Champions Fax Archive

David Maister is one of the foremost thinkers and writers in the field of management consulting. His earlier book, Managing the Professional Service Firm is a must for executive leaders of Church Champion organizations. His latest book is entitled True Professionalism: The Courage to Care about Your People, Your Clients and Your Career.

In Chapter 17, Maister addresses the myths about building skills. Here are selected ones with comments for Champions.

"Myth One: Training is expensive." - Try having untrained people. Adding value to your constituents means first adding value to your team and yourself. Maister points out that those consulting firms with the highest expenditures for training also have the best reputations with clients.

"Myth Two: Skill building is for the junior professionals." - Not true. Skill building is for all of your team. Organizations become out of balance when they emphasize training for some and not for others. One good practice is always sending two persons to be trained. They assist each other in learning and it builds the sense of team.

"Myth Three: Skill building should be the responsibility of the Training Director." - A sentence that can change your life: I am responsible for my own learning. The first responsibility should be each individual's. The second should be the immediate manager. A manager who does not equip is failing in his or her role.

"Myth Four: It's not worth training those who will leave." - Sure, it's a transient world and people move around. Investments in training can pay dividends in the retention of good employees and in loyalties to the organization if they do leave. In kingdom work, the kingdom, as a whole, benefits.

"Myth Six: Skill building should focus primarily on technical matters." - Most professionals know their own core competencies and technical aspects of their work. It is usually the interpersonal skills where we see failure. Training should be broad, mind-stretching and occasionally, outside the box. A good ratio is training in half of ones field of expertise and half outside.

True Professionalism by David Maister, Copyright 1997 by The Free Press.

For those interested in adding a valuable Leadership Development skill to their own tool box, contact Linda Stanley at 800.765.5323 and inquire about the Leadership Network Forum Process Training Workshop to be held August 5-7, 1998 at the Lake Lanier Resort near Atlanta. Space is now limited to only two more participants.