mel byron
Have you heard the one about the Finance Director who said, ‘What if we spend
money training our people, and then they leave?’. To which the CEO replies,
‘What if we don’t train our people and then they stay?’. Admittedly, it won’t
get me a headline spot on Live at the Apollo, but it does point out something
very important. Simply this, that ongoing training is very important. Even now.
Especially now. An organisation should have learning and development written
into its core values. The landscape of work is changing and people need to have
skills that will help them navigate that tricky landscape. Time and again,
growth and development opportunities are cited as chief motivators at work. This
means not only formal training, but on the job development. Imagine a leader who
has the courage to support a colleague to undertake a new project, something
they’ve never done before and the success of which is unclear. Imagine a
colleague who grasps that opportunity to innovate, knowing that there’s a steep
learning curve ahead, but that their line manager has their back. Imagine this
is your organisation and that both of those valuable people have taken their
lead from you. It does take a leap of faith to invest in learning and
development, especially of those soft skills. The word ‘soft’ doesn’t help,
though, does it, and probably leaves that Finance Director, well-versed in Excel
and complex accounting software (very ‘hard’), palpitating at the cost. Author
Heather McGowan has relabelled the ‘soft’ skills as ‘uniquely human’ skills.
That’s a rather splendid phrase. Unique and Human.
