Drive your own learning
Posted by
High potentials are often set apart by the way they approach their personal development. Firstly, they are self-aware and acknowledge their weaknesses. Secondly, they are very proactive in finding ways to manage the things they find difficult.
Test yourself to see if you are doing enough. List out all of the things you’ve learnt or changed about yourself over the past 12 months. Have you achieved a significant change or improvement? If not, think about what you want to accomplish over the next 6 months:
Many people rely on an annual developments plan to tick the ‘learning’ box. The problem is that this can lead to high levels of frustration. Usually, development plans focus purely on weaknesses and as a result, they feel quite critical. Many of the actions are things you’ve tried for years to address and have never been able to fix. Perhaps it’s time to start managing the weakness so that it has no impact, rather than getting good at it.
Even if you have a well-written development plan, there is little serious focus given to it. What other business target is taken less seriously? Is there any other piece of work you have where you have a year to complete it, and no one monitors it to make sure it gets done? Imagine that happening with any other aspect of your job.
If you want to develop your career, you need to get better at self-directing your own learning. Don’t rely on other people or a development plan to do it for you.
How can you do that?
Once you’ve identified what it is you want to learn or achieve, the next step is to make it happen. With budgets and funding difficult to come by, you may need to get a little creative in your approach. For example you could:
Can you become known for developing yourself to make a step change in your performance? Self-driven development shows the drive to make important things happen even when they are not urgent – a key quality for advancement. Your ability to develop yourself fast might be the key to convincing people to give you a stretch role or project – convince them that you can gear up fast.
Test yourself to see if you are doing enough. List out all of the things you’ve learnt or changed about yourself over the past 12 months. Have you achieved a significant change or improvement? If not, think about what you want to accomplish over the next 6 months:
- What development would take you to the next level?
- What would you love to learn or try?
- What are the things that are holding you back?
- How could you add more real value to the business?
Many people rely on an annual developments plan to tick the ‘learning’ box. The problem is that this can lead to high levels of frustration. Usually, development plans focus purely on weaknesses and as a result, they feel quite critical. Many of the actions are things you’ve tried for years to address and have never been able to fix. Perhaps it’s time to start managing the weakness so that it has no impact, rather than getting good at it.
Even if you have a well-written development plan, there is little serious focus given to it. What other business target is taken less seriously? Is there any other piece of work you have where you have a year to complete it, and no one monitors it to make sure it gets done? Imagine that happening with any other aspect of your job.
If you want to develop your career, you need to get better at self-directing your own learning. Don’t rely on other people or a development plan to do it for you.
How can you do that?
Once you’ve identified what it is you want to learn or achieve, the next step is to make it happen. With budgets and funding difficult to come by, you may need to get a little creative in your approach. For example you could:
- Make it a mission to get recommendations on who are outstanding practitioners who could give really good advice – ask colleagues, HR, managers, senior managers for recommendations
- Jump in at the deep end – volunteer to do a piece of work that will require you to show good skills in the area you find difficult – this will make learning urgent!
- Find a great practitioner who is prepared to meet you 2 or 3 times to help you rise to the challenge
- Find someone with the right experience who you could shadow
- Look for information outside of the business – for example are there podcasts, iTunes university courses or TED talks you can watch?
Can you become known for developing yourself to make a step change in your performance? Self-driven development shows the drive to make important things happen even when they are not urgent – a key quality for advancement. Your ability to develop yourself fast might be the key to convincing people to give you a stretch role or project – convince them that you can gear up fast.