On October 25, the IBM Board of Directors elected Virginia "Ginni"
Rometty president and chief executive officer of IBM, and a member
of the board, effective January 1, 2012. She will replace Samuel
Palmisano, who will remain chairman of the board. In an
international company as large and complex as IBM, you may think
that this is an insignificant happening from a Learning standpoint.
However, because of the deep partnership that IBM Sales Learning
had forged with Ginni in her senior vice president role overseeing
IBM's global sales, global strategy, marketing and communications,
it is as if a member of our team has ascended to this position of
global significance.
Over the last 100 years, IBM has transformed its
workforce many times, in many cases creating the most vaunted
workforce in the technology industry, or any industry, for that
matter. Through its Sales Eminence transformation, the Sales
Learning team partnered with Ginni over the last three years to
transform IBM's sales force by developing and deploying innovative
learning solutions that are broadening and deepening the skills,
capabilities and expertise of IBM's 38,000 sellers, accelerating
their productivity and enabling them to deliver exceptional client
value and grow profitable revenue. Core elements of the partnership
and transformation are a newly developed and deployed T-shaped
Professional Sales Model and a redesigned Sales Career Model. The
T-shaped Professional Model represents the breadth and depth of the
skills, capabilities and expertise that are required of all IBM
sellers and sales leaders. The new design of the Sales Career Model
simplified sales job roles into three career paths: industry,
solution, technical. Developing and deploying these new models were
significant accomplishments and could not have been achieved
without Sales Learning's partnership with Ginni, or our
partnerships with other areas of the business.
For a learning professional, there is no better place to be than
partnered at the highest level of the business, aligning with your
clients as a trusted ally, contributing as a consultant to short-
and long-term strategy discussions and being an integral part of
driving business success. After all, partnering is a condition of
success for the learning function. But there are perks and perils
associated with powerful partnerships. The learning professional
that achieves eminence and delivers results knows how to earn and
leverage the perks and avoid and survive the perils.
In the new year, for IBM Sales Learning, our "partner" will be
occupying the corporation's CEO office, bringing with it new perks
and perils for our team. We're ready for the challenges and the
opportunities, as IBM embarks on its second 100 years.
Paula Cushing is Director of Sales Learning
within IBM's Center for Learning and Development, a position she
has held since 2008. In this role, Paula and team are transforming
IBM's sales learning strategy by developing and deploying
innovative learning solutions
that are broadening and
deepening the expertise of IBM's 38,000 sellers, accelerating their
productivity and enabling them to deliver exceptional client value
and grow profitable revenue.
To hear more from Paula, dont forget to register for
the
ASTD Sales Training Virtual Conference with a live kickoff
keynote address on December 5th, 2011 at 12 PM
EST.