Recently I had an idea for one of my corporate leadership programs that has over 6,000 leaders enrolled. In an attempt to make the program communications more personal, I included an insightful reflection one of the participants “Mark” had shared at the bottom of the email message. I didn’t have to wait long for a response, but I was surprised who it came from. Within minutes an email reply appeared from our company president. He had cc’d me in a reply directly to Mark and included Mark’s entire executive chain of command. Our president began by thanking him for his engagement in the program and leadership in his function and ended with a “proud to have you on the team!”

I don’t know anyone busier than our company president, but he still found time to give a personal kudos. I don’t know Mark personally, but I bet he went home walking on air with a story to share with his family over dinner. “That was really fun to be a part of,” I thought. “I want to do this again.”

One of my favorite quotes of all-time comes from the 18th century English writer Samuel Johnson, who observed, “The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.”

Each of us are “single human beings.” We qualify. Your applause is of great consequence, and so is mine.

Celebrating the success of others is definitely a “nice” thing to do, but if we think a little deeper, it has some real benefits for us as well.

Engage Them and Retain Them

According to a recent Gallup report, only one in three American workers reported receiving recognition or praise from their boss within the last week. Not only that, under-recognized employees are twice as likely to actively seek outside employment. It’s no wonder Dale Carnegie was so emphatic about “giving honest, sincere appreciation.” It’s much harder for employees to leave a boss who heaps appreciation their way.

Become More Aware of Others’ Contributions

You’ve heard the old adage that “what you see is what you get.” Need proof? Do you remember your last vehicle purchase? All of a sudden it probably seemed half the other drivers on the road had the same idea as you. You spotted the car everywhere. Of course the number of cars didn’t change, your awareness did. Become a good-finder and you may be surprised how much there is to notice.

Win Hearts… and Minds

How do you determine whether you trust someone? Is it because of logic or because of emotion? So often, we try to convince our followers and colleagues of the rationale for following our ideas when an emotional appeal would do a better job. When you win someone’s heart, they will often give you their mind as well. The opposite is not always the case.

Showing honest and sincere appreciation is a guaranteed way to appeal to the heart. Do this, and it will be much easier to sell your ideas as well.

Change the Culture

Have you ever been part of a “gotcha” culture? Unfortunately some people find fault like there is a reward for it. What if the “gotcha” was for doing something right, instead of wrong?

In Whale Done! Ken Blanchard observes that Sea World trainers have learned the best way to turn an animal into a top performer is through constant and positive, rather than negative, reinforcement. It’s the same with people. Not only that, when enough leaders jump on board, the entire culture can shift.

It’s a Ton of Fun!

When our president’s email reply came through, I’ll admit I didn’t even read it right away. As soon as I realized what it was, I had to find a colleague to share it with. Even though I was an observer, it was the highlight of my day. We all have the ability to make someone else’s day – and by extension, our own. Words and gestures matter. Even if you have a reputation for being gruff, the invitation is open. You’ll be the one who benefits most.

Speaking of celebrating the success of others, I gave it a shot recently when a colleague Ann was promoted to a new facility CEO. Check out her leadership profile here – you’ll be inspired.

More than 10 years ago, I had the privilege to co-author The Secret with Ken Blanchard, a book about Chick-fil-A’s point of view on leadership. It was a lot of fun doing the book with Ken and even more fun talking to groups all over the world about leadership. What I didn’t expect was the question that I received over and over again… “We’ve read The Secret, what’s next?”

In the beginning, I wasn’t really sure what people wanted to know. Were they asking about my next book? Did they want to know my career plans or what time my flight was going to leave? Most often, it was none of the above. Leaders around the world appreciated the lessons we tried to convey in the book, but they had an intuitive sense, informed by their experience, that the book was not the end of the conversation. They were right.

What organizations desperately need is not just a point-of-view on leadership, they need a leadership culture. I define a leadership culture as a place in which leaders are routinely and systematically produced. In a leadership culture, it is not unusual when there is a surplus of qualified leadership candidates for an open position.

Here are five keys to creating a leadership culture.

Define it – Does your organization have an agreed upon definition of leadership? If not, that’s the starting point.

