwill and engagement at a relatively low cost. Instead of reacting to cost pressures by cutting training budgets, organisations should ask if they are spending where it will be most appreciated and bring the greatest benefit to long-term business health.”
• * The three most popular benefits for UK respondents are training and development (46%), cash bonuses (45%) and free private healthcare (29%).

Rendell: “The millennials want many of the same things from work as the generations before them so companies do not need to tear up their people strategies to manage the new generation of workers. What is new is younger people’s ability to mobilise into another job if their expectations and ideals are not met. To manage this difference, companies need to think creatively about reward strategies, using metrics and benchmarking to segment their workforce in a similar way to how many companies segment their customer base.

“We think CEOs are struggling with millennials because they need more information about what drives them, and because they need to adapt their traditional approaches to attracting and integrating employees. This means focusing on the things that millennials really want, such as training and development. Articulating employer brand and clearly stating corporate responsibility values will also be critical.

“The millennials’ expectations bring opportunities as well as challenges – those organisations that adapt fastest will be best placed to succeed in good times and bad.”

Source: PWC – quoted in Management section of Director Finance magazine.

This is one of our core focus areas at TomorrowToday. See our presentation on Making the Most of the Millennials.

Sustainability – how to engage employees

by Ben Kellard, 27th May 2009
Reposted extract from: Forum for the Future

How can you embed sustainability in a way that motivates employees? It’s a challenge for many leaders faced with the question of how to maintain the momentum of their sustainability strategy, especially in a recession.

The case for using sustainability to motivate employees is compelling. There’s a strong correlation between activities which come under the umbrella of corporate responsibility and employee satisfaction and engagement, according to the latest Sunday Times Best Companies survey.

And research from the Hay Group shows that highly engaged employees can improve business performance by up to 30% and that fully engaged employees are 2.5 times more likely to exceed performance expectations than their “disengaged” colleagues.
…

A good example of this is property company Gentoo, which launched ‘Gentoo Green’, an internal programme to engage employees in its sustainability vision and strategy. The programme was backed by the CEO and was supported by internal communications, champions, training, and opportunities for employees to get involved. This led to over 700 suggestions from employees about how to improve Gentoo’s sustainability performance, and it’s been estimated that the programme has already delivered half a million pounds in savings to the group in its first year.
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How to reduce energy at school – world class example

I am involved with a project management company called SEDS – Sustainable Energy Design Solution. The focus of this company is to help organisations of all types to save energy, save money and secure our future. They have a very clever four step model for doing this, involving measuring current usage (and establishing targets which are widely communicated), empowering and educating people (with a view to long term, sustained behaviour change), upgrading facilities (with clear returns on investment), and reporting (both compliance reporting, assessments and audits, as well as PR, communication and triple bottom line reporting to all stakeholders).

SEDS is making a real difference – see their website (although maybe wait a few days, as they’re about to do a significant relaunch of this site).

The point of this post is to highlight one of the schools SEDS is connected to. The headmaster of Ashley Church of England Primary School in Surrey, UK is so passionate about climate change and global warming, that he has made it a focus of the school. Using an innovative product, ecoDriver, he displays the energy usage of the school live in the reception area, and encourages the pupils to reduce their usage. So successful is the scheme that the school has reduced costs of energy by half in the past year. The money saved is ploughed back into the school – and students have a say over how it is spent. This is motivational for them, and they’re fully on board with the scheme.

Even better, the whole issue is integrated into the curriculum. The ecoDriver software allows the energy usage data to be pulled onto electronic whiteboards for use in the classroom teaching, as one example.

Last week, the school was awarded the presitigour Ashden Award for Sustainability, by HRH Prince Charles. Read about it here. If you’re interested, read more about the Ashden Awards in the Guardian’s report.

Well done to Ashley CofE Primary. It shows that we CAN make a difference!

