You have arrived! You are in the C-Suite, a Chief Learning Officer, Vice President, or Director. Finally, you are seated at the big table. Here you will be taken seriously. You are now part of the heart and soul of your corporation. Not so fast. Here are a few things that you may wish to avoid from the advise of those that have come before you.

Relying upon the fear factor: “If you think training is expensive, try not training. ”

Justifying projects solely upon benchmarking data: “Our competition provides 40 hours of training for all new hires.”

Counting on management’s benevolence: “employees rate professional development as a key indicator of job satisfaction. ”

Employing worn out phrases. These include stakeholders, value to the enterprise, organizational alignment, process development, and dialoging. You may also wish to limit some HR terms such as human capital, employee retention, and talent management unless you plan to explain their value.

Taking the technical route and reciting the specifics of LMS data warehousing capabilities, Learning and Development portals, knowledge sharing, podcasts, wikis, blended learning, and Web 2. 0.

Peppering your conversation with impactful words, such as “in a big way, raving, skyrocket, and amazing.”

You did not spend all this time climbing the ladder of success just to stand naked in the town square.

You are all about results.