Diana,
I post this message rather late in the day and hope that you have had many
positive responses.
Like At I want to post my reply to the list as a whole because I believe
that your dilemma is one that faces many of us in this business (what
business might be asked at this stage!)
Like you I am passionate about helping individuals and organisations
become more effective and fun places to work where the goals of the
individual can be fitted into the goals of the organisation so that both
benefit.
I find that getting real, long term commitment to this ideal amongst
senior managers and directors is often difficult.
This has given me real food for thought. Are we out of touch with the
world of business?, is business out of touch with the needs of
individuals? I'm sure that the answer is not simple.
What I continually discover is that managers have busy schedules that tend
to push development and learning down their priority lists. Even when they
are committed to these topics they find it difficult to give them the
appropriate amount of time to do them justice. I have had two examples
recently when proposals took longer to get accepted because the mangers
were busy and not uncommitted to doing the work.
So keep on trying, there is no simple way to get into the 'business'. At
times it is incredibly frustrating and at other times wonderfully
rewarding.
Network as much as you can using clients to help you market ideas and
successful results.
Hope that this is useful
Ian Saunders
Transition Partnerships - Harnessing change for business advantage
tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk
--tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk (Ian Saunders)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>