Provide opportunities for practice, feedback, and reflection

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#6 of 9 in our weekly succession planning blog post series:

Our guest blogger, Paul Riley is life-long learner of Organizational Leadership and Change who applies systems thinking and community development principles to help people work more effectively together within the complex human systems we create.

This week’s blog post focuses on the fourth principle of the 7 principles of successful Succession Planning: #4: Provide opportunities for practice, feedback, and reflection. The organizations that succeed at developing a sustainable leadership pipeline, approach succession planning as more than a process of updating a list. They prepare individuals for future roles. However, our focus on short-term results and managing the day-to-day operations often competes with our ability to actively support and develop future leaders, which can result in poor placement and promotion outcomes as employees aren’t properly prepared to move to the next level in their careers. Therefore, organizations should create processes and systems that facilitate the transfer of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) and also achieve organizational results.

Experiential learning is one of the most effective ways to provide developmental opportunities while simultaneously achieving business objectives. And research conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership indicates that leaders and emerging leaders prefer experiential learning opportunities. Experiential learning techniques include job rotation, lateral moves across functions and business units, cross-functional assignments, mentoring, coaching, communities of practice (CoP), and action learning teams. Many of these experiential methods can be implemented in combination to achieve multiple objectives. For example, cross-functional team assignments can be used to facilitate action learning and promote strategic thinking, team building, collaboration, leadership, and management skills.

The action learning process is based on a belief in individual potential. Participants of an action learning team typically work on complex, strategic issues that have no right answer and aren’t amendable to quick or expert-based solutions. Through these experiences, participants learn to work on teams, and they learn skills needed to influence others over whom they have no direct authority. Most importantly, they learn how to learn more effectively and intentionally from their actions, by taking the time to question, understand and reflect, and to gain insights about how they might act in future situations.

Action learning teams are generally easy to set up. In Action Learning: A Practical Guide for Managers,  Weinstein suggests six main elements:

  1. The team – a small group of five or six people who meet regularly to work together in a supportive yet challenging way
  2. The ‘learning vehicle’ – work-focused, real-time projects or tasks that each person, or the team as a whole, focuses on during the program
  3. The processes the team adopts when working – each person has their own space in which to work on their project; the team meanwhile adopts a helpful questioning approach (no advice, and no general discussions)
  4. A team adviser – who helps the group as it works and learns
  5. The duration of a program – normally three to six months
  6. The emphasis on learning – which emerges both from working on the projects and from working on the team

Researchers have found that learning is generally affected by three elements: (1) amount of challenge, (2) variety of tasks or assignments, and (3) quality of feedback. Therefore, experiential learning programs should be designed to provide continuous feedback to help participants reflect on both individual and group learning processes and outcomes. Multisource feedback has gained widespread use in recent years. For instance, upward feedback from subordinates has been found to be useful for leadership development, and peer feedback is most effective in team-based training, providing participants with opportunities to practice giving and receiving feedback. Mentors and coaches also play an integral role in providing timely and relevant feedback and helping learners reflect on their performance.

One of the challenges of experiential learning can be that learners don’t have time for reflection as they’re caught up in the action and are immersed in the demands and challenges of the work. We’re often more results-driven than process-oriented. As Peter Senge points out in The Fifth Discipline, we typically assume that a person who’s sitting quietly at his or her desk isn’t busy, so we feel compelled to interrupt, rather than assume that the person is deep in thought and shouldn’t be disturbed. This mindset can inhibit learning, because we don’t often give people the time or space to reflect on feedback or experiences. So, it may be necessary to implement a more formal and methodical process that provides opportunities for feedback and reflection on a regular basis. After all, although it’s important to achieve business objectives, it’s equally important that people are able to learn from their experiences. Otherwise the ultimate objective of the action learning program won’t be achieved.

Want to know more about the Seven Principles of Succession Planning? Stay tuned for Part 7 of this series, when I discuss the fifth principle – Promote openness and transparency.

Also, be sure to check out our other Succession Planning blog posts in this series:

What’s so important about Succession Planning? 

The 7 principles for successful Succession Planning

Aligning Succession Planning programs with the organization’s strategy

Combine Succession Planning and Leadership Development

Include all levels of the organization

Include All Levels of the Organization

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#5 of 9 in our weekly succession planning blog post series:

Our guest blogger, Paul Riley is life-long learner of Organizational Leadership and Change who applies systems thinking and community development principles to help people work more effectively together within the complex human systems we create.