Life Training: Training that develops effective people VS effective employees will hold the fabric of your organisation together

Traditional skills programmes can’t be applied to everyone within a workforce as they more often than not are very job specific. In years gone by, one gained the skills necessary to complete ones work through on-the-job training. People Skills (Soft Skills) were not seen as essential to getting the job done. Although this has advanced and more and more Soft Skills programmes have entered the corporate market, too many of these rely heavily on theoretical content and therefore cannot be successfully applied to one’s immediate situation.

What we need in today’s workplace is Soft Skills programmes that are underpinned by the concept of Emotional Intelligence – something everyone needs in order to survive and thrive in today’s workplace regardless of position. Programmes that not only equip you for your job but also for your life at home, your interaction with your friends and family, as well as your colleagues. It is essential that the content of these programmes be applicable to ‘outside’ life in order to gain interest and participation in them. Gone are the days of entering a company at a young age and climbing the corporate ladder within it until retirement. The attitude out there is that one cannot rely on the company to look after you; you have to look after yourself. In other words, the chances of leaving a job due to being retrenched, getting bored or just looking for something new and different are much higher in today’s business environment.

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Top tips for mentoring the next generation of talent

In tough times, people matter. Ensuring your staff are passionate and focused is a critical leadership task right now. One of the most effective techniques for motivating your younger staff in particular is to provide ongoing development for them, especially providing access to senior leaders and mentoring. Here are some tips to help you make the most of such mentoring relationships.

• • Mentoring takes time. Today’s “I want it now” young people need to understand that it takes the time it takes to do properly. Make sure you do some expectation management right upfront about how often you can meet, what you think is achievable, and what you’d like to offer.
• • Be clear about the purpose and boundaries of your mentor relationship.
• • Today’s young people don’t open up immediately. They need to get to know you, and they need to know they can trust you. Persevere with them and don’t give up too easily if they make it tough for you – they’re actually just checking you’re willing to go the distance with them.
• • Consider digital mentoring as a component of the relationship. Be prepared to answer emails and text messages, and initiate some of this contact yourself. But don’t let them go totally digital – face to face time is vital for good mentoring.
• • Mentor the whole person, not just for the job description. Do some of the mentoring away from the office environment. Spend some of your time focusing on non-work related issues. Show an interest in their hobbies and non-work activities.
• • Try and include some on the job, practical content, ensuring your mentoring is not all theoretical.
• • Don’t forget to “reverse mentor” too. Young people have grown up helping their parents work out how to use the remote controls, and sorting out the household technology. Let them mentor their bosses on technology use in the office.
• • Get them to mentor each other – make sure they have a “buddy”, and not just at their own company. They have to be taught how to network effectively – it doesn’t come naturally to them.
• • Keep mentoring them, even when they leave your company. This sounds a powerful message to the remaining staff that you really care about them as people, not just as workers.
• • Never assume that the mind you’re talking to is closed. Just because young people dress or act differently from you doesn’t mean they’re not taking in what you’ve said.
• • Explain WHY. Don’t just tell them what to do, and how to do it. Tell them why it works. Knowing why makes all the difference for today’s young people.
• • Have fun.
• • Keep at it! Not every attempt to connect with young people will have immediate results.

How to get kids to look at great art (and enjoy it)

A good friend of mine recently asked me why a self-professed social liberal reads The Spectator magazine. It’s simple really – as an author, I enjoy reading great writing, and I don’t think there is better use of the English language in popular print than The Spectator. I also don’t believe you should only read things you agree with, and I enjoy – and appreciate – learning from any intelligent, intellectually coherent and passionate person; even if I disagree with their end point!

So, without apology, here is the first of two posts from last week’s Spectator magazine.

This first one relates to the content of my latest book, “Future-Proof Your Child” (get it at Amazon or Kalahari). We have failed our children by not teaching them to use their intuition and emotions – and to enjoy doing so for its own sake.

If you have children, or believe that we need to develop more emotional intelligence in the world, then you’ll enjoy this article. Read it at The Spectator, or below.

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Is Google making us Stupid?