Train it – Having a definition is critical but insufficient alone. Can your leaders deliver on your definition? Some can, I’m sure, but training is probably required – at least for emerging leaders. Leadership skills are not innate.

Practice it – Do you give emerging leaders the opportunity to lead? Most of what leaders learn about leadership they learn from leading. Give them the chance to practice by actually letting them lead.

Measure it – This can take many forms – Performance reviews; 360 feedback; “Readiness for Next Opportunity.” Then there’s always the “9 Box” popularized by G.E. which evaluates leaders on two dimensions – performance and alignment with organizational values. You can even measure participation in leadership training.

Model it – If your existing leaders are not showing people what great leadership looks like in your organization; if they aren’t working diligently to demonstrate the attributes outlined in your definition of leadership, none of the previous ideas will have much impact.

How deep is your leadership bench?

Originally published on GreatLeadersServe.com

I’ve heard this dozens of times. You probably have too. In most cases, the blank is filled with “leadership” or “accountability,” but it can be all sorts of other things too: communication, collaborative, engaging, development-oriented, execution, work-life balance-friendly – you name it.

Not many things can top being part of a great team with a great culture. I’ve written about culture several times (here are my two favorites on building a leadership culture and assessing the team culture of the champion Kansas City Royals baseball team). Unfortunately, many times I hear leaders lamenting the problems they experience and simply uttering the sentence above – as if the simple prescription will foresee the remedy.

In graduate school, my leadership textbooks (yes, we read those – a couple were really interesting!) contrasted different theories of organizational culture. Do leaders create culture or does culture exist independently? As a leadership development practitioner, I can tell you it’s undoubtedly the former. A poor culture is a sure sign of deficient leadership. But simply identifying the need for a better culture doesn’t create any change.

Harvard Business Review published an article recently titled “Culture is Not the Culprit.” In it, they describe how culture isn’t a cause, it’s an effect. Leaders don’t “fix culture,” they fix problems and then receive an improved culture as a benefit. This is easy to intuit, but more difficult to accept because of the leadership implications. If the culture stinks, it’s time to get to work. Leaders have many responsibilities in this regard.

Understand the Nature of the Problem

It’s impossible to adequately address what we don’t understand – whether it’s a broken down vehicle, sick body or low-performing team. But it’s amazing how many business professionals put hasty (and costly) plans into place without doing a proper assessment. I’ve come to understand it’s mostly because everyone is so busy with their regular job – they don’t have time for extra projects. Then results stay stagnant. So talk to the people closest to the problems. Get wide input. Address actual, rather than perceived, issues.

Pull the Right “Lever”

Bobb Biehl likes to say, “When the facts become clear, the decisions jump out at you.” That’s immensely different than throwing out solutions like spaghetti on the wall and seeing which ones stick. Specific interventions require less time, effort and dollars in the long-run (and often short-run too). Instead of telling people to be more collaborative, have team leaders schedule regular meetings to address key items together over the course of a change initiative. Focus on precise rather than broad action.

Monitor and Readjust

In my first couple years playing high school football, our coaching staff promised us we’d be the best conditioned football team on any field. And they kept their promise. We were good but not great. Then my senior year, they said being conditioned wasn’t enough – we needed to focus more on scheme. So they changed the practice regimens. Conditioning was still important, but we cut some to make time for extra drills. That was the year we had the strongest team and won our conference.

Some elements of culture should be preserved, but even positive aspects will need to change over time. Leaders need to be willing to proactively make adjustments.

Anticipate Future Impacts

Any time “management” enacts a change, culture “tweaks.” That’s the nature of cause and effect. Unintended consequences can be devastating. Results suffer and top talent leaves (among other things). Don’t be the leader who, in attempting to fix one problem, creates several more. Anticipate the broader impact.

The next time you speak the word “culture,” take a pause. Is there a specific action you can take that will help generate the results you want? If so, you’ve found your opportunity to create the culture you desire.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

You may not work in the front office of a professional sports team. (Neither do I). But shaping your organization’s culture is always a top leadership responsibility. Here are just a few things the Royals did to build a championship culture.

