Winning - Jack and Suzy Welch

Jack is the CEO of GE and has a pop star status. Suzy was ex-editor of Harvard Business Review. Jack and Suzy have a juicy history that is up in Boh Tong's alley.

I was reading this section on People Management and I like to quote Practice 3: Create effective mechanisms - read: money, recognition, and training - to motivate and retain (page 106).

"A winning company does not let good people walk out the door for lack of recognition, financial or otherwise.

Another key way to motivate and retain is through training.

If you've hired the right people, they will want to grow. They will be bursting with the desire to learn and do more. A good machinist will want to know how to operate more machines and eventually how to run the shop. A good manufacturing engineer will want to travel to Japan to visit companies using advanced techniques that he has only read about. A good PR person will want to learn how to communicate more effectively on the Web.

Good people never think they have reached the top of their game. But they're dying to get there!

A company that manages people well helps make that happen. If it can afford it, it has in-house training led by its own executives, who serve not only as teachers but as role models. A company with fewer resources can facilitate training outside at any number of good programs. In either case, it makes sure that training is seen as a reward for performance, not a sop for time served."

This is my personal belief and management practice as well.