For those of you with the time (and it needs some time) take a read of this article from The Atlantic. It’s a great read, written by Nicholas Carr, taking us on a short-ish journey of the impact of technology. From the written word to the internet and it’s impact on our thinking.

Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure.

I must be honest and say that I struggled to read it without jumping to another ‘thing’ to get done on my computer. I was alerted to the article by a friend who said, “I’ve just read a really interesting article entitled ‘Is Google making us stupid?’ and I thought you might enjoy it. Warning – it’s fairly long, but once you start reading it you kind of feel morally obliged to finish it, lest you add credence to the basic thesis of the article that we cannot sustain focused concentration for more than a few paragraphs.” Still I fell into the trap : )

Still, their (Google) easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.

Online video – Graeme speaking about Millennial generation and school leadership

Graeme Codrington recently spoke at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust conference in Birmingham, England. The audience was over 2,000 head teachers of secondary schools in the UK. He was asked to adapt his “Mind the Gap” presentation for a 20 minute keynote on the implications of the Millennial generation for leaders in schools.

The session was videod and is available online here.

Generations and Training

Generational theory is for all intents and purposes deceptively simple yet the effects of intergenerational differences on training within the workplace are anything but simple and increasingly are having a profound effect on the roll-out of training in organisations. This is prompting those responsible for the training portfolio to reassess how to train, how often and in what subject.

Gone are the days of pure technical training where the outcome is centered on learning a skill intended to directly improve performance on the job. The need for increased emotional intelligence in the workplace has brought about a far greater need for programmes that offer development in areas like assertiveness skills, negotiation and how to handle difficult conversations which are aimed at Engineers and Sales Consultants alike. So while course content needs to be relevant to the job at hand, it should also bear relevance to personal lives which are as, if not more, important.

Traditional classroom learning too is being tossed out of the proverbial window. The new buzz word is impact learning, which requires trainers and teachers to act as facilitators – knowledgeable experts who, while imparting course content, develop relationships with their delegates, entertain and are able to adapt their personal training style and techniques to the requirements at hand.

Within this context and conscious of the changing profile of those sitting in the training room, it is important to have an understanding of the different generational attitudes to training and development. Without this framework the ability to connect and appeal is defunct. … Continue Reading

The Power of Imagination

JK Rowling gave the 2008 graduation address at Harvard. You can read and watch it here.

I think it’s excellent, focusing on the benefits of learning from failure and imagination.

This section is the best for me:

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other peoples minds, imagine themselves into other peoples places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are….

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

Training the Millennial Generation

A new generation of students – those born Internet-ready – is working it’s way throught the school system, and is about to hit the workplace, with all of its training rooms and courses. This “Millennial generation” (sometimes called “generation Y”) has a distinctive set of characterizing traits and unique learning interests that presents a serious challenge to existing educational institutions and methodologies.

There are any number of really good websites set up to assist teachers and trainers to do a better job of connecting with this generation. One of the more comprehensive sites I have found can be found here, at MasterNewMedia.org. Read it there, or work through my summary and extracts below.

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Where’s my silver bullet?

I am sitting in a full day session with Gary Hamel. I didn’t pay enough money to be alone with him, so I am sharing the hall with a few hundred other people, representing many of South Africa’s top corporates and leading businesses. Gary has been great. I enjoy his style (his PowerPoint slides are are shocker, but he is a relaxed and engaging presenter). His content is compelling. He knows his stuff. It’s been woirth the time and money investment.

But it’s now the afternoon tea break, and all around me I hear the same comment: “I’m looking forward to this last session….”. The reason for the anticipation is that Gary has set up things brilliantly in the morning sessions. He has explained the 21st century context, he has shown us why innovation in management processes is a key to sustained success, and he has inspired and excited us to want to innovate and make a change. But he hasn’t told us what to do yet. That’s what everyone thinks is coming now! I think they will be disappointed. OR, I will be disappointed in Gary. Either way, it’s going to be a disappointing end to a great day.

Here’s why.
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