Tangibles or Intangibles: Where’s Your Value?

Most chief learning officers likely have known or encountered an inspiring leader. And although these individuals rarely fail to make an impression, pinpointing the essence of their leadership qualities presents challenges.

The lingering feelings that affect our perceptions about their leadership skills are usually the intangibles: trust, intelligence, loyalty, commitment, love and courage. Conversely, most seasoned leaders have learned to master the tangible skills of their work such as software skills and profit and loss reports, that is, the things we can see, review, discuss, evaluate, document and quantify.

Yet, as Jay Cross pointed out in his column in the June 2007 issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine, “Eighty percent of the value of the Fortune 500 is intangible. Take Google. On paper, Google’s net worth is about $5 billion. That’s what it paid for computers, buildings and stuff you can see, minus debts and the expense to wear and tear. Yes, stock market investors value Google at $135 billion. Where does the extra $130 billion come from? Intangibles.”

Where’s your value, tangibles or intangibles? This choice plays an important part in the learning executive’s role.
I have found Google is not the only company that knows how important intangibles are in modern enterprises. So, how can a CLO enhance corporate value through intangibles?

This type of leadership learning requires a different approach than the well-refined learning methods used to improve tangible job skills. One of the most effective ways to build value begins with an understanding of courage action skills (the intangible behaviors learning executives tend to eliminate from their annual calculations).

To understand the importance of courage action skills requires an understanding of courage. What is your definition of courage? Do you know the origin of the word?
Courage is neither Greek nor Latin. It’s Medieval French: “corage” (“heart and spirit”) or “cuer” (“heart”). One of the original seven virtues, courage has become the forgotten virtue because people fail to recognize the significant elements of courage in their everyday actions.