Scott finished his contribution with these words.
Overall, it isn't Rocket Science if we remember that:
"A Desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
and
"Trust is the residue of promises fulfilled."
Hope this is a bit helpful.
Like so much in our business (helping people and organisations to learn)
it is often the simple things that work most effectively and are the most
difficult to get people to undertake.
I would like to reinforce his comments about getting senior people to
continuously talk about mission, visions, purpose rather than spending
lots of time producing some words and then doing nothing else. There are a
number of examples of leaders doing this successfully. Field Marshalls
Montgomery and Slim from the British army in WW2 come to mind. Both were
seen a remarkably successful in getting the 'troops' aligned with what
they wanted to achieve. They also had high expectations of the junior
commanders.
In this area I heard a wonderful story recently from a musician.
Conductors have often been used as metaphors for leadership. She said that
she had encountered two types of conductor
1. Those that told you what to do and criticised you when you didn't get
it right. This lead to constrained and nervous performers.
2. COnductors who explained the sound they wanted to achieve (purpose!!)
and continually encouraged the players to do their best. Result high
performance + (and this is the most important part) players who went away
wanted to practice and learn so that they could be better next time.
Knowing what they were trying to achieve lead individuals to identify the
need for their own development.
I found this a very insightful story. Hope others do to.
Ian Saunders
Transition Partnerships - Harnessing change for business advantage
tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk
--tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk (Ian Saunders)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>