A tale of three business leaders with one thing in common:
First, there’s the chief learning officer, or similarly titled executive, in an organization’s learning division. CLOs work daily to develop, grow and maintain crucial skills.
Then, there’s the human resources executive. HR leaders ensure the company is staffed at the right levels, and that all employees can contribute to the best of their abilities to help the company achieve its goals.
The final members of the triumvirate are the senior leaders. These executives focus on the strategic needs of the business, trusting that HR has a committed staff in place and the CLO has them ready for whatever eventuality.
Three business leaders, three different roles, one thing in common: performance. The thread pulling all these professionals together is concern for peak performance, both from the people and from the wider organization. The CLO imparts the skills, the HR executive manages the overall development, and the senior leadership ensures that the right resources are used to the right advantage.
That, folks, is performance management, and it’s shaping up to be the future of corporate development. Progressive companies are increasingly ensuring that proper alignment between employee management and education is in place, and the result is a leaner, more vital, better-prepared and better-performing enterprise. It’s the ultimate win-win situation, with employees taking advantage of total career management and development opportunities, and businesses better able to advance in their industry and deliver more to the shareholder.
With all this in mind, I’m proud this month to welcome the newest addition to the MediaTec Publishing family, Workforce Performance Solutions magazine. CLO’s newest sister publication, Workforce Performance Solutions will debut in April 2005, mailing initially to 25,000 key business executives concerned with fine-tuning the performance engine of their enterprise. Subscriptions are now available at www.wpsmag.com/subscribe.
In addition to feature articles on the issues and ideas surrounding performance management, Workforce Performance Solutions will feature a dynamic lineup of industry-leading columnists, including experts such as Ken Blanchard, Marshall Goldsmith and Harold Stolovitch. Each issue also will feature Q&A interviews with leading business executives and case studies of performance improvement initiatives at large companies.
Where does the chief learning officer come into all this? Well, knowledge is the grease that lubes the performance wheel, so clearly the CLO can’t be removed from the performance process. I invite you to check out the new magazine, and see how Workforce Performance Solutions and Chief Learning Officer will run independently along sometimes-parallel tracks to help power the greater engine of change in your organization.
We’re starting the welcome wagon for Workforce Performance Solutions this month by presenting three performance-themed articles in this issue of CLO, “Creating a High-Performance Workforce,” “Engaging Employees to Impact Performance” and “Improving Business Performance Through E-Learning.” Since Workforce Performance and CLO have distinct, individual themes, customized needs and, especially, unique readerships, you won’t see this level of editorial convergence again, but it seems a logical way to introduce the new sibling to you.
I’m happy to invite you to join us as we bring together the authors of this issue’s performance articles for a CLO e-seminar on Wednesday, March 2. You can register now for that e-seminar, “Workforce Performance Solutions: Engaging Employees to Increase Productivity,” at www.cloevents.com/eseminars.
I hope you will take a moment and check out Workforce Performance Solutions at www.wpsmag.com to get a better sense of what lies ahead. All industry research shows that managing performance will be a key business driver in the 21st century. Now’s a good time to get in on the ground floor.
Norm Kamikow
Editor in Chief
norm@CLOmedia.com
