Leadership Development CoP: Creating a Culture of Rapid Learning and Improvement through Frequent Feedback

In a May 2012 Forbes article, the question was asked if leadership development really works.  It was stated in the article that corporate America spends about $60 billion a year on learning and development programs.  Over 20% of that  - about $12 billion – is spent on programs specifically for executives and managers.  

Even with that investment, two questions are continually asked:

• How much value do those programs return?
• If we’re spending that much money on leadership development, why do we continue to hear about a leadership shortage?

We believe that leadership development programs, if they include regular requests for feedback, can have a profound impact on one’s culture.  This, in turn, may have a positive impact on other learning and development initiatives.   We will introduce a new technology that makes it fast and easy to generate feedback that can create a culture of rapid learning and improvement.

Bill Fitzgerald is a Co-Founder of 1000Trees, LLC.  1000Trees develops innovative products that support new ways of working.  He has also been a Partner at the executive search firm, FitzDrake Search, Inc. for over 9 years.    Prior to that Bill was a VP/GM at the Martin Advertising in Richmond, where he helped launch Brand Inside and worked on branding initiatives for UPS and Independence Air.    Bill spent over 4 years at AOL where he was responsible for corporate training and development and recruiting before becoming a VP of HR.   Early in his career, he worked at Hewlett Packard as a training manager and at ADP as a management trainer and consultant.

Bill has an MS in OD from Pepperdine University.

Bill Schreiner was, by turns, an actor, director, and writer in Los Angeles before moving to the East in 1996 to work as an executive at AOL where he served as VP of social media for thirteen years. Bill recently left his three-year stint as EVP of social media and marketing at Folio Investing to develop utility social products at 1000 Trees, LLC, of which he is the managing director and co-founder. 1000 Trees recently launched Two Minute Feedback, an online app that empowers individuals to improve themselves and the organizations they are part of. 

Bill’s undergraduate degree is from Tufts. In addition, he holds an MFA in Directing from UCLA and is a graduate of the American Film Institute’s film directing program.