‘If you want one year of prosperity,

grow grain,

If you want ten years of prosperity,

grow trees,

If you want one hundred years of prosperity,

grow people.’

Chinese proverb

So your people are your best asset! Why is this stock phrase given so much lip service, especially in times of recession? What Irish (all) businesses need most now is creativity and innovation (see last post). This comes from your people, your greatest asset.

So let me be helpful here. How can you develop your people so that they can be creative in solving todays problems and innovative in developing systems, processes, services and/or products to help your business survive and grow in the future? Here are five creative low cost practical ideas I have used with clients over the years:

1. Book Club: Establish a lunch ‘n’ learn book club where a group discussion takes place on a full book, 50 pages or an abstract (visit www.abstract.com for five page summary abstracts on most good books). Look for ideas that can be implemented at your company.
2. Company Visit: Find another company to visit, someone that is not a competitor but has many similarities to your business. Make a deal with the visiting staff members; everyone finds one good idea and brings it back to your company to implement. Try to arrange for a real tour (not the tourist version!) where your staff are shown around by the hosts staff at the same levels. They will learn just as much from chatting to them. Make it a bit of a jolly and buy them lunch or dinner. It will pay dividends manyfold!
3. Coaching Ourselves: Henry Minstzberg has come up with a great concept called Coaching Ourselves which involves a group of managers looking at a P. Point presentation provided by CO. There are then questions for discussion. You could either sign up for CO or you could create your own content (or get me to do it!). Then have meaningful discussions about how it applies to your business. Alternatively, you could get someone to pull out the most key points from a really good article someone has read on innovation or creativity and use that. Be creative but don’t skimp!
4. Action Learning: This is a powerful process that can help develop a learning organisation. Action Learning involves working on real problems, focusing on learning and actually implementing solutions.   It is a form of learning by doing. It tries to bring together as closely as possible what people say, and believe they do and what people actually do.  The concept is simple and the outcomes easy to describe. Download the process here ACTION LEARNING PROCESS.
5. Free eLearning: What if all your employees committed to completing at least one online course this year? Make sure it is relevant to your business objectives. You could offer an incentive like free company product, match the time of doing the course with time in lieu, a weekend away for two (quite cheap these days!), or a trip with others who finish the course on the company visit mentioned above! I was recommended a free eLearning service yesterday, it’s based in Galway. Here’s what they say on their site: Get free online courses from the world’s leading publishers. This collection of courses includes over 100 free courses in Computers, IT Literacy, Languages, Health and Safety and Liberal Arts and Sciences. All these courses are available for free, and are interactive; they contain audio, video, Adobe Flash, online quizzes, assessments and SCORM compliant content. After successfully completing these courses, you will be able to download your Certificate of Completion. The site is called Alison, visit their website here.