Helping people think for themselves

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was staying at a hotel for a wedding.  The after wedding party was taking place at one of the hotels and as a crowd gathered in the hotel, the after party group began to get larger and louder.  Not wanting to disturb the other guests in the hotel, the party asked if they could use one of the meeting rooms.  Now keep in mind this was on a weekend late at night ---- no one is using these rooms. 

The hotel desk clerk's response was "I'm sorry but you have to reserve these room 24 hours in advance" -- the wedding party offered to pay for the room -- but again the response was "sorry we can't accomodate you." 

So rather than allowing the party to continue in a more discreet area and creating a revenue source for the hotel, the clerk stuck to the rules and forced the party to be held in the lobby.

Now what does this have to do with training -- everything!  Back in the days of video training I used to sell the ever so popular "In Search of Excellence" program where Tom Peters sought out companies that demonstrated excellence, empowered employees and beat the odds in performance. 

I see a lot of companies so focused on strictly functional training that I'm fearful some of the non-functional training is getting put on the shelf in an effort to try to save $. I know that we all struggeled financially in the last 12-18 months but now more than ever, we need to provide training and support on the skills that encourage initiative, customer service and risk taking ---.