Leaders in the Limelight: Martin Boult

My name: Martin Boult

My company: NewZealand Defence Force (NZDF)

My title: Team Leader Training Technology

My location: Devonport,Auckland, New Zealand

Best business advice I ever received: I believe business andindustry could take a lead from the Hippocratic oath, taken by all medical doctors.The oath, primum non nocere,translated from the original Greek to Latin, is: First, do no harm. Anotherpiece of advice I abide by is: Learn to walk in the shoes of your stakeholders.These guiding principles emanate from my degree and postgraduate studiesspecializing in sustainable design.

Most daringpersonal career move: Quitting a long andrelatively successful academic career to move into L&D and learning technologies.I have enjoyed teaching in both the secondary (high school) and tertiarysector (polytechnic, university) for nearly 25 years. When an opportunity aroseto move away from a teaching/lecturing role into a more strategic role withinan exciting and dynamic work environment, I decided to jump. While I missed thestudent contact and the immediate rewards of seeing my students grow andachieve, the challenges and diversity of daily life as a civilian educator in amilitary environment more than make up for any initial regrets. This is themost exciting and rewarding workplace and career move I have ever made.

What I’m most proud of: I take pride in beinga lifelong learner and putting my knowledge and skills to work in the public educationand training sector. In total, I think I’m on my 15^th year oftertiary study. Some has been full time, other part time, but I have usededucation to enable and sustain transitions in my career. From engineering toteaching, design to eLearning, and now, in a management role, I continue tosupplement my workplace professional development with a personal investment inpostgraduate studies. My current study is a distance postgraduate diploma in education(eLearning) at Massey University in New Zealand. 

Current workplace challenge: Meeting thechallenge of keeping learning technologies and andragogy in step within a largeorganization. Keeping pace with learning technologies while attempting to alignpolicy, military doctrine, and organizational systems is not a unique problem.My directorship (NZ) with the Advanced Distributed Learning Partnership has been critical in finding commonalityand shared problem-solving opportunities with partner organizations in the US,Canada, Australia, UK, and Scandinavia. My team members all invest in a numberof professional development opportunities, and we often run in-house workshopsto ensure the learning is shared and opportunities to innovate are not missed.