2002-09-01T00:00:00Z

Old, New and BIG As Director of Leadership Development for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), I've spent the past two years designing a leadership development program and using it to consult to and train our middle and upper level managers. This year, I was intent on introducing a staff development program that would complement the leadership program. I was seeking the opportunity to identify talent at the staff level, retain talent by giving them opportunities for growth and provide a skill set that would enable them to add value to the organization. I designed programs to develop many of their "soft" skills relating to emotional intelligence. And, to provide them with the skill set to directly impact the work itself and the bottom line, I brought in a program called Process Innovation Through Teams (PITT). PITT is the brainchild of Tony Dottino, developed in his twenty years plus years as an IBM executive and ten as president of his own consulting firm. I have been fortunate to become a licensed PITT instructor to provide these tools for ASCAP. On April 15, 2002, I sat in Con Edison’s Grand Auditorium on Irving Place in New York City and heard organizations, one after the other, present their experience with cross-functional teams utilizing the PITT program. These organizations, IBM, Holiday Inn, NY City Transit, Con Edison and others, reported solid returns on investment. And, perhaps more importantly, they talked about how their employees have been ignited with enthusiasm in bringing these returns to bear with the innovations they have created.  As I sat there, three things ran through my mind: <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> The Old News – the pace of change and competition; </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> The New News – Recently released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that by 2006 there will be 151 million jobs in the U.S. and only 141 million workers; a shortage of 10 million workers. </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> The Big News to come. </td> </tr> </table> <blockquote>   </blockquote> The Old News We all know we are living in the age of change at breakneck speed – innovation, competition, deregulation, consolidation, mass customization. It’s like being on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup ride at Disney World. Turns within turns within turns, moving faster and faster. Andy Grove, founder and former chairman of Intel, has said, “in business, only the paranoid survive.” But, business paranoia is not about the competition with others. The paranoia, or phrased in more positive terms, the challenge is move to the cutting edge of efficiency, quality and innovation, to compete with ourselves. How can we do it better? Do it for less? Consistently raise the bar? I interpret those questions as, “How can we tap into the intelligence and ingenuity of the workforce and allow them to utilize their talents?” “How do we get their buy-in and get them excited?”   The New News If you think the talent wars are over, think again. It’s just beginning, and not just for those high tech jobs. It will be across the board. While I sat at this conference listening to the success stories, Time Magazine was out with an article on the emerging shortage of talent, and Business Week had an entire section on the escalating costs of medical benefits. The bottom line is that companies will have to get a big ROP (Return On People); a big return on each person they employ. In order to attract talent, retain talent and capture their value, companies will have to develop leadership, develop their workers, and provide an environment of innovation, entrepreneurship and quality. One that encourages it, stimulates it, provides tools for it, embraces it, recognizes and rewards it. The alternative is stagnation at high cost and poor quality that will be impossible to sustain in the 21st Century.   The Big News We know that in the 21st Century, a company's key asset is its people. That’s a badly overused slogan. But, the fact is it’s true. The company, the organization, is its people. So, here’s the big news, it’s both obvious and astonishing at the same time. We intuitively know it. The big news is: the company has got to be accountable to their workforce first, in order to be able to deliver sustainable good news to shareholders and other stakeholders. We’re not talking soda pop in the water fountains here, or three-day work weeks. We’re talking about building the kind of work environment discussed above. What I have seen from my early work with PITT at ASCAP, is that PITT is a major component of building that thriving workplace of the 21st Century.‡ Marshall Tarley, Dir. of Leadership Development ,ASCAP “I continue to be impressed by the power of PITT and Mind Mapping to energize work teams to deliver real bottom-line business results.” Alan Homyk, Director of Environment Health and Safety, ConEdison

2009-03-12T15:43:18Z

22 Old, New and BIG As Director of Leadership Development for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), I've spent the past two years designing a leadership development program and using it to consult to and train our middle and upper level managers. This year, I was intent on introducing a staff development program that would complement the leadership program.

true Old, New, Big News Old_New_Big

2009-03-24T00:41:20Z