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.