There is nothing controversial about the idea of personal development at work. But the rapidly changing nature of the business world means that the need for people to drive their own selfdevelopment has probably never been greater. We need to think carefully about how we can develop ourselves, and identify the skills we need in order to succeed in our current role and to prepare ourselves for future career challenges.
In this article, we look at how to plan our self-development and examine practical ways to take responsibility for our professional and personal growth.
1. The benefits of self-development
With the pressure to deliver on urgent priorities every day at work, learning needs are often forced to take a back seat. Yet the benefits of self-development are clear. Acquiring new skills leads to better performance in our current role and increased future career opportunities. It can also lead to improved health and happiness if we are able to satisfy our core motivations.
To manage our self-development effectively, we need to answer two key questions: what should be developed, and how?
2. Self-development: What?
When thinking about the skills we should develop, one of the most important divisions is between “hard” and “soft” skills. Hard skills generally refer to the technical knowledge that we need to perform in any given sector (insurance, pharmaceuticals, etc.) or the functional expertise required in organizations (finance, IT, production, sales, etc.). Such technical capabilities need to be combined with experience of the organization’s structures and processes, and with knowledge of colleagues and customers, their expectations and competences.
Soft skills, which can be equally important for business success, include intercultural skills, attitudinal capabilities such as emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills such as the ability to build relationships and trust, to influence others and to manage conflict. Under soft skills, we also often find core business communication skills, such as giving presentations or leading meetings, and the language needed to do so.
On top of these areas, there are “management skills”, such as time management, setting goals, performance appraisal and project management. And at the peak of the soft-skills pyramid are “leadership skills”, which include areas such as organizational development, strategy planning and innovation.
3. Self-development: How?
The concept of learning and development has undergone something of a revolution in recent years. The “70/20/10” concept has become very popular, an idea promoted in 1996 by Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger in The Career Architect Development Planner. Although the model has been criticized for its lack of supporting empirical data — and for its simple, round numbers — it focuses our attention on key mechanisms for personal development that we should seek to manage.
a) Learn 70 per cent through experience
You don’t learn to drive a car by passing the test. You become an expert driver through practice, by encountering increasingly complex situations, by reflecting from time to time on your experiences and by learning from that reflection. So it is at work; a great deal of our learning comes simply from doing our jobs. And this reality has important lessons for maximizing our learning. We have to push the boundaries of our role and seek new challenges — by requesting participation in new projects, for example — in order to create a work environment that is rich with learning opportunities. We need to avoid staying in familiar routines and habits, performing well but performing safely, avoiding mistakes but, at the same time, hindering our growth.
b) Learn 20 per cent from others
Observing and learning from others is at the core of human experience. It’s how children learn, and it’s how we can continue to learn as adults. At work, this means, for example, watching colleagues and business partners in meetings more attentively than we usually would — to see how they present information, analyse and solve problems, and interact with others. And as we watch, we can learn, taking the best from their styles and adding it to our own style. Importantly, having a broad professional network gives you access to a wider range of behaviours and talent.
There are a number of significant people from whom we can learn at work, including the following:
⋅ Your manager. This person is well placed to understand how you can best develop in line with both your needs and the requirements of the organi - zation. In many organizations, yearly appraisals are being replaced by regu - lar monthly feedback sessions so that individuals and organizations can re - act in a more flexible way to changing challenges. You may find it helpful to agree on having such regular sessions with your manager.
⋅ Your mentor. Too few people take the time to establish, formally or informally, a mentoring relationship, which can provide insights from a more senior leadership perspective. People often worry about taking up the time of a senior manager, or fear taking the first step. Bite the bullet and identify and approach a senior person who is interested in helping you to grow. Remember that it is also good for them to have insights into the realities inside their own organization.
⋅ Your HR business partner. The people management function has weakened in many organizations in recent years. Yet learning and development (“L&D”) experts can provide useful advice on training opportunities offered by your company. Take time to invite your business partner for lunch and find out more about your company’s approach to learning and what is on offer for you.
⋅ Your network. The people who know you best are often those who work most closely with you — your colleagues. Asking them for feedback on your strengths and weaknesses provides invaluable information. It takes courage to ask, and you may need to inspire confidence in others to tell you what they really think. But it is worth the effort. Develop contacts in other departments, too, and remember that suppliers, customers, and friends and family can provide interesting insights on your mindset, interpersonal skills and habits. Finally, headhunters, who can advise you on your CV, or personal branding experts, who can advise you on your social media identity, are becoming increasingly important network members.
c) Learn 10 per cent from structured learning
This is the core element of traditional learning and development. Go to a workshop, watch a webinar, do an e-learning course, a formal classroom seminar or take part in a blended learning programme. And remember: learning also includes reading books. One publication per month should be an absolute minimum. And audiobooks make digesting text easier while you are travelling.
4. It’s your responsibility and your life
Take time every month to do an honest self-appraisal of your performance at work, what you have done well and what you could do better. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses can help you to specialize effectively — for example by doing more training in what you already excel at — and also remedy important gaps, such as in your public speaking or relationshipbuilding skills.
Developing our skills for professional life takes planning and commitment. But we also need to invest time in preparing ourselves for nonwork challenges. We need to develop a healthy lifestyle by following the correct nutrition, exercise and sleep routines. And we shouldn’t forget life’s deeper challenges. It is essential that we grow emotionally and spiritually so that we can navigate personal crises such as family bereavement, personal illness and relationship breakdowns. All these events can trigger psychological trauma, from which it can take years to recover.
Many managers and other employees now make time for more spiritually oriented reading, for mindful moments and reflections. They recognize that the cultivation of a deeper sense of meaning of what we do and who we are — in other words, a spiritual identity — is needed to sustain us during the tough times of both our professional and personal life. This investment of time can help us to discover genuine happiness for ourselves and others. And that is perhaps the ultimate goal of self-development.