Editorial

Citation

Gimson, A. (2012), "Editorial", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 26 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo.2012.08126daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 26, Issue 4

How many people in your organization inwardly groan when they hear the same phrases too often? “This is cutting-edge stuff,”, or “We need some blue-sky thinking here,” for example? There are even numerous websites, purporting to list the “top ten” most hated buzzwords, which can provide some light relief to brighten up a dull afternoon. But there is a serious side to how we overuse certain linguistic terms. What if the actions that lie behind the words are truly important to the organization’s success? How do we ensure people don’t just switch off? In the Viewpoint for this issue of the journal, Mike Schraeder highlights ways to minimize any apathy towards relevant, but perhaps over-popular, management terms. His four practical suggestions will be useful to both businesses and providers of management and leadership development programs.

We develop the practical theme for this issue by moving into a number of case studies. Firstly, Liv Severinsson and colleagues from AstraZeneca share how a site in Lund, Sweden had to be closed as part of the organization’s responses to the current challenges within the pharmaceutical industry. Transferring some staff to a new, distant site, redundancies and disposing of the site to new occupants is usually a recipe for significant local damage to a corporate brand. However, with clear objectives and success criteria, cross-functional leadership and employee involvement, this is an impressive example of how to get it right.

Our second case study is from India, where Archana Upadhyay plots the journey of the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPC). This organization had been a public-sector unit since the nationalization of petroleum companies in India in 1974. In 2001 the government divested its stake in HPC and it is now a vibrant Fortune 500 company with a turnover exceeding $US23.9bn. The international accolades that have come their way are testament to their work over the past ten years to become a vibrant learning organization … a route many have attempted to take but not many have achieved.

For our third case of what is happening in organizations in practice, Judith Elliott from the UK takes us into the world of m-learning. How many managers would have to admit to delaying having that difficult conversation with a team member? In this article, we are offered a useful frame for how to undertake these types of conversations as well as an example of how technology can bring a “just-in-time” film-clip reminder to managers on their mobile phone or their laptop.

Our last case study comes from Farhan Vakani and Mughis Sheerani at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan. Theirs is a personal account of how they successfully applied the Delphi technique – a key aspect of which is that it uses silence and multiple iterations of written reflection and feedback – to a group situation of considerable potential disagreement and conflict.

We return to the topic of redundancies or “downsizing” in the review article, “Paying the price as firms edge out talent.”. With evidence from Australia, the UK National Health Service and Europe, a strong case is made for the need to consider knowledge retention as a critical factor even during tough times.

It is always pleasing to find examples of senior executive teams getting directly involved in the development of their organizations future managers and leaders, rather than leaving it (or some would say abdicating) to the L&D team or a business school. This is the case outlined in “Continuous improvement initiatives at Memorial Healthcare System,” where, amongst other interventions, senior executives act as mentors to aspiring leaders and hold “lunch and learn” events each month with those on development programs.

Finally, a few statistics from our last article, entitled “Thriving and sustainable employee performance – save money; invest in people:”:

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  companies with thriving employees perform 16 percent more effectively;

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  there is 125 percent less burnout;

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  thriving employees are 32 percent more committed and 46 percent more satisfied; and

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  thrivers have fewer missed days and sickness days.

I hope the numbers tempt you to read it and perhaps ponder on how many “thrivers” you could identify in your own organization.Anne Gimson is based at Strategic Developments International, UK. E-mail: anne@stratdevint.com

Anne Gimson