Personal and professional development

Development needs

Training is essential for any type of success, be it athletic success on the track or winning a new client for the business. And either way, you need to focus on your key objectives in order to identify the right training.

Each team member brings with them a unique set of experiences, skills and knowledge. For this reason, even with the same key objectives in mind, the training requirements for each team member may vary.

As a first step to understanding the development needs of ourselves and our teams and identifying development opportunities, we must look at the role and process of giving and receiving feedback and self-assessment.

Giving and receiving feedback

Feedback is essential in any workplace or organisation to ensure you know exactly where your skills are, what areas you need to work on and give rise to extra training opportunities.

Feedback channels

In any role, receiving feedback on performance offers a chance to improve and grow. Some common feedback channels include:

Performance Review	Using undertaken annually, a performance review is a method for evaluating an employee’s job performance. It may include an interview to discuss performance, a review against KRA, performance diagnosis and coaching as well as professional development goal setting.
360 Feedback	A 360 Feedback channel is a method of proving individuals with feedback on their performance from levels within the organisation. It allows the individual to understand how their work and effectiveness is viewed by others by receiving feedback from multiple sources. A self-evaluation is usually an important part of this process.
Formal feedback	Formal feedback coccus when feedback is given or receive through formal channels of communication. This may include surveys or questionnaires, meetings, reports, and client complaints or review channels. With regards to an individual’s work performance, this may be delivered as part of their Performance Review, or a separate meeting with their manager to discuss work performance and is an opportunity to offer (or ask for) assistance if needed.
Informal feedback	Informal feedback occurs in a casual setting and therefore, is an informal conversation. It can take place in many forms and from various sources including from customers or clients, leaders, managers, or other organisational superiors, or from a coach or mentor.

Giving feedback

As a leader or manager, providing feedback is an important step in not only reaching your team and organisation’s goals, but also in identifying areas that require more training, or in which your employee could be challenged and developed.

The following steps outline the process before, during and after giving feedback.

1. Documentation: Keep up-to-date information about each employee’s position. Make regular notes of employee performance. This can help to identify where the individual can improve or grow their competence and you will be prepared for their next performance review or enquiry.
2. Second Opinions: Solicit information about the employee from peers, management, clients, and anyone else who has worked with them.
3. Give Feedback: Provide them with specific feedback based on your own observations and the information you have received. Consider the following tips when giving feedback:
   1. Be problem-focused and specific—Remember to tell your team member why something needs to change rather than just asking them to improve.
   2. Talk about the situation, not the individual—Use objective facts so the employee does not feel like they are being insulted or put down on a personal level.
   3. Give praise where it is due—Make sure your team members know when they are doing a great job when they are. If you have constructive feedback for one aspect of their job, but positive feedback for another, begin with the positive feedback.
   4. Be direct, but informal—Speak in person so no miscommunication can occur over email or other technological options. A short informal meeting is a good idea and get to the point quickly.
   5. Be sincere—Make sure your tone and body language or manner match. If you are giving positive feedback but have a negative tone and body language, people will know you are not being sincere.
   6. Be timely—Positive feedback should be given while the work is still fresh in the employee’s mind so act quickly. It can be helpful to give constructive feedback quickly too, unless you are feeling angry or upset by the employee’s actions or performance. In this case, it may be best to wait until you have calmed down so you can keep the feedback as objective as possible.
   7. Listen—Feedback is a two-way conversation so make sure your team members have a chance to respond to constructive feedback. This may present an opportunity to become a part of the solution.
4. Follow-Up: Communicate regularly with the employee. Feedback does not need to always be in a formal setting.

When planning your feedback, keep the following in mind:

Receiving feedback

Just as collating feedback on your team members is essential, it is also important to get feedback from your team members, leaders, and other stakeholders in the organisation. This feedback can then be used to refine or alter your work in the future to better your outcomes.

It can also be helpful to go through this process when drawing up or adjusting a project schedule, in order to adjust any objectives, tasks and timelines to meet your overall goals efficiently.

By listening to constructive feedback, you will grow an awareness of your strengths and weaknesses. This awareness allows you to double down on your strengths making you stronger, while working on your weaknesses to bring them up to a higher standard.