Employees close up.JPG

This week’s blog post focuses on the third principle of the 7 principles of successful Succession Planning: #3: Include All Levels of the Organization. In order to develop a sustainable leadership pipeline, organizations must include all levels from executive management to the front-line in succession planning and leadership development.  When I ask senior leaders to identify key positions in their organizations, they generally focus on senior management and executive positions. However, in today’s knowledge economy, workers on the front line often know more than their managers, so it’s dangerous to assume that only managers, or those with formal authority, are important enough to consider in succession planning. So when we ask ourselves which positions in the organization are vital to sustaining operations, we should consider all levels.

Succession planning is often viewed as a task for senior managers and executives to complete during their annual strategic planning session. But when mid-level managers and supervisors are not actively engaged in the process, potential successors are sometimes overlooked. Even worse, key staff often leave due to the lack of opportunities, taking valuable knowledge and experience with them. This not only has a negative impact on institutional memory and collective corporate culture, but it can also result in a cycle of further turnover as higher demands are placed on those who remain, which often leads to increased stress and burnout.

Infusing leadership at all levels of the organization reduces the pressures of staff turnover by creating a work environment that’s encouraging, healthy, and helpful. As I suggested in an earlier blog post, What’s So Important about Succession Planning?, organizations need to shift away from traditional “management succession planning” and focus on development at all levels through “technical succession planning.” This will contribute to organizational sustainability by retaining tacit knowledge and institutional memory at all levels. And organizations that place more emphasis on transferring knowledge and developing people are more likely to retain talent, because employees feel engaged and motivated by opportunities to learn and grow.

William Rothwell, author of Effective Succession Planning, proposes the following “strategic road map” for technical succession planning that I’ve found useful:

  1. Secure and sustain management commitment (including measurable program goals, and clear roles and accountabilities for all key stakeholders)

  2. Clarify work processes and technical competencies essential to achieving the organization’s strategic goals

  3. Clarify who possesses that knowledge and what they do

  4. Identify who is at risk of loss due to retirement or how many new hires are needed due to growth

  5. Discover practical ways to distil and transfer invaluable knowledge

  6. Transfer the knowledge

  7. Evaluate program results (comparing results to measurable program goals)

It’s important to remember that management commitment is essential at all levels of the organization. Although executives can help get the process started, a mandate from the top will fall short when trying to keep the process going. Client demands and the day-to-day busy-ness take priority, and as a result succession planning often takes a back seat. For this reason, accountability needs to be built into the process, so that everyone knows that succession planning is a business imperative.For instance, Colgate has instituted a program that requires managers to retain 90% of high-performers or risk losing a part of their compensation.Another strategy is to set internal recruitment targets for key positions. As the saying goes, “that which gets measured gets done.”

Organizations that succeed at building a sustainable leadership pipeline create processes and systems for managing the talent pool across all levels, which means that everyone in the organization must be actively engaged in the succession planning process.

Want to know more about the Seven Principles of Succession Planning? Stay tuned for Part 6 of this series, when I discuss the fourth principle – Create Opportunities for Practice, Feedback, and Reflection.

Also, be sure to check out our other Succession Planning blog posts in this series:

What’s so important about Succession Planning?

The 7 principles for successful Succession Planning

Aligning Succession Planning programs with the organization’s strategy

Combine Succession Planning and Leadership Development

Combine Succession Planning and Leadership Development

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#4 of 9 in our weekly succession planning blog post series:

Our guest blogger, Paul Riley is life-long learner of Organizational Leadership and Change who applies systems thinking and community development principles to help people work more effectively together within the complex human systems we create.

This week’s blog post focuses on the second principle of the 7 principles of successful Succession Planning: #2: Combine Succession Planning and Leadership Development. Succession planning is not only about recognizing leadership gaps that exist in your organization today, but also identifying future leadership needs and creating solutions to address those needs. To meet the challenges of a changing environment, organizations need to plan and work toward establishing capability to adapt. Therefore, it’s essential to build a sustainable pipeline of people with the knowledge, skills, and experience to lead the organization into the future. Although it’s not always possible to accurately predict the future, organizations that put serious effort into planning will generally be more successful at anticipating needs before they arrive and have the capability to effectively navigate the changing landscape.

