I learned this week that a client started a program in which every manager is part of a team to help less-experienced staff learn basic project management techniques. The overall intent is to not only enhance the project management skills of the less-experienced participants, but to also identify and implement efficiency enhancement opportunities throughout the organization. This will enable more employees to take lead positions on future projects, to develop their individual skills, and to obviously support the company. Terrific right? Well in theory it sounds great. However, in application it's not so great. Why? Management's not showing up.

I had a difficult experience this past week: I had to practice what I preach. I had to listen to someone share her criticisms, suggestions, and proposed new procedures for an organization I have been heavily involved with for the past five years. And here's the tough part, I had to force myself not to interrupt her. Every time Susan said something I disagreed with I had to struggle to control my knee-jerk reaction and say "But you don't understand...", "But we've tried that before", "But..."  I had to listen critically.

We recently started a six-month leadership training program with a new client. The participants are accepted into the program only after they have been nominated by someone at or above their position in the company, and they have successfully passed the program's interview process. The interesting part of this process has been that several participants have indicated they were surprised they were nominated, but they are grateful to whomever nominated them. That's nice. But I believe it's a rather odd approach to nurturing talent.