Organizational Learning and Workforce Development Stephen Covey points out in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, productive individuals must regularly take time from the work of cutting down trees to sharpen the saw; otherwise performance in tree-cutting progressively degrades as the saw dulls. Highly effective organizations not only pay attention to this important requirement for personal effectiveness, they develop a highly-refined and strategically-focused competence in it. Why? They discovered that by planning and orchestrating learning activities for each and every individual in their organization – with each individual’s close collaboration, and taking care to coordinate individual plans with their overall staffing plans – they can systematically and reliably ensure growth of the new competencies – both individual and collective – that their organization must have to continually grow in their mission of excellence. Partners in Mission’s collection of best practices will lead you and your leadership team through the process of shaping the organization of tomorrow by shaping and coordinating the individual development plans of today. These best practices are is so empowering and energizing for individuals and leaders that they also functions synergistically as a major strategy for creating a “culture of positive change” drawn forward by your school community’s recognition that growth in excellence is being thoughtfully pursued through the purposeful growth of people as opposed to being haphazardly and half-heartedly driven by current problems or external requirements. Our feeling at Partners in Mission is that for a Catholic educational institution, this Workforce Excellence process of growing excellence by growing people, using adult learning to create, channel and sustain long term excellence in pursuit of your mission – is not really optional. It is a survival competence that must be developed as a school, and especially as a Catholic school.
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