Organizations are more likely to develop deep and enduring leadership bench strength when they create a long-term process for managing talent that combines succession planning with leadership development. These processes are complementary in that succession planning traditionally focuses on identifying candidates to fill potential or anticipated vacancies and leadership development focuses on preparing candidates for promotion. In my experience, organizations often treat these as separate and independent processes, and they typically place more emphasis on identifying succession candidates than developing them. However, placing increased emphasis on development has a positive impact on retaining top talent, because employees feel engaged and motivated by opportunities to learn and grow, and they are more prepared to successfully move to the next level in their careers.

One of the best ways to identify and develop future leaders is to provide a variety of challenging work assignments. Research suggests that exposure to novel and challenging situations in the workplace promotes development of leadership skills and has a sustained impact on leadership behaviour. And an added benefit of experiential learning is that the organization often achieves its strategic objectives while simultaneously facilitating learning and development. Because a person’s early career is a critical period for learning, organizations should use experiential learning methods to expose emerging leaders to a broad range of problems and situations. Exposure to these experiences will not only equip emerging leaders with the knowledge and skills to adapt to changing business needs, but it will contribute to a sustained corporate culture and institutional memory.

We probably intuitively know that experience is the best teacher, since it’s estimated that organizations rely on experiential learning to provide as much as 70 to 80 percent of developmental experiences for their managers. But the key is to be intentional about it by designing processes and systems to help employees identify potential knowledge or skills gaps and then assign them to projects or positions within the organization that will meet their learning goals. It’s also important to provide opportunities for feedback and reflection to facilitate learning, but I’ll talk more about that later in Part 6 – Create Opportunities for Practice, Feedback, and Reflection.

It’s important to remember that succession planning and leadership development programs have a common goal: to get the right people in the right positions at the right time. By combining the two processes organizations are able to establish a sustainable leadership pipeline and ensure that they’re both identifying and developing top talent.

Want to know more about the Seven Principles of Succession Planning? Stay tuned for Part 5 of this series, when I discuss the third principle – Include all Levels of the Organization.

Be sure to check out our other Succession Planning blog post in this series:

What’s so important about Succession Planning?

The 7 principles for successful Succession Planning

Aligning Succession Planning programs with the organization’s strategy

 

Aligning Succession Planning Programs with the Organization’s Strategy

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#3 of 9 in our weekly succession planning blog post series:

Our guest blogger, Paul Riley is life-long learner of Organizational Leadership and Change who applies systems thinking and community development principles to help people work more effectively together within the complex human systems we create.

This week’s blog post focuses on the first principle of the 7 principles of successful Succession Planning: #1: Align Succession Planning programs with the organization’s strategy. People often think that succession planning is only a useful practice at large corporations or family-owned companies. However, succession planning should be a part of every company’s strategic plan. Who will take over when the current generation of leaders moves on? How will your organization continue as a going concern if you do not nurture and develop your human capital? These questions are relevant in virtually any business. Regardless of size, organizations that commit resources to creating a coherent plan excel at developing a sustainable leadership pipeline.

However, in many of the organizations that I’ve worked with, succession planning is only viewed as a contingency plan to address the worst-case scenario. Managers often think that they’re creating a plan in case a key employee is tragically hit by a bus. When succession planning is viewed as an administrative function that has no place at the strategic planning table, the process often becomes one in which a list of names is revisited annually. Instead of strategically thinking about how people can be prepared to fill key positions, middle and upper managers simply check to see that the people on the list are still employed with the organization, and perhaps eligible for promotion. 

Rather than having each department or division update a list of “high-potentials” on an annual basis, effective succession planning programs must be driven from the top of your organization and complemented by bottom-up career development. Succession planning is more likely to occur when senior management plays an active role in implementing and communicating the program and the process is viewed as an integral part of the organization’s strategy, rather than simply an administrative function.

The following three tips will help management implement, communicate, and integrate succession planning into your organization’s strategy:

1.    Develop processes and systems that support clear and constant communication about your organization’s vision, values, and mission in order to build a shared understanding of the strategic objectives.

2.    Establish organization-wide indicators of success that provide a clear sense of what needs to be done to achieve strategic objectives.

3.    Create succession processes and systems that support employee development, career progression, and well-being while achieving strategic objectives.

