Jack retired early, just about thirty years ago. None of the top management of his company today knew him, but he’s shaped every one of their careers. Here’s how it happened.
In the 1970s, Jack was thinking about how to create a cadre of young leaders for his company. Early in his own career, twenty years earlier, his boss sent him off to a leadership development program at a major university. He says it changed the way he thought about his job.
Jack reasoned that what made the difference for him wasn’t the specific content of the program as much as the inspiration he got to do something similar every year. So he used his position to lobby for a policy that would send every manager to an outside development program at least every two years.
The day after Jack told me that story, I read “Transforming the Future of Work” on The Leader Board. It’s about Ray Wang’s closing speech at HR Tech. It’s a great piece about a great speech with lots of nutritious food for thought.
You can get lots of good ideas from a speech like that. You can pick up some insights about the way things may work in the future. The danger is that you will conceive of the future as something out there somewhere, in a world that’s different from today and shaped by powerful trends.
Trends are important, but if you’re a manager and especially if you’re in leadership development, you have a role in shaping the future, too. The decisions you make today will shape the future as much or more than any trends.
If you’re in leadership development, the future starts now.