Make Your Players Proud to Represent the Organization

Admittedly, when your team is the perennial laughingstock, this can be quite a challenge. But Dayton Moore didn’t wait until the Royals were a proud organization to instill pride in the players. Little initiatives can go a long way. One of the things the Royals did was place large action posters of each player inside the clubhouse – rookies included. That way each player would begin their team experience with a constant and visible message that being on the team is a royal privilege. Another thing the team did was give the spring training facilities a makeover. That way players could see that even a little used home away from home was a special place to be if you’re a Royal.

Give Everyone a Voice

In his book, More Than a Season, Dayton Moore talks about the importance of everyone in the organization having a voice. In the Royals organization, this means having a preference that each person has some experience as a scout – even for front office staff and coaches. This allows more voices to weigh in on personnel decisions.

In lousy cultures, only a select few make organizational decisions. In good cultures, the right people make the appropriate decisions. In great cultures, the right people make the appropriate decisions with input from as many qualified sources as possible. According to Moore, it’s important for every person to have a sincere appreciation for the expertise of every member of the organization. “If they feel like they can never weigh in, they’ll never buy in.”

Put Family First

Baseball is one of many industries that places large demands on family life. Long road trips often compete with family time. That’s where the Royals get creative in their commitment to family. In recognition of the fact that many players trace their roots to playing with their dads as boys, the team invites each player’s father to join the team on an incredible road trip experience the week before Father’s Day. In 2015, three players had the misfortune to lose parents during the year. Each situation was handled delicately and uniquely given the circumstances – with the player’s well-being placed first. As a result, team members consistently returned stating their desire to be with their “team family.”

Work and family should never have to compete with each other. That said, sometimes it takes getting creative to help foster a healthy balance. For Moore, it’s about creating an organization you would want your children to be a part of.

Stand Up for Each Other

Everyone makes mistakes at work, but one of the challenges in athletics is that most mistakes take place in the public eye with instant analysis and critique. Standing up for each other doesn’t mean a lack of accountability. It means helping each player perform to the best of their ability for the benefit of the team. It means having confidence that a player who made a mistake will come back and get it right the next time (and providing that opportunity as well), from the top of the organization all the way to the bottom – both in public and in private.

Share the Glory

Even though seven players represented the Royals at the 2015 All-Star game, the team was often heralded as the one lacking any real superstars. Team success always trumped individual success. Coach K lauds the value of team’s ego when it is a collective (vs. individual) one. The Royals fell right into this category in 2015. When an organization is on the same page (from ownership to front office to coaching to scouting and to players), winning is truly a collective success.

The common message from the players of the Kansas City Royals 2015 baseball team was short and simple: “We play for each other.” Do your teammates say the same thing? If not, your culture may be ready for a Royal makeover.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Automation has added enormous business efficiency over the years and will continue. But it’s important to keep in mind that whatever business we’re in, we’re ultimately in the people business. Since we can’t eliminate the human element (besides, would we really want to?), we’ll have to figure out how to capitalize on it.

Here are some of the ways each of us can win with people at work.

Built Trust with Results AND Relationships

Trust isn’t just a two-way street. It’s a converging superhighway. So many factors come into play. Here’s an example: what comes to mind when you think about a century old world-class financial institution? Large stone buildings with Corinthian columns? Dark suits? No nonsense serif fonts? All of those are just images. But what makes long-term trust possible are attention to both results and relationships. The results create confidence in future performance. The relationships enable commitment.

Trust is at the core of the human element – it’s intensely personal. Just ask someone who has had a trust broken (whether a person or brand). They usually aren’t happy. But trust isn’t a destination. It’s an ongoing process.

Use Stories to Connect

In my opinion, the world of advertising has taken some tremendous leaps in the last decade. Sure, there are still some television commercials that make us want to stab our eyes out, but for the most part, campaigns have shifted from “proving” that their product is the best to “telling” how it makes a difference. Social media has obviously played a role. And it’s not just advertising. Some of the most popular business books are written in fable form.

Stories are uniquely human – people connect with them. Facts and figures will always be important, but the power of narrative is as strong as it’s ever been. So find the story in the details and make it part of the advertising campaign, shareholder report, corporate policy or boardroom presentation.

