Acknowledgments
The two of us often say that we have the best jobs in the world—serving as the hub for supporting senior talent leaders from more than 60 member organizations to connect, collaborate, and share their knowledge to leverage the expertise of the entire consortium. The companies that belong to the ATD Forum truly understand the value of supporting performance excellence in real time and simultaneously building capability for the future. Their common goal is enabling competitive advantage within their organizations by staying ahead of the ever-changing challenges they face. As part of the larger group, we also work very closely with an advisory group—a rotating group of senior leaders within the Forum community who have demonstrated personal leadership and volunteer to serve as strategic guides and a networking lynchpin for the consortium.
Members of the ATD Forum community support one another in a variety of ways. They build professional relationships that extend beyond the formal Forum venues, which expands their ability to share ideas, insights, practices, and suggestions. Many of these exceptional learning leaders have worked together for years and are open to constant experimentation. Thanks to the group’s extensive comradery, newcomers are always welcomed with enthusiasm.
This book would not have been possible without this tightly connected community. For that reason, our first acknowledgment of gratitude is to all Forum members and leaders—over the past 29 years you have built a structure that allows this learning community to thrive. Our members come from a huge array of industries, sizes, and locations. Under the umbrella of talent development, they serve in a variety of roles. Each contributor has gifts they share within the Forum community, and we are so grateful and proud.
Our list of acknowledgments is long; more than 50 individuals from Forum member companies played a role in some aspect of the book’s development. Most of the contributing chapter authors had never written for public consumption, but they had a desire to share and the willingness to experiment and give it a go. Once they volunteered, we did what the Forum always does—collectively we created a working project plan and then tweaked it along the way.
When we began developing the content framework, we decided to give the authors freedom within that framework to write in their own style and use their own terminology to capture their experiences and stories. However, this freedom to write also presented challenges for some of our first-time writers. One question we heard a lot at the beginning of the process was, “What should a chapter look like?” Knowing that seeing a draft chapter would help to kick-start the writing process, we asked for volunteers to work with us to quickly draft a few chapters. Jerry Kaminski volunteered immediately. And later, when we bumped into roadblocks, we were fortunate enough to have the assistance of writer Chris Connors who helped ensure we met our deadline. We are grateful to both of them.
During the first draft writing phase we held weekly hour-long coaching sessions, which were divided into three basic parts: discussing the current status of the book, sharing writing suggestions and what each author was doing, and asking questions and following up on details. We were constantly amazed by how the participants all supported and helped one another. Someone would ask a question and others would offer suggestions, whether that was sharing resources and ideas or even collaborating on a chapter. Each web session was followed by an email summary, and all documents were posted in a Dropbox folder. This not only helped with the actual writing process, but also kept the energy high and built an esprit de corps within the group.
Since the essence of the book is leadership and what it looks like in practice, we decided that this would not be an authored chapter or two, but a broader collection of practices and actions. Thus, another major member contribution came from those who were willing to be interviewed by Chris Connor about their leadership practices—Alissa Weiher, Carmen Reynolds, Chris Holmes, Cory Bouck, Heather Durtschi, Jay Erikson, Jeremy Jones, Marguerite Samms, Randall Gross, Suzanne Frawley, and Terence Morley. This group of 11 senior learning leaders was very open—they shared examples of not only how they led their teams, but also how they continued to build their personal leadership skills. The stories they told and the wide variety of tools, practices, and techniques they use revealed that leading is a personal, continuous, and never-ending journey.
And still there were other Forum members who wanted to contribute to the book, but did not have the bandwidth to commit to writing as an author. Once we realized what the review process would require and the breadth of the subject matter, we again asked for volunteers. In true Forum fashion, we ended up with 12 reviewers: Amanda Gunter, Chad Peters, Chanda Binkley, Douglas Holt, Emily Isensee, Jennifer Chung, Kendall Mealy, Kevin Metsers, Lisa Gary, Lucinda Ehlen, Michael Bolen, and Richard Coco. The work they did was critical in providing clarity of content and in keeping to our very aggressive timeline.
By the time we held our 2019 Fall Lab, which focused on leveraging strategic tools, we had already finished writing the manuscript and had turned it over to our developmental editor. However, the case studies shared during the event were so thought provoking that we decided they needed to be included in the book. The presenters—Jill Carter, Mark Lemon, Susana Sipes, and Taylor Harlin—quickly agreed to be interviewed. We were able to take the case summary and presentation documents they shared at the lab, along with their interviews, and craft a new chapter. This became chapter 5.
Members who have joined the Forum since the book was written are interested in helping to spread the word and carry the book forward to the next phase. As with all major projects, writing a book takes a variety of strengths and much discipline, and the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the individual parts. The magic behind this project is the synergy that exists within the Forum community, which continuously connects, collaborates, and shares. Just like the excitement we have when members share their business challenge stories in a case study or at a lab, we are thrilled with this body of knowledge and expertise that we have created to share with all talent professionals, especially those leading the learning profession. But most importantly, we are appreciative of all the contributing members and the work they did to make this happen.
In addition to the Forum members, there were others who played a critical role. First and foremost was Tim Ito, our boss at the time, and former vice president for content and marketing at ATD. Tim understood and appreciated the essence of connecting, collaborating, and sharing within a consortium. He also recognized the unique elements of the lab’s experiential “skunk-works” type of design model. But most of all he grasped the wealth of knowledge and experiences the Forum’s members have and so willingly share. He initiated the development of member case studies and worked with the ATD Research team to make them a reality. When the need arose for a book covering the wide gamut of functions in the learning space, Tim knew where to go. Once we said yes, he served as a catalyst, a coach, and confidante.
As with all writing projects at ATD, our “go-to” person was the recently retired Pat Galagan. She was excited about the project, providing ideas, samples, and a connection to the “queen” of talent development publishing—Elaine Biech. Elaine provided even more resources and hints. To these two we are most grateful. As the book progressed, the entire ATD Press staff provided expertise to enable a publication-ready book on schedule.
The last shout out of gratitude is to our endorsers. When we requested their support, the world was normal, albeit within the VUCA construct, and our lives had a semblance of order and structure. By the time they received the uncorrected proofs to review, the world had turned upside down with the COVID-19 crisis. We truly appreciate that they recognize the work learning practitioners do on a daily basis to enable organizations to build performance capability and honored it with their support, even in this time of extreme disruption.
We appreciate everyone who contributed to this project—more than 50 percent of Forum member companies played a role. One of the sayings in the Forum is that we are always working to get better at getting better. This book is for the entire talent profession. The stories, examples, and actions will enable them to continuously get better at getting better with leading and guiding others. It will help them create and support work environments that are ahead of the curve, allowing learning professionals to become masters at advising and guiding business leaders on changes that influence the future of the organization—building people capability. An army of contributors made this book possible and validated their professionalism and interest in helping others to get better at leading and managing the learning function. To each and every one, we are extremely grateful and honored to be on your team.
—MJ and Laleh