Becoming a learning organization isn’t some end goal — it’s like claiming to be “an enlightened person.” It’s about continuous growth and reflection. The real key is committing to the process and always evolving.

With that in mind, here are seven foundational principles of learning organizations that I believe are worth remembering—and applying:

In this blogpost, we illustrate what it takes to build an effective virtual workshop series for leaders of a successful company.

Investing in employee development is critical to the long term success of any organization. Professional services firms recognize that their employees are either billable or buildable.

We cannot have all the answers, yet not knowing often feels like a weakness. If you reframe not having the answer as an opportunity to learn, you will embrace sharing the fact you don’t know.

Covid-19 is teaching us a lot about our vulnerability and resilience as individuals and as a society.

Forget the corporate ladder and replace it with a career scaffold. Building stronger lateral foundations allow employees to progress further in their careers

A commitment to learning and developing are key to an effective coaching engagement. There have a been a few coaching failures that I have learned from and they all had one thing in common; a lack of commitment from the coachee.

Brian Formato shares one of the best failure stories ever. He’s the founder and principal at Groove Management, a human capital consulting firm focusing on organizational and talent development. He also created LeaderSurf, a professional development program that teaches leadership through surfing.

A lesson from a mistake on a slide in a presentation on failure. The irony.

Capture participant learnings with this simple workshop ending activity.

We learn best when we step out of our comfort zone and into the learning zone.  Here are some tips on how to open yourself up to new learnings.

Do you have a daily ritual?  Something you do every day just for you.  Forget servant leadership for a minute and understand that selfish leadership can be important at times too.

Three Leadership lessons from an art and innovation workshop at the McColl Center.  Originally published in the Charlotte Agenda.

The key to being a great actor is to be yourself.  Acting is not about impersonation, it is about originality.  The same concept holds true in the business world.  As a leader, the most important attribute you can bring to your job is your authenticity.  There is no one else like you in the world and that is what makes each of us special and different.  Too many people spend their working lives trying to be like someone else or adjusting their personality and approach to “fit in”. 

The toughest interview question I ever faced was frustrating at the time, but turned into one of my greatest career learnings.  

Rather than seeing the top leadership role as being the person to provide the answers, he saw his responsibility as asking the right questions.  Too many leaders today think that leadership is about having the right answer and showing how smart you are, when in fact leadership is about bringing out the best in others.