Feedback can come from a number of sources and can be in relation to your work on task-related items, or specifically related to your leadership and team. Who you approach for feedback will depend on your industry and organisation. Some suggestions for sources of feedback are:

• Clients and customers
• Colleagues and peers
• Human resources (HR) officers
• Learning and development (L&D) officers
• Managers
• Mentors.

When asking for feedback, follow the steps below to create the most effective process:

1. Be Specific—if you ask specific questions, you will receive specific answers rather than general or vague feedback that is not helpful.
2. Be Timely—Ask for feedback as soon as possible after a project has finished. Or, as mentioned above, during the process of a project in order to change tact if that is needed. Ask for comments while everything is fresh in everyone’s mind, so nothing is forgotten.
3. Be Receptive—Receiving feedback can be hard at times. But thinking of your weaknesses as temporary is a helpful way to work hard and turn them into strengths. Do not take negative feedback personally, and do not assume positive feedback means you do not need to work at growing your expertise and talents.
4. Prioritise and Execute—Determine which points of improvement will make the biggest difference to your future work (or current plan) and prioritise improvements in this area.

VIDEO RESOURCE: The joy of getting feedback.

Watch this TEDx Talk by Joe Hirsch on receiving feedback with joy.

Self-assessment

Self-assessment first requires a degree of self-awareness.

Personal behaviour

The way employees behave has an enormous impact on the organisation, in particular they can impact employee productivity, employee culture and reputation ¹⁰.

Professional and courteous behaviour has a positive impact on the organisation’s deliverables and the environment in which it is achieved. When employees do not pull their weight, gossip and bully, a toxic work environment is created with a negative impact on the organisations bottom line.

The following behaviours contribute to creating a positive work environment ¹¹:

1. Have a positive attitude.
2. Communicate clearly and respectfully.
3. Support each other.
4. Be reliable.
5. Be honest in all your interactions.
6. Act ethically and responsibly.
7. Take responsibility for your mistakes – They can be fixed much quicker and simpler if time is not wasted hiding them or dodging it.
8. Avoid social media – during work hours
9. Punctuality – Always be on time, to the office, to meetings. If you say you will be there, be there.
10. Dress to impress – Adhere to the company dress code.

And remember, how you do things is just as important and what you do.

Leading by example

You cannot expect your team to conduct themselves in a manner that you do not exemplify. This includes your performance, behaviour and personal conduct while in the workplace - This is your personal conduct, which is rooted in your self-awareness and can set you apart as not only a manager but a successful leader too.

Practice self-awareness, mindfulness and maintain a constant awareness of your own conduct.

Your organisation will also have its own codes of conduct relevant to employees and management staff respectively. It is vital that you familiarise yourself with the standards of behaviour outlined in your organisational codes of conduct because, as a manager, you must learn to lead by example.

Self-awareness

Having the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively is known as self-awareness. As a key component of emotional intelligence, self-awareness consists of three main components:

1. Accurate self-assessment—Having a good understanding of your personal strengths, weaknesses, resources and limits. With accurate self-assessment, you can be reflective, open to feedback, learn from experience and have a sense of humour about yourself
2. Emotional awareness—The ability to recognise your own emotions and the effect they have on yourself your behaviour) and other people
3. Self-confidence—A strong sense of your own self worth that does not rely on others’ valuation. Engaging in self-evaluation can open the door to discovering if we are thinking, acting, and feeling as we should or following our own values and standards. Put simply, we compare our actions against our standards of correctness and have a strong self of self that is rooted in our own values. The benefits of having self-awareness include being able to see things from other people’s perspective, practicing self-control and better decision making.

Self-awareness is the ability to monitor your behaviours, emotions and reactions. It helps you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, triggers, motivators and other characteristics. To be self-aware you must take a deeper look at your emotions; why you feel a certain way, and how your feelings are likely to manifest ¹².

Example: An example of self-awareness is being aware an aspect of your work is not at the level required so you research and participate in training to improve your capabilities.

Ten tips for becoming more self-aware include¹²:

1. Keep an open mind
2. Be mindful of your strengths and weaknesses
3. Stay focused
4. Set boundaries
5. Know your emotional triggers
6. Embrace your intuition
7. Practice self-discipline
8. Consider how your actions impact others
9. Apologise if needed – show integrity and own your mistakes
10. Ask for feedback

Personality

It is easier to inspire and engage your employees if you have an understanding of their personality traits.

