Sponsors would offer consultation through the life of the project and benefit from the lessons being learned by team members. Learning groups would meet once or twice during the three-day sessions and during the month in between sessions. Their responsibilities to one another were to provide support, challenge, and hold each other accountable for their leadership development opportunities during the six-month process. Participants meet commitment to the time investment with resistance even when the senior team is in support of it. We found there to be so many demands on participants time that people struggled with balancing both personal and work proprieties while trying to benefit from this learning opportunity.
Commitment needs to be renewed as the emerging business dynamics and shifts in priorities occur.
Be clear that the strategic business issue should drive who sits on the team, not the learning process. As the creative minority is established, be ready with other interventions to educate and incorporated people from the critical mass. Due to emerging market and business conditions, this project continues to take new shape. As this article is being written, changes in the financial status of the business have put this initiative temporarily on hold pending decisions about new internal restructuring. By May 1, when I present this project to you at our monthly O.D. Network meeting, another chapter in the business will have unfolded and your input will be welcomed in the emerging redesign of this action learning process.