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The Learning function designed a series of remedial skills training workshops that target specific operational skill and knowledge gaps on ESL’s front line. The result: an improvement of 76.9 percent in teller differences and a 7 percent decrease in front-line IRA paperwork errors.

Consumer brands know they need to keep developing effective new strategies quickly and capture the opportunities in order to survive in China. This has led to the emergence of a new senior executive role at retail brand owners operating in China: the strategic business planner, who directly reports to the China CEO.

Typical organizational charts start with the owner at the top and everyone else fanning out below. But the most effective owners these days—the ones beating the pants off everyone else—see it just the other way, with themselves occupying the point of the triangle, but at the bottom. These revolutionists truly understand how to get the best out of the individuals who work for them.

A great communicator can do more to marshal the strength of an organization than all of the medals, tokens, and incentives a company can offer. Therefore, a top training priority for any organization should be strengthening the oratorical skills of its executives.

A good CEO must be a judicious blend of strategy and execution and a proportional blend of business, technical, and social acumen. As such, new chief executives must proportionally mix all these qualities; meet and listen to all stakeholders; create a corporate culture connecting them on one common thread; build effectives teams; craft their vision; and articulate it effectively.

Strategic leaders propel their organizations through successive iterations of a learning process with strategic thinking, strategic acting, and strategic influencing skills. These skills create the fuel to drive the organization’s learning process and link it to the organization’s evolving strategic intent for creating and sustaining competitive advantage.

BNSF Railway’s People Leader Training (PLT) program began in 2001 and is sponsored by the company’s executive team. The purpose is to grow leadership capability while supporting the consistent implementation of the BNSF Leadership Model.

Our culture pressures us to believe that we should know everything about anything… that to be at the top of our game, we have to be all-knowing. Always be right. Never make a mistake. So instead of pursuing answers, we spend our time pretending like we already have the answers. But why pretend to know when you can create a habit of knowing?

To go from a traditional public-service-oriented culture to one that was more team based and customer service oriented, ERDF-West contacted an outside consultant to help it design and run an innovative “theater-based” training initiative. In this method, problems (and solutions) are conceptualized and identified by the use of narrative, acting, improvisation, and role-playing.