While last century businesses often used a 16 personality trait model as a guide, more recent studies have identified the Big Five core categories of traits that act as building blocks for our personalities.

Each of the following traits represents a range between two extremes, where most people lie somewhere in the middle. Being aware of these traits and where individuals sit on their scales can help you discover the most effective method of communicating with and engaging them.

Being aware of your own personality and where you sit in each of the Big Five also helps to create self-awareness and identify your most appropriate learning and working styles, as well as areas where you could improve your personal and leadership skills.

The Big Five personalities are:

1. Agreeableness	How well someone can get along with other people. Scoring high in this trait are people who usually are well-liked and empathetic. Lower scorers in agreeableness may reflect rude or blunt behaviour.
2. Openness to Experience	Someone’s willingness and desire to be open, think creatively and try new things. High scorers will be artistic and curious whereas low scorers find it hard to stray from their comfort zones.
3. Conscientiousness	Reliability and dependability define this personality trait. Someone scoring high will be goal oriented and be very organised. Low scorers may be impulsive and procrastinate more often than not.
4. Extroversion	Extroversion measures how talkative and sociable someone is. High scorers may be assertive and confident in social settings, whereas low scorers tend to seek solitude and introspection.
5. Neuroticism	Emotional stability is the backbone of this personality trait, that is, how well someone can control emotions. High scorers may have low self-esteem and are prone to anxiety and sadness, with low scorers often being more confident and adventurous.

Personality profiling

There are many more personality traits and profiles available for you to consider and you may want to do more research in this area. A couple of these are introduced below.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator

Myers Briggs is a personality identification tool that is designed to help you understand your own personality, the personalities of others and your interpersonal compatibility with others.

The four scales are:

• Extraversion (E)—Introversion (I)
• Sensing (S)—Intuition (N)
• Thinking (T)—Feeling (F)
• Judging (J)—Perceiving (P).

Dr. Meredith Belbin created Team Role Theory

Belbin identified nine group roles within most teams. These nine roles are categorised into three groups—Action-Oriented, People-Oriented and Thought-Oriented. By understanding the Belbin Team Role model, you can identify strengths and weaknesses within your team and understand each team members contribution.

Development

Development allows individuals to learn new skills or knowledge or experience new things. Personal and professional development focuses on development opportunities in line with your personal interests as well as your professional needs. In the workplace this can help to provide needed support to improve performance in your current role or it may provide you with the missing knowledge or practical application to step up in your career. Personally this may be to realign your skills to a new career or industry or develop an interest such as photography or a new language.

VIDEO RESOURCE: How to enhance workplace learning and development.

Watch this recording to get further insight on how companies can improve workplace learning and development and the value of doing so.

Development opportunities

Personal development activities

Personal development activities can be widely varied and are intensely personal. With this in mind only a short list of personal development opportunities is listed below:

• Fitness classes and workouts
• Cooking classes
• Painting classes
• Singing lessons
• Learn a language
• Learn to ride a skateboard
• Computer code course
• Guitar lessons
• Scuba dive course
• Toastmasters course
• Sewing lessons etc.

NOTE: Some of these options may relate to your professional development where it is relevant to your current role.

Professional development activities

There is no shortage of professional development opportunities available either. Here is a short list of some of the different types of professional development opportunities you may want to consider:

1.    On the job training/ Buddying
Pair up with a peer, trainer, industry expert and observe practical application of knowledge and tasks in order to learn and apply them. This may be related to a specific task or activity or involve shadowing for a longer period to learn a role and its wider context.
2.    Coaching and mentoring
Develop a relationship with a leader (not necessarily a manager) in the workforce and discuss their experiences and learnings, asking for their advice and input on challenging situations and gaining a new perspective. See below for more information on coaching and mentoring.
3.    Research projects
Using a clear framework or process, assign a research project to provide an employee with knowledge expansion (through research) and development and implementation experience.
4.    Secondments or project allocation
Assign an employee to another role or in a project for a set period of time so that they can expand on their knowledge, skills, network and experience.
5.    Workplace training
This involves the development of training to address specific skills or knowledge as facilitate in the workplace. It could be developed by Human Resources and applied across the organisation or be developed by a manager and delivered to the team to support a specific process.
6.    Formal training
This could be a short-course, VET or higher education qualification providing formal certification for completion of specific skills or knowledge.
7.    Industry networking
Networking can be accessed through industry associations or by finding industry chat groups or networks found on professional websites such as LinkedIn.
8.    Conferences and seminars
Focused on identifying key trends, industry insights or best practice approaches, these are often available through industry associations or training organisations.