Create Brand Ambassadors

People go from not knowing you to being acquainted enough to form an opinion. And that opinion can either be a great one or a terrible one. Here’s why you should care: you don’t just want customers – you want customers who will recruit (rather than repel) other customers on their own initiative. You don’t just want employee applicants – you want ones who already love your business. Have a strategy for your customer experience, employee engagement and community outreach that gives you an opportunity to deliver a good impression – in addition to the value your business creates in the day-to-day.

Find Creative Solutions

At a recent training event, we decided to let new managers work together to come up with solutions to problems they were facing. The risk was that they might come up with lousy ideas based on their limited experience so far. Instead, they generated many good ideas with several worth considering as we work to continuously improve the organizational system. It’s quicker, easier and cheaper to tell others what to do. But you’ll get more creative solutions (not to mention buy-in) when you make them part of the process.

Connect with Your Purpose

At the end of the day, we all serve a purpose. The tragedy is that both people and organization’s are often unsure exactly what it is. That’s why purpose statements are so important – ones that speak to the beliefs, the bottom line, the “why this even matters” that keeps people coming back each day. Unfortunately, corporate purpose statements can be extremely “corporate” and not very human at all. The silver lining is that it’s easy for the good ones to stand out. Think about it. No one wants to work only to create shareholder value. We want to make a difference in the process.

At the end of the day, people are here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. Our organizations, titles and roles may change, but we’ll still be around. So let’s win with people.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

At the end of the day, the organization is going to do what it’s going to do, right? So maybe a better question is: why do we even have core values?

We’ve probably all come across sets of core values that were easy to make fun of or were too vague to impact anyone. But well constructed, specific core values can add tremendous benefit both to organizations and individuals. In fact, here are three ways I’ve seen this happen.

Drive Culture

Every organization is driven by a number of things. Hopefully there is a clear purpose that all stakeholders know by heart. Customer value creation ought to drive action. If your organization is a company, earning a profit ought to be at least one of the drivers. But none of these should come at the expense of core values. Each driver should align and core values should empower the organization to move forward.

Wouldn’t you prefer to work in a values-driven organizational culture? Imagine what could happen in an organization without values. A quick look at the news and you’ll see many examples.

Influence Mindsets and Behaviors

As most of us have observed, nearly every organizations have a set of core values. Sometimes they even get talked about, which a great step. But how often are they referenced or recalled? To take it a step further, how often do they invoke personal change?

If your organization has core values, they need to be part of the corporate conversation. Then you’ve got to relate them to the way people think and act in the context of everyday situations. Point out when the values were present. “Our team did a great job demonstrating ________.” Use values-oriented language to assess future work. “Here’s an opportunity for our team to demonstrate _________.”

Over time, common language begins to turn into common mindsets and common behavior.

Guide Decision-Making

In any organization, there are many leaders who operate at many levels. The temptation for new or risk-averse leaders can sometimes be to push the difficult decisions up to the next level. Once this happens enough times, the leaders at the top start wondering why they have to solve every problem and make every decision that comes their way. What’s the point of having leaders if they don’t take responsibility, they wonder.

That’s where organizational strategy comes in. That’s where training comes in. And that’s also where core values come in. These are the tools every leader ought to be able to use to make the decisions appropriate for his or her level.

Core values enhance leadership responsibility by helping to guide decision-making.

So the next time you look at your core values, ask yourself what difference they make in your organization. If that answer is “not much,” it may be time for a refresh. Or it may be time to simply speak up.

What difference do your core values make?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Another time I was responsible for opening up a restaurant in the morning. When I turned on the lights, I couldn’t believe how shiny everything looked. The place was cleaner than I had ever seen it before. I had to ask around to see who had gone above and beyond.

Yet another time, I needed some repairs done to my car but was on a tight schedule. The mechanic drove me home after I dropped off my car, then called to update me, took my payment over the phone and left my car where I could pick it up at my leisure when my schedule allowed.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Just like in medicine, the last thing a change practitioner should do is prescribe before diagnosing. You don’t want to “fix” the wrong problem. That usually just makes things worse and hurts your credibility.