General Electric provides a compelling example of how integrating succession planning into the organization’s strategy will develop a strong leadership pipeline and produce outstanding business results over a long period of time. At GE, the HR team plays an integral role at the strategic planning table to ensure that HR initiatives, actions and priorities are aligned in terms of the business plan. As a result, GE has experienced effective transitions at the executive level, from Reg Jones to Jack Welch, and most recently to Jeff Immelt. And at the lower levels of the organization, GE continues to be a model of how to identify, assess, promote, and reward talent within the organization to achieve strategic objectives.

The key word of succession planning is “planning.” In other words, it should be done before a successfully performing employee announces plans to retire or resign, and especially before a position becomes vacant. To ensure that your organization has an adequate supply of people with the knowledge, skills, and experience to lead your organization into the future, succession planning must be integrated into the organization’s strategy.

Want to know more about the Seven Principles of Succession Planning? Stay tuned for Part 4 of this series, when I discuss the second principle – Combine Succession planning and Leadership Development.

Be sure to check out our other Succession Planning blog posts in this series:

What’s so important about Succession Planning? 

The 7 principles for successful Succession Planning

 

More than a smile sheet

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#8 in our training evaluation blog post series:

Digging into training evaluation uncovers a lot of debate and discussion around the value of level one evaluation data.

In my last evaluation post in this series, A little evaluation can be a dangerous thing, I wrote about the potential dangers of only using level 1 evaluation data to determine the effectiveness of learning back in the workplace. There are many articles, blog posts and forums dedicated to discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of using level 1 evaluation. I personally believe that a level 1 smile sheet has value to the learner as it allows them to reflect on their learning and provides a vehicle for their thoughts and feelings. But I also believe that we need to keep in mind that it’s only one small measurement in the overall evaluation process. Much less weight should be on the “qualitative” data gathered from a level 1 smile sheet and much more weight and importance be given to level 4 evaluation results - the impact training has on the business results.

Whether simple or complex, level 1 end-of-course evaluation forms (a.k.a. “smile sheets”) are used in the majority of training courses offered by organizations – in over 91% of organizations according to a 2009 ASTD Value of Evaluation research study. But does your level 1 end-of-course “smile sheet” go beyond the basic questions to capture data that will help your organization measure evaluation levels 2, 3 and 4?

A well-designed level 1 evaluation plan should measure not only learner satisfaction but also their level of engagement and relevance to their job. The goal is to incorporate statements or questions that focus the learner on higher levels of evaluation and get them thinking about how the new learning will benefit both them and the organization after the training event is over.

There are some simple changes you can make to your level 1 evaluation form that can provide further value:

  • Consider using a 7, 9, or 11 point rating scale to provide a richer level of feedback. Only label each end of the rating scale, rather than labeling each number on the scale (e.g., 1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree).     
  • Make all evaluation statements or questions learner-centred. For example, rather than “The instructor provided debrief activities for students to demonstrate their learning”, instead use “The debrief activities helped me to effectively practice what I learned”.        
  • Consider adding statements or questions to the course evaluation form that measure engagement and relevance. This helps to focus the learner on levels 2, 3 and 4. Some examples include:
    •  I had sufficient opportunities to contribute my ideas. (level 2)
    •  I estimate that I will apply the following percent of the knowledge/skills learned from this training directly to my job. (Provide a % scale from 0% to 100% in increments of 10.) (level 3)
    • This training will improve my job performance.(level 4)  

You can see that just a few tweaks to a level 1 evaluation leads to insightful information that can improve your training process.

Stay tuned for more upcoming blog posts with tips and strategies for other levels of evaluation and be sure to check out our other evaluation blog post in this series:

 

The 7 Principles for successful Succession Planning

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#2 of 9 in our weekly succession planning blog post series:

Our guest blogger, Paul Riley is life-long learner of Organizational Leadership and Change who applies systems thinking and community development principles to help people work more effectively together within the complex human systems we create.

In my work, I've examined best practices among organizations that are known for succession planning, such as Boeing, Eli Lilly, Chase Manhattan, Southwest Airlines, and the U.S. Army, to name a few. After an extensive investigation, I came to the conclusion that there's no “best” way to manage succession. Although there's broad interest in defining processes and techniques for succession planning, there remains a considerable lack of consensus among the experts about how succession planning can be applied in a systematic, reliable, and consistent manner.

Because organizations have unique cultures and business contexts, which determine how talent is cultivated and nurtured, it's futile to prescribe one best method or strategy. So I’ve created a list of seven principles that can be applied to succession planning programs at any organization.

