The first quarter of 2024 is now in the books. From a value creation perspective, the S&P index has grown by about 10% and the Dow Jones Index by about 6%. This strong and steady growth has occurred in the face of continued volatility coming from socio-economic issues, inflation, the unemployment rate, weather conditions, and world population health factors.

One of the most important pieces of research Advantexe continually seeks is information gathered from our Training and Development clients to understand what skills they are looking to develop for the rest of the year and beyond.

Based on our continued conversations and surveys in Q1, 2024, the top three skills large, global organizations are seeking to develop are:

• Collaboration
• Business Acumen
• Leading a Culture of Innovation

What has been interesting to discover is the consistency of both the definition and focus on these specific skills they are seeking to solve. That hasn’t always been the case. For example, a year ago the most important skill companies were looking to develop was providing feedback as a form of coaching. What many found out was there is no one definite and easy definition or methodology for teaching how to give effective feedback. Here at Advantexe, we implemented several major Coaching & Feedback simulations, and they are all growing into the 2^nd and 3^rd year of implementation which means immersive, practice-based learning is one of the only ways to teach those skills.

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One of the realities of being a leader in 2021 and beyond is that direct reports and others that work with you on projects and processes don’t wake up every morning thinking to themselves that today is the day I am going to make myself more accountable.

In a recent virtual Fundamentals of Business Leadership simulation workshop there is a scenario where two of the central characters, David and Ellen are having a conflict over David’s lack of communications on a critical project and his unwillingness to take accountability for his mistakes and delays. Ellen is frustrated that the work David was supposed to have done wasn’t done (she’s the one who must tell the customer) and David is upset that he thinks Ellen is being too hard on him and that he thinks the client is being unreasonable by demanding the project be delivered on time.

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This time of year brings out all the pundits and so-called experts who espouse their insights and ideas in the form of blogs, articles, podcasts, and other assorted media, predicting the future and providing business leaders with prophesies to base their decision-making on during the coming year. Among the many things you will read and hear about are the painfully obvious including the continued emergence of artificial intelligence, the endless expansion of ecommerce, and of course the ever-present geopolitical issues that lead the news headlines every day, yet seem to have very little impact on the health of the global economy in 2017.

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Last week, I started a six part series of blog posts called Practical Leadership Insights about Leading during a Transition. This series is focused on presenting real-world ideas and tools to leaders operating in the VUCA world of the “new normal.” It has provided tips and thoughts on how to understand and execute business strategy through people when a business ecosystem is in transition.  I discussed how I believe this is different than Change Management because Change Management is an evolving process that teaches leaders to build resilience to forces outside of the organization, whereas transition is a finite event that is controllable and usually initiated as a logical business decision. 

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