So how do you diagnose an organization?

Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as you might think. While survey and data analysis have their place, the method I like to start with is the interview. I’ll identify the key leaders who make the management decisions (VPs, directors, managers, etc). Never just one, but several. Then I’ll schedule time with them to get their input.

The First Three Questions

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a set of three questions I always ask to leaders I meet with, whether I’m doing a diagnostic or not. It allows me to cut straight to the chase of how their organization is doing without being overly intrusive. Here they are:

• What excites you about your organization?
• What would you like to get to next if you could?
• What concerns do you have about your organization right now?

With these short questions, I’m able to quickly capture an overview of the passion, strategy and fear of the leader in a relatively pressure-free way. But if I will be responsible for proposing and/or delivering a solution, I don’t stop there.

In graduate school, I read the book How to OD…And Live to Tell About It by William Becker. In it is an organizational diagnostic I’ve come to really appreciate. Below is a sample of the most important questions from Becker that I use and you can use as well.

Culture

• What are people like and what seems to be important to them?
• What type of person succeeds here? Why?
• How are people professionally developed?

Strategy

• What is the organization’s mission?
• What are your key organizational goals?
• What do people perceive they are most rewarded and recognized for doing?
• What are the top three challenges facing your organization/industry now? Over the next 3-5 years?

Change History

• What are some of the recent (or current) change initiatives your organization has undergone on over the last few years?
• What was their purpose? What resulted and how has this impacted your organization today?
• What were some of the obstacles faced and how were they addressed?

Needs

• In your view, what is the most important thing your company needs to address?
• What do you want to take on right now? Why haven’t you?

Influence

• How is the executive team composed in your firm? What are they good at (as a team)?
• What seems to drive decisions here?

Preferences

• Are you looking for a pair of hands to tell them what to do, or an expert to tell you what is the problem and provide a solution, or are you looking for a collaborative effort where someone facilitates you and your stakeholder’s discovery of the problem and create solutions together?
• Is there anything else I should be aware of if I am to be helpful to your organization?

Once you’ve interviewed enough of the leaders to get an accurate assessment of the situation, you have will generally have the information you need to get started. Compile the results, highlight the major themes, and report them back to the leaders you interviewed. Include your recommendations for what needs to be done and how you propose to make it happen – along with their necessary involvement.

Congratulations, you’ve just completed step one – and what some consider the most important step – in the consulting process!

What other questions would you include? Keep in mind that most leaders don’t have time to answer all of your questions!

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

The greatest part of Welch’s contribution may be in the form of giving back – by sharing his knowledge of business and management with all sorts of audience and through various speaking engagements and books he’s written in his retirement. Here’s a snip-it of what I picked up.

Image by Joshua Zumbrun

Leadership is a “People” Job

Welch bottomlined the need for people development at Leadercast by stating that “If you don’t like people, leadership stinks!” At GE, Welch calculated that 70% of his job was developing people, contrary to the belief some managers hold that it comes after regular job duties. This means looking for teachable moments throughout your day as you interact with your team. Additionally, in his book Winning, Welch harps on the necessity of candor, not only when it comes to business decisions, but personnel reviews as well. “You have no right calling yourself a leader if people don’t know where they stand with you,” Welch says.

Self-Confidence is a Must

Not only does business tend to favor the “energetic and extroverted,” as Welch acknowledges, so does society in general. But that doesn’t mean shy and introverted (albeit skilled) people lack the opportunity to succeed. The key is self-confidence. A person with self-confidence trusts his gut. She speaks up in meetings when something needs to be said (even if it’s unpopular). He knows how to get the most from his talents and takes appropriate risks in the face of uncertainty. Ultimately, it’s behavior and results, not personality, that get rewarded.

The additional point Welch stresses for leaders is their responsibility to develop self-confidence among their people. Don’t wait for them to pick it up on their own. “Pump them full of it,” he says.