The principles are:

  1. Align Succession Planning Programs with the Organization’s Strategy
  2. Combine Succession Planning and Leadership Development
  3. Include All Levels of the Organization
  4. Create Opportunities for Practice, Feedback, and Reflection
  5. Promote Openness and Transparency
  6. Develop Simple, Flexible, and Decentralized Processes and Tools
  7. Continuously Monitor and Evaluate

The organizations that succeed at developing a sustainable leadership pipeline, approach succession planning as more than a process of updating a list. They prepare individuals for future roles, not just positions in the organization. Leaders must create long-term processes and programs for managing the talent pool across all levels, from the front line to the executive suite.  By investing time and resources to enhance organizational bench strength, organizations are able to address the realities of today’s complex business environment more nimbly and proactively.

Organizations often neglect succession planning due to lack of time and resources. We tend to focus on short-term results and managing the day-to-day operations, impacting our ability to engage in succession planning. However, neglecting to identify and develop successors can result in poor placement and promotion outcomes, which directly impacts productivity, motivation, engagement, and retention, because people are more likely to fail or leave if they are not properly prepared. Good talent management sets them up for success.

Want to know more about the Seven Principles of Succession Planning? Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series, which will discuss the first principle – Align Succession Planning Programs with the Organization’s Strategy.

Be sure to check out our other Succession Planning blog post in this series:

What’s so important about Succession Planning? 

 

A little evaluation can be a dangerous thing

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#7 in our training evaluation blog post series:

I was reading an interesting article recently called, “Are you too nice to train?” by Sarah Boehle and she included an interesting case that I’d like to share:

Roger Chevalier, an author and former Director of Information and Certification for ISPI, joined the Century 21 organization as VP of Performance in 1995. The company trained approximately 20,000 new agents annually using more than 100 trainers in various U.S. locations. At the time, the real estate giant's only methods of evaluating this training's effectiveness and trainer performance were Level 1 smile sheets and Level 2 pre- and post-tests. When Chevalier assumed his role with the company, he was informed that a number of instructors were suspect based on Level 1 and 2 student feedback. Chevalier set out to change the system.

His team tracked graduates of each course based on number of listings, sales and commissions generated post-training (Level 4). These numbers were then cross-referenced to the office where the agents worked and the instructor who delivered their training. What did he find? A Century 21 trainer with some of the lowest Level I scores was responsible for the highest performance outcomes post-training, as measured by his graduates' productivity. That trainer, who was rated in the bottom third of all trainers by his students in Level I satisfaction evaluations, was found to be one of the most effective in terms of how his students performed during the first three months after they graduated. "There turned out to be very little correlation between Level I evaluations and how well people actually did when they reached the field," says Chevalier, now an independent performance consultant in California. "The problem is not with doing Level 1 and 2 evaluations; the problem is that too many organizations make decisions without the benefit of Level 3 and 4 results."

Industry studies appear to support his words. A 2009 ASTD Value of Evaluation research study found that 91.6% of the organizations in the study evaluated training at level 1, 80.8% at level 2, 54.6% at level 3 and 35.9% at level 4. 4.1% did no evaluation at all! Of the 91.6% that evaluate at level 1, only 35.9% said this level had high or very high value. Yet of the 36.9% of organizations that evaluated results (level 4), 75% said this level had high or very high value.

ASTD’s findings are somewhat alarming because they suggest that the majority of these organizations are going no further than level 1 evaluation, if they’re evaluating at all. We could assume from this data that the level 1 information gathered by these organizations’ training teams is the primary or maybe the only measurement used to justify their training efforts. Qualitative data and comments get rolled up into an overall total and used as a benchmark to measure the effectiveness of the trainers and the training programs being offered. Level 1 is used in isolation with no knowledge or thought about how the training programs address (or don’t address) key business needs. So why do companies do this?

I agree with Boehle’s theory that it comes down to two factors. First, Level 1 “smile sheets” are easy to do while levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 may appear to be costly, time consuming and potentially confusing (where do we start? How do we do it?). Secondly, if stakeholders (e.g. CXOs, internal clients and business partners) don’t demand accountability, why evaluate further? Digging in further may uncover negative results - if all appears to be working well on the surface, no one is asking questions and learners are happy, why rock the boat?

