Building Stronger Foundations
I’ve lived many careers, but all of them had one thing in common – an appreciation for strong foundations.
The industries I’ve gravitated toward have been ones designed to have an impact decades into the future.
Right now, it’s mainly education, which I see as the foundation upon which our careers and professional lives are built.
In the past, my focus was architecture and construction which contributed to evolving and expanding the places we live, work, and grow.
Contrary to my own experiences, what I’ve come to realize is that as a society we celebrate the end-result, but neglect the infrastructure required to achieve it.
What are Organizational Foundations?
Nowhere is the neglect of foundational thinking truer than in business. Leaders are held accountable for lagging indicators – revenue, EBITDA, share price – and rarely prioritize the foundations that underpin them – learning and growth.
We’re incentivized to think quarterly, while knowingly sacrificing the organization's long-term health.
In the industries I’ve worked in that’s been well-understood, and generally avoided. Nobody encouraged interns to drop out to work full-time or built beautiful buildings upon weak foundations.
As business leaders if we can extend our focus from “What does next quarter look like” to “What does the next decade look like” the ROI of foundation-building becomes clearer.
Improving Learning and Growth Models
If we truly prioritized learning and growth, most of us would recognize how under-resourced it is. It’s an easy line item to cut and is rarely a focus for C-suite-level conversations.
Even the best of them are anchored in age-old philosophies that could benefit from modernization.
I think three major shifts are required to evolve how we think about learning & growth.
1) Decentralized Development
An organization is a living thing. It needs the ability to adapt to its environment and evolve. That’s a challenging thing to do if learning & growth is entirely a top-down, centralized operation.
A balance of top-down, and bottom-up development is necessary to get this right.
2) Individualization
We categorize individuals by function and job title and assume that represents their needs. But learning and growth needs are individual and personal.
We need to allow space for individuals to explore their interests, as much as their job requirements.
3) Ecosystem Focus
Organizations are complex, and no single function is representative of the whole. Training for deep functional skillsets is important, but if we want to increase cross-functional awareness and empathy we need to encourage more cross-training.
What Should Leaders Do First?
Building, or rebuilding, a learning and growth program is a significant undertaking. Initially setting one up takes time and sustaining it requires more.
The very first step, however, is a simple one.
Ask people what they need and how they feel.
Want to share this thinking with your network?
