Businesses and organizations need to provide opportunity for their people to grow in place. Not everybody even wants to be promoted to manager, in fact many don't. But most people do want to be able to grow personally and professionally in their jobs, even if it's just to get better at what they already do. Organizations need to spend the effort to find ways for people to contribute more in their current place in order to keep them engaged and to tap in to the innate creativity that everyone has. Who better to help the company move forward with better work processes or products or to find ways to cut costs and increase profit, because these people are on the front line working with the systems every day. Good companies and organizations foster learning at every level and invest in it. Many companies still hold the belief that the understanding of managing a business is unnecessary for most of the work force and teaching it would be cost prohibitive. However, there is plenty of contradicting evidence that there is big payoff when people understand the big picture and can see how their efforts contribute to it. Sometimes the investment payoff for this extra training is hard to see because for many it doesn’t produce exciting new products or processes but it can keep people engaged and committed to their work in ways nothing else would and it gives people a better frame work for decision making. Organizations that invest the time and care to help their people grown in place are truly the innovators. There is still a place of the division of labor but it is more and more with lots of overlap because this is like a relay race and the hand off between departments must be smooth in order for it to be effective. In construction where there are so many different subcontractors on one job it is so noticeable when a subcontractor knows how their work effects the next trade coming after. That knowledge not only contributes to innovative opportunities but profitability. Most supervisors would never notice the little extra that is done to smooth the hand-off but the people do and it counts.
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