by Jonathan Jones
Successful companies embrace resources to engage their employees. Look to the external to keep your company fresh. I suggest budgeting, both time and money, for leaders to leverage some of the following to improve the inside of the organization.
Trade associations. Encourage collaborative networking and insight into your industry. Building relationships and friendships with peers in the industry, employees grow in knowledge and connectedness.
Training/technical courses. Help update skills and/or set an employee up to achieve that next promotion.
Conferences. Inspire staff with new ideas. Strategically determine which conferences are a good fit (or solicit input from employees). Good conferences inspire and develop growth.
Industry conventions. These provide awareness of your industry and may ignite possibilities outside your current offerings.
Local business community gatherings. Network with other organizations; success breeds success. Ideas and connections often can bring new opportunities or sales referrals.
Local and regional chambers of commerce. Connect people. Engaging with the community increases the connectedness of your people and their community.
Youth or mentoring programs. These provide a connection to our future workforce and can give both mentor and mentee extreme confidence and growth.
Professional peer groups. You can develop innovative solutions to business challenges through sharing experiences and expertise in a confidential environment with others with similar levels of career growth and achievement. These groups offer business and leadership education through confidential forums.
Leaders who are connected and continue to grow consistently outperform those who do not. Continuing growth is good business.
Jonathan Jones (Jonathan.jones@vistagechair.com or 314-608-0783) is a CEO peer group chair/coach for Vistage International.
Submitted 8 years 26 days ago