Recently I attended the annual conference for an organization called the Association of Internal Management Consultants (AIMC). There were two sessions at that conference that stood out. The first was a summary of some research that was done by Development Dimensions International (DDI) and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). I reported on that in the Spring issue of this newsletter. The second session was delivered by the Chief Learning Officer at Becton Dickenson, a medical technology company, on "Leaders as Coaches." Here is the promised report on that session.

Becton Dickenson is a scientific and research organization that has embraced the work of Noel Tichy from the University of Michigan. Noel and his work are quite familiar to me as I was a graduate student of his at Columbia. Noel describes "winning" companies as more than learning organizations; they are teaching organizations. As such, they are more agile, develop better strategies and implement plans more effectively than competitors. They promote the idea that the strongly held convictions of leaders must be imparted to their employees. They encourage leaders to become teachers to pass on their "leadership teachable points of view."

What I really liked about this approach is the broad definition of teaching Becton Dickinson has adopted. Teaching isn't just a lecturer in a classroom... it's a variety of situations from a lunchtime speaker to an interview to a town hall session. They never want to put their people into situations that don't lead to success. Hence, they involve their leaders in teaching situations they can handle comfortably, and as the leader's teaching skills increase, he or she assumes a larger role. From informal speaking to co-facilitating a class, small successes become the framework for larger responsibilities.

How do teaching organizations fare as successful companies, you might ask. Wall Street defines success in terms of increases in revenue and earnings per share. This idea of managers or leaders as teachers takes time to flow through to the balance sheet and income statement. Those looking for the "quick fix" or "silver bullet" will not understand, much like the companies who tried Total Quality management in the 1980's without success. (And were told by Edwards Deming that it would take 15 years for TQM to significantly impact the organization--meaning that's how long before the current senior managers retired.) GE meets the Wall Street test of financial success, and they have long been a teaching organization. Leaders as teachers works when the person at the top embraces the idea and commits to making it work, come what may.

Ah, how I wish there were more Becton Dickensons and General Electrics in the world! As a management consultant with a passion for development, I could put all my effort into making a company's development endeavors successful as opposed to trying to convince senior management that development is more than a necessary expense and that -- yes -- senior management needs to play an active role.