ABSTRACT
In today’s constantly changing business environment, capable people are crucial to the success of organizations. To begin with, effective management is regularly cited as a major factor in gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. In addition, most of the approaches in the strategy literature such as innovation, learning and in particular leadership have at their core a need for managers who understand markets and challenges and have the ability to mobilize their workforces in pursuit of that advantage. They must achieve this against a background of continuous change, ever-intensifying competition, and a consequent need to maintain high levels of talent. Meanwhile, those whose levels of talent need to be maintained are also crucial to their organization’s success. In order for them to contribute effectively, they must be enabled to develop the appropriate skills, knowledge and competence to carry out their job. This is even more important in today’s knowledge organization, where a need for compliance with organizational rules and processes is gradually being replaced by a need to generate commitment to the organization’s goals. In this regard, individuals at all levels still need to be, as Handy (1993) observed, obsessive about pursuing learning in order to keep up with the pace of change.
