One of the most interesting things that I have observed during the past few months of working with large global organizations is that too many of them are trusting their R&D leaders to make critical business decisions without providing them with the Business Acumen skills and tools they need to make the right business choices.  Think about the pharmaceutical company, the technology company, or the chemical company who is investing billions of dollars into R&D and product development by empowering teams to bring new products to market without the skills or tools to know if their decisions and actions will be successful.

I apologize in advance to all of my colleagues and friends who are HR Business Partners.  This blog is a non-traditional perspective about what Advantexe thinks are the practical things organizations and leaders who care about development should be doing in order to acquire, develop, and retain the Emerging Leaders who are the future of your business.

In a time of doom, gloom, and economic stagnation, the business world was pleasantly surprised by the recent financial news coming from Netflix.  After several flat quarters in a row, Netflix added 3.6 million new members in the third quarter of 2016 which surpassed their own expectations and the expectations of Wall Street.  Netflix now has more than 86 million subscribers.

One of the most interesting aspects of my job as a lead consultant designing, developing, and delivering business simulation-centric Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling learning solutions is having the unique opportunity to meet and work with hundreds of business professionals a month.

How many times has this conversation happened to you?

YOU: “How’s everything going on the Project?’

COLLEAGUE: “Great!  I took all of the feedback, made the changes, and it’s done.”

YOU: “Thank you so much! I see how hard you worked on it and I can’t wait to see it on Friday.”

But when you actually look at the project work and review everything that was supposedly “done” your realize at best it might be half-way done leaving you frustrated and upset that you now have to re-arrange your schedule and priorities to do someone else’s work to get the project really done.