day 201: Chief Learning Officer

I have been helping a good friend of mine source a Chief Learning Officer for his company. The fact that the company is committed enough to learning and teaching their employees to put someone in charge of just that says something positive in itself about what is important to the company. Many companies give lip service to keeping their employees learning and developing but in reality the first budget to get cut in a downturn is training and development. The job specifications for a Chief Learning Officer, beyond the required academic credentials, are that the person has to be sensitized and very attuned to the needs of others and to what competencies and skills the company will need to continue to grow and expand. The person also must have sophisticated influence skills to be able to respond to the needs of others in ways that the receiving parties will accept and adopt the feedback and teaching. Not everyone wants to learn and grow and sometimes it takes someone else to be the mirror for them so that they can see where they have opportunities. The Chief Learning Officer is also a "go-to" person. That means that they are approachable and someone that others, because of their knowledge and their personality, would seek out to be there for them when they need counsel and advice on how to better themselves. This person wears many hats but none more important than being a trusted counselor to all that they work with, using their expertise to be the leader of betterment of people. As I think about this more, doesn't God want us, in our jobs, when pursuing our purposed to also be His Chief Learning Officers? In Hosea 4:6 he says that the problem with his people is that they don't know enough. He says: "my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.". What he is really saying is that the people don't know enough about Him and don't know Him personally. Every day we go to work with God wanting to be there with us. He wants to pour over spreadsheet with us, to be on the sales call, to participate in the weekly meetings, to be involved during the difficult conversations, etc. But for any and all of this to happen we must have a first-hand knowledge of Him and be able to pass that knowledge along to others through our words, examples, and our actions. To be a learning officer we have to first have the knowledge to impart. Think about this today as you head out to work. What knowledge and learning do you have that you can impart to others so that they see Christ reflected in your work? As you inventory your knowledge base, do what the Chief Learning Officer does, see the gaps and outages of knowledge and then make a plan to go gain that knowledge. From there the real learning begins.

Reference: Hosea 4:6