It’s been our experience that the best practice training and development teams recognize that they have a responsibility to ensure that the programs they produce and deliver are aligned with the organization’s needs – to demonstrate how training is contributing to the success of the organization. They need to show proof that training is really making a difference - clearly identifying how organization’s bottom line is being positively impacted and how business needs and issues are being addressed. Using only level 1 data to measure training and trainer effectiveness is dangerous and tells very little about how much learning is actually taking place on the job and how business results are truly being impacted. And sooner or later, this will catch up to the training providers and ultimately to the organizations they work for. Training budgets will be cut, work will be outsourced, and organizations will struggle to keep up with their competition in a tight and highly competitive economy.

Be sure to check out our other evaluation blog post in this series:

What's so important about Succession Planning?

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#1 of 9 in our weekly Succession Planning blog post series:

Our guest blogger, Paul Riley is life-long learner of Organizational Leadership and Change who applies systems thinking and community development principles to help people work more effectively together within the complex human systems we create.

Succession planning has become a hot topic lately as organizations are preparing for a mass exodus of baby boomers from the workforce. Their impending retirement is already having a major impact on workforce capacity. Vacancies in senior positions are on the rise, and demographics indicate that there are statistically fewer people available to replace them. But there are more reasons that succession planning should be a part of your organization’s strategy.

The most important reason is that we rely on staff to carry out our missions, provide services and products, and meet our organizations’ goals. What would happen to your mission and organizational goals if key staff were to leave? How would your ability to deliver services and products be impacted? Succession planning helps to ensure that your organization has the right people in the right positions at the right time.

Although employers often use words like “loyalty” and “stability” to recruit quality candidates, employees understand that nothing is carved in stone with regard to their future employment with any one particular employer. The company’s bottom line often takes priority over loyalty when it comes to employment decisions. For this reason, there’s no longer a stigma associated with “employer-hopping.” In fact, we’re now referring to hopping around as a “portfolio career,” which sounds much more intentional and strategic. Employees can take their skills and knowledge and match their portfolios to a particular employer’s needs at any given time. Because workers are more mobile, organizations are competing to recruit and keep talented employees. Succession planning helps employers identify, develop, and retain top performers.

Due to the growth of the global market and global competition, as well as the recent economic crisis, companies are restructuring more frequently and more rapidly than ever before. This creates gaps in leadership at all levels of organizations. Therefore, organizations need to move away from traditional “management succession planning” models that are designed to meet promotion needs and often neglect to address leadership gaps at the middle and lower levels of the organization. Instead, we should focus on “technical succession planning,” by creating processes and systems to transfer specialized knowledge and experience at all levels of the organization. Supporting knowledge transfer perpetuates the collective corporate culture, institutional memory, and tacit knowledge within the organization, which are key ingredients for a sustainable future.

To learn more about how you can implement an effective succession planning program in your organization stay tuned for # 2 in this series – The 7 principles of successful Succession Planning.

 

Are YOU learning?

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Stephanie and I recently came across a request for proposal that asked for proof of our recent professional development and it got me thinking.  Although we’re in the business of creating and providing learning opportunities for our customers and clients, many of us neglect our own ongoing self-development and learning.  Granted, we’re all busy with looming deadlines, multiple projects and countless day-to-day tasks but we get so focused on these activities that we sometimes forget to lift our heads up and focus on the bigger picture.  I’ve been guilty of that myself.  But how can we provide relevant and current learning solutions to our clients and customers if we’re not updating our own knowledge and skill?  

Stephanie and I strongly believe that educating ourselves is a priority in our profession and we constantly work on doing just that.  We read books and research reports, contribute to on-line discussions, complete certification training and many other things to keep up with what’s going on in the industry.  Doing a Google search uncovers an incredible amount of informative and thought-provoking T&D information. Books, research and best practice articles, information, discussions and debates on blogs, LinkedIn groups and Twitter feeds as well as meet up groups, conferences, online webinars and podcasts are available and most are free! As an example, I recently started using Twitter (@PaulaYunker) and am amazed at the amount of information that “Tweeters” in the industry are sharing. Through their tweets, I’ve found new inspiring blogs to read, informative research, the latest T&D trends and practical tools and tips for instructional design. I’ve also taken advantage of a number of free webinars and am currently reading a great book that was recommended by others online.

So make a conscious decision to “educate” yourself on a regular basis. Schedule an allotted amount of time each week into your calendar and stick to it.  With a little time and practice it will become a habit - just another one of the tasks you accomplish each week.  It’ll benefit not only you but your clients and customers as well.

So, ask yourself…what are you learning this week?