Interviewing senior business leaders for e-learning

I spent much of May and June either pointing video cameras at senior executives or huddling over an editing suite to enhance their ruminations on career management. We've collected stories we'll share through an internal on-line elearning tool whose goal is to encourage people to take responsibility for managing their own career.

Coming from the knowledge management angle, I couldn't help slipping in the odd KM-related question, such as "what mistakes have you made and what did you learn?" Only one person dared to answer directly, admitting that you never stop making mistakes and you have to learn how to deal with them. Most instead preferred to brush the question off with an answer along the lines of "well I wouldn't want to talk about specific instances..."

One director was brave enough to admit that luck had played a part in his own career choices - being in the right place at the right time - so we hope that including these stories will help to open people's minds about the potential opportunities available rather than being seen as a "recipe for managing your career".