LISA GILLESPIE Head of Learning and Development Make UK
Lisa has been in the HR industry for 25 years in a number of roles. She holds qualifications in law, a post-graduate diploma in HRM, philosophy, psychology and creative writing. In addition she qualified as a practitioner in PRINCE 2 and neurolinguistic programming.
www.MakeUK.org |
lgillespie@makeuk.org HR & RECRUITMENT
A day in the Dragons’ Den
I JOINED Make UK a year ago to run the Learning and Development business which has proved to be a steep learning curve for me, having come from running businesses in regulated sectors for years.
Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of governance around what we do; it is, however, entirely different. Instead of navigating regulations and the law, my team helps others to navigate their careers and innovate in their roles.
Over the last few weeks I have been spending time observing our Leadership Programmes which are run both on site and as open courses throughout the UK. Last week I spent a day in a ‘Dragons’ Den’ style finale of one of the programmes. The day involves participants presenting ideas and innovations, which they have developed during their time on the programme, to their leadership team to try to get backing to take them forward. The programmes - which usually run for 12-24 months - provide learners with the
52
opportunity to challenge themselves to make positive changes in the business.
Besides being a very engaging and enthusiastic bunch of people, the group had come up with some excellent and innovative ideas which literally had jaws dropping when we saw what they had done, ranging from inventions, to new processes and better ways of working.
One self-effacing chap had invented a tool which he had made in his own time, using scrap metal on his own lathe at home. The tool completely transformed a dangerous, costly and time- consuming task into a safer, cleaner one which could be done in a few minutes instead of 90, meaning a significant saving of downtime on the production line. The old process had been in operation for 30 years! I couldn’t believe how modest he was. I told him afterwards I would have gold- plated it and presented it in
a glass case with a curtain call, if I had come up with such a great solution.
Another had identified gaps in their European market activity and had designed a new, commercially focused role to address this and provided sound data showing how to significantly increase market share.
One of the engineers had analysed which common breakdowns could be fixed by trained non-technical staff, in
Besides being a very engaging and
enthusiastic bunch of people, the group had come up with some excellent and innovative ideas which literally had jaws dropping when we saw what they had done.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
