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Your #1 Strategic Imperative: Build a Learning Organization

The greatest investment you can make in your business is to assure you living the example of a lifelong learner for your organization and then surround yourself with other lifelong learners.

Monday, March 04, 2013

The modern business world has an acute case of attention deficit disorder (A.D.D.); the print industry is no exception. We move from priority to priority and on to the next bright shiny thing with the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen. It’s true. The pace of change has accelerated and if you need more proof then please take a close look at Mary Meeker’s 2012 State of the Internet slides, the data is undeniable.

With the accelerated pace comes a much steeper learning curve – requiring us to learn more and to increase our rate of uptake of new materials. If we step back from all the chaos, we can see a single unifying characteristic to look for in every single person currently working for you or candidates you’re considering.

Are they lifelong learners?


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About Jennifer Matt

Jennifer Matt is the managing editor of WhatTheyThink’s Print Software section as well as President of Web2Print Experts, Inc. a technology-independent print software consulting firm helping printers with web-to-print and print MIS solutions.

Recent Articles from Jennifer Matt

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Manual Steps are Piling Up in Customer Service

When the power dynamic is uneven across the functional areas of your print business, more powerful areas (production and sales) tend to shift manual steps to the less powerful areas (customer service). Read More

Stepping Over Dollars to Pick Up Pennies

We tend to discount the time of our full-time employees because we are paying for it already—looking at them like sunk costs. So, when we ask them to do things that are non-value add (aka a complete waste of their time), we don’t see it as a cost. Well, it has real costs. Read More

Deciding What’s Important

In a print plant, it is easy to come to work and fall into the drama of getting jobs out the door. There is always something you can focus on in your day-to-day work life. The art of moving your business forward happens when you direct your focus to areas of your business that you can impact the most. Read More

This Plant Wouldn’t Run Without Me

In conversations with a label converter recently, the General Manager told me that more than once in the last few years key employees had voiced the core belief that “this plant wouldn’t run without me.” Now, you can take this statement a lot of different ways. My initial reaction is concern for the business because the employee that says this is both likely a key player and potentially a risk. Read More