I might be wrong but for me the three primary drivers of workplace efficiency are people, processes and technology.  Many businesses invest huge sums in technology but often rather less in their people and processes, yet, in answer to the question “What is our businesses most important asset?” the usual answer is “our people”.

Of those businesses investing in “Staff Development Programmes”, many fail to deliver added value for any number of reasons many of which are well documented in other books and publications.

That said, for me, the two biggest reasons for failure are:

• Leaders/managers are often unfamiliar with the requirements and commitment required to successfully transfer learning from the classroom to the workplace and can be disengaged from the change process.As an example I worked with a business where a major staff development programme was introduced.  A series of workshops were put together but there was no accountability introduced in between sessions.  As a result those attending got caught up in their “day job” and didn’t practice the new skills and integrate them effectively.  One potential solution would have been to give their managers/supervisors a role in ensuring these new skills were practised and used in the workplace.

• Fear – feeling threatened by possible repercussions as a result of trying something new; taking action to address, or speaking up about, work-related concerns, ideas and suggestions for improvement.

I once worked with a CEO who punished you if you brought something up that he didn’t want to discuss.  Push it too far and you lost your job.  In time everybody figured out that if you wanted to keep your job you kept your head down.  His staff stopped communicating with him and it was no surprise that a once successful business went bust.

Now the F word is one of the most un-discussed issues facing business leaders today yet it carries a massive cost.  Consider the following questions adapted in part from the book “Driving Fear Out Of The Workplace”:

1. What business issues have you hesitated to talk about or actions you have avoided taking at work in the last five years?
2. Why didn’t you take action or talk about them?
3. Did you hesitate to act or speak up because you feared some type of repercussion?
4. What were those threatening situations and what impact did they have on you and on the business?

How many of us can honestly say we discussed and applied everything we learned?  In all likelihood very few of us, yet, by growing our people and putting in place a process and culture that encourages change, innovation and removes fear from the workplace we greatly increase our chances of success and all but guarantee a sizable and demonstrable return on our people investment.