With the HARDI Annual Conference behind us and last year’s business in the books, it’s time to take our organizations to new heights this year. Our businesses today are complex customer service platforms that face constant pressure to innovate and excel in service delivery. Understanding customers, opportunities, technologies, and the market has become a task that only a well-trained, committed management team can execute. Having been involved with the HARDI Emerging Leaders program since its inception, I am convinced that the only clear path to a successful future for the wholesale distributor lies in the organization-wide engagement of staff in the entire spectrum of education, training and career path development tools offered by HARDI.

The world has moved well beyond the day when application and system knowledge was limited to the few practitioners of a dark art at each business. Today, HVAC and refrigeration system detailed knowledge ERP system familiarity, business value proposition, and key performance metrics must be known by a broad base in every firm. Beyond this base level, application expertise, new technology introduction, and constantly rising service expectations make change inevitable and require continuous learning by aspiring leaders.

These are exactly the goals of the rapidly expanding Talent Pillar at HARDI. Every smart executive understands the value that active learning brings to the management team and also faces the challenge of finding the content, subject matter experts and delivery schedule. Once again, look no further than your HARDI resources to fill the bill.

To get the best results out of your HARDI resources, take the time to hold a one-hour planning session with your leadership team. We have created a tool that you can use for this meeting. This tool provides a schedule of the upcoming Focus Conferences and each conference’s subject matter focus. You can use this schedule to slot team members into their area of focus development in your strategic plan for the coming year. Similarly, the certification and education planning tool will help you to unify your organizational talent development focus by allowing you to slot people in for certification or concentrated educational content.

Lastly, the Emerging Leaders outline will help you schedule the calendar of the staff you wish to nominate for the program and potentially develop for important leadership positions. The goal of this planning tool is to take the excitement from Colorado Springs and turn it into the required actions that will take your organizations to the next level. It may be the most important meeting you have this year. Should you have any questions on how to use the tool, please contact HARDI headquarters.

Best wishes to you and your team for an outstanding 2017.