Team Human Development Work is Worth Your Budget Dollars

by: Frank Hackney, Partner, The Philanthropy Group

Have you noticed how seldom we use the term “human” – unless it’s attached to “resources?”

Organizationally, we love professional development, teamwork and employee action plans, but we’ve effectively removed the human from Human Resources!   The old rhetoric that “our most important asset is our people” doesn’t always translate to significant human development budget allocations.

As a believer that human effectiveness delivers high ROI, I long to see budget allocation practices redirected for the sake of humans: individuals, teams, and organizations.

Human development events affect mood – and mood is KING in the workplace! In a survey conducted in December and January by Right Management, 438 North American workers responded to the following question:

Which of the following best describes your present work situation?

• My job is rewarding and gratifying: 21%
• I want to enjoy my life, so I work: 30%
• My job is unrewarding and saps my energy: 49%

It helps to remember that fundamentally, team or organizational development is “individual development, in the context of the team/organization.”  The big picture is: each individual participant, even outside of the team, reaps and exhibits the benefits of human development events.

Whether you budgeted for it or not (remember, reallocation of budget dollars is a valid and effective leadership move), a human-development event needs to be in your growth strategy THIS year.

A highly effective human-development event will generate value in at least the following four explicit ways.  It will:

1. Heighten the level of self-awareness in all participants.  Highly successful people make effective choices, and choice always follows awareness.  If we heighten awareness of participants, we increase their number of choice points, and therefore give them more opportunities for success.
2. Bring each participant’s leadership traits to the surface quickly and explicitly.  By doing so, participants get an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of their leadership style and to practice new ways of being part of the team in real time.
3. Enable new practices that positively impact the participants immediately and increase their contribution to the team.
4. Bring out the participants’ human component with an event that explicitly makes a difference in the lives of others.  A well-conceived event will connect the human element to the work that participants do every day – in a way that motivates and inspires.

And remember, if you don’t already have one of these special events on your 2012 calendar, worry not – after all, you’re only human.

Frank Hackney is founder of the CU Philanthropy Group, a process improvement and human effectiveness organization that specializes in philanthropic team building events.  Read about our latest efforts with WOCCU.  For more information about the CU Philanthropy Group, email (fmhackney@cuphilanthropygroup.org) or call 1.866.918.8969.