So Brain Wars, currently my favourite phone app is one year old. Blimey, doesn’t time go fast? To think, nine months ago, I’d never heard of the game that would develop first into my latest guilty obsession and then latterly into an annoying addiction that I can’t seem to shake. Whatever did I do before with those spare minutes when I should have been sleeping or doing household chores or. . something?

Oh, I remember! SongPop! Remember that old thing? It’s what we were all playing in 2013, which of course, was SO long ago. And I think somewhere between those two there was a brief affair with Candy Crush, whoever she was.

I’ve got a name for consumers like me – I call us Cassanovas – serial daters with very little brand loyalty and who make no lasting commitment to any product or service. We’re fickle and easily bored. When something more interesting, shinier, cheaper, sexier comes along; we’re off.

The modern business world is a tough place. The latest innovations are likely to be old hat in six months. To survive, we have to be lean, fast, dynamic and continuously developing our product or service. More than that, we need to stop thinking of change as a process with a beginning and an end but rather get used to living in a permanent state of flux. And that requires great leadership skills.

Skills like leadership, creative thinking, innovation and continuous improvement have therefore never been so important. We need to empower people at every level in the organisation to make change and learn how to lead people in an age of continuous innovation.

In other words, in order to continuously improve and develop our product or service, we need to be continuously improving and developing the skills of our staff.

So, it’s odd isn’t it that in many organisations, investment in training and development is actually reducing? As we head out of recession, the pace of innovation and change is only going to increase. It’ll be interesting to observe what happens to those organisations that have not invested in the learning and development needed to prepare their leaders and staff for that.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com
www.managerslibrary.com