The missing link in Leadership development

I am going to have a bit of a rant I am afraid. However, I am very interested to hear whether anyone has views on this subject….

I was in a meeting of HR professionals this week. They were talking about Executive Education for the leaders of their respective businesses. Some of the themes that arose from the conversations were

  • the need for leaders to engage their staff
  • the importance of strategy and vision
  • the need for an innovation culture in organisations

We then went on to talk about graphic facilitation. I was struck by the inability of the people in the room to see graphic facilitation as a useful tool in the practical execution of all the above themes.

I have worked in the field of graphic facilitation for longer than I would like to admit, so I know my perspective is skewed. However there is hard evidence that most business strategies are not effectively deployed within the workforce. The way to engage people in strategy is to bring them together, and have meaningful conversations about the strategy – which usually only happens in meetings if they are well designed and well facilitated.

Please let me know your reactions to this posting.