Know When to Quit

One decision Welch is famous for is setting the directive that each GE business would be #1 or #2 in its industry or else get out altogether. The important element in this directive was clarity. No one needed to guess whether a business should stay open or not. They knew that if it was #3 or lower, the decision had already been made. Of course there was occasional criticism, but Welch highlighted that most leaders don’t like to let go because they prefer to run big things. Pruning reduces the portfolio, which hurts when the mindset is that bigger is always better. But not only that, when a business is sold from a weak position to someone who is in a strong position, it’s really a huge favor for everyone.

Not only should leaders know when to quit on a business, Welch encouraged them to have the self-confidence to quit their jobs if the organization was not providing enough developmental opportunities for them. Leaders owe it to themselves and it keeps the organization accountable.

Welch certainly made a lasting impression on business not just in American but all over the world. If you’d like to learn more of his ideas about leadership philosophy, managing a company, managing competition or managing your career, I suggest you pick up a copy of Winning for yourself. I’m sure glad I did!

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Following are six specific ways many organizations have traditionally thought about training – with a culture “shift” for each one.

Learning takes place during training events.

Shift: Learning takes place before, during and after training events – as well as on the job and after hours.

Gone are the days when training is simply viewed as a “vacation” from actual work. With attitudes like this, it’s no wonder management got so eager to cut training budgets. Make sure employees understand that they must complete pre-work assignments before arriving at the learning event so they are prepared to engage with the content as soon as the events begins. Have a follow-up plan. Even more importantly, help them understand the importance of learning through experiences on the job – as well as from external sources.

The instructor is the expert.

Shift: Everyone is an expert: facilitators, self and peers.

If the instructor is the only expert, the purpose of a learning event will be to simply download the information from the instructor to the participants. If everyone is an expert, the facilitator operates as more of a guide and participants learn from assessing their own experiences and from collaborating with the content and with others – both inside and outside of the event.

The organization is responsible for each person’s development.

Shift: Everyone is responsible for own their development and for sharing what they know with others. The organization is responsible for supporting development via the learning infrastructure.

If only the organization is ultimately responsible for the development of each employee, then employees will understandably take a passive role in the development process. On the other hand, if the organization plays a support role, each person must be a proactive participant in the process. The organization builds the system and the participants engage with the content, resources, and most importantly: each other (are you catching a trend for collaboration?).

Mistakes are unacceptable, so hide them.

Shift: Mistakes are unavoidable – so share and learn from both successes and failures. Encourage creative experimentation.

Some mistakes are truly unforgivable, especially if they involve safety, privacy, sensitive information or ethics. And yet they still occur. The worst response is to sweep them beneath the rug and pretend they never happened. This only ensures that the same mistakes will take place again in the future. Not only that, it damages an organization’s credibility with employees (and outside stakeholders) who know the mistakes happened. Many mistakes are not fatal. It takes guts to admit when we’re wrong, but it’s one of the most development-rich opportunities out there. Mistakes become examples of what not to do (again). Moreover, when there is freedom to fail, there is extra incentive to succeed. Truett Cathy once said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong… until we can learn to do it right.” When it comes to admitting mistakes, leaders ought to lead the way and go first. And if you are going to fail, take risks and fail in a training environment first.

Grades come from learning assessments.

Shift: “Grades” come from feedback of self, peer, trainers, supervisor and business results.

The ultimate grades of any learning event come in the form of business results. It’s not enough to give a right answer – you have to perform the correct action on the job. But the real catch is that often there is no “right” answer. Many decisions are situation-specific and don’t net a result until further down the road. And let’s not discount the value of feedback. Oftentimes we have a decent assessment of our own level of understanding. “I’ve got this,” or “I definitely don’t get this!” Peers, training staff and supervisors help provide additional insight that we can take or leave. Take them.

A passing grade completes training (emphasis on passing).

Shift: Development is never “complete” (emphasis on continual growth, mastery and collaboration).

Learning is only “pass/fail” in the classroom but never in real life. For some technical training events, a certain level of quantitative proficiency must be attained. I don’t want someone operating on my who hasn’t passed extensive competency assessments! But the learning is never over. A training event is simply a stepping stone on the path to mastery. Also, the most complete learner is not the one who knows the most, but the one who shares the most with others.

Which of these shifts does your organization need the most? What additional learning shifts would you add?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.