Industry licencing or ongoing professional development

Be mindful that many industries require licencing or ongoing professional development activities be undertaken to maintain industry currency. Your organisation may also have policies, procedures and requirements regarding continued development or specific performance that need to be achieved.

Selection

There are infinite development opportunities and activities that can address individuals needs and priorities. The opportunities chosen will depend on a range of factors including:

• need identified
• delivery method
• costs
• time commitments etc.

When selecting development opportunities, make sure you have done your research well in identifying the options available. Then weight them up against your requirements to ensure it suits all your needs and not just your development needs.

Coaching and mentoring

No doubt you have come across the terms coaching and mentoring before. They are often used interchangeably, however, there are some key differences between the two words. Understanding these differences will help you to decide if you would prefer to utilise a coach or mentor for yourself or your employees.

Mentoring

• Relationship-Oriented: While the initial focus may be on certain learning goals or competencies, over time, they develop a bond and rapport that often transcends specific workplace issues.
• Development-Driven: The focus is always on the future. The mentor shares their own experience in order to influence the personal and professional growth of the mentee.
• Long-Term: Mentors might start out as casual acquaintances but often build strong relationships that can continue for years.
• Indirect Involvement: Formal supervision is rarely part of a mentor relationship. They help to steer and guide the mentee but are not directly involved in decision-making. The success of this relationship is measured in broad terms.

Coaching

• Task-Oriented: The coaching relationship usually orients around specific tasks and goals. A coach may be used to help develop certain areas or improve workplace skills.
• Performance-Driven: The purpose of coaching is usually to improve, enhance or acquire new skills that can be utilised immediately.
• Defined Timeframe: The coaching relationship usually ends when the student has gained the specific goal or skills they have been working on.
• Direct Involvement: Regular progress reports and feedback may be asked of the coach, and since specific goals are defined at the beginning of the relationship, these can be tracked and measured.

VIDEO RESOURCE: Science of Mentorship.

Watch Shawn Blanchard’s talk about the science of mentorship and the roles and benefits of engaging in mentoring relationships.

Organisational policies and procedures

When managing personal and professional development, it is important to be aware of existing organisational policies and procedures.

Below are some of the key organisational policies and procedures needed to support the employee development process:

• Organisational/ Business Plan: This will outline the organisations objectives and parameters so that team and individual performance goals can be aligned.
• Project Governance or Department Plan – This will outline the department or projects objectives and parameters so that the team and individual performance goals can be aligned.
• Personal and Professional Development (PPD) Policy and Procedure – This is the policy that outlines what the PPD program aims to achieve and the process or procedure to be followed. Alternatively this may be called the Learning and Development Policy and Procedure or Employee Development Program.
• Personal and Professional Development Form – This would be the form in which the details of one’s personal and professional development would be captured. In some instances this document may be completed as a planning tool for individuals or managers to identify opportunities, or as an approval form for evidence of PPD authorisation, or as documentation for tracking outcome purposes with reflections captured post-development.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE: Staff development and training

Refer to the Australian Governments Business.com website to read more on how to manage employees’ professional development and understand the ways to help advance their skills and knowledge.

Development and improvements in your skills do not happen by accident. By creating a development plan managing your career and undertaking training, you can manage and improve your skillset.

Following skills analysis, you and your employees can work through developing a plan that addresses identified needs (that is, the skills that need to be developed based on the gaps identified), lays out the priorities, and pinpoints when this training and development should be set to take place.

These goals are aimed to help you grow and improve in key capabilities or upskill in certain areas.

A personal development plan should inspire someone to continue working on the skills needed to reach specified goals. Once a road map has been created, an individual can plan their career progression and continue to grow.

PPD plan process

Follow the steps below to develop your own personal and professional development plan, and to assist your team members in their own development plans:

1.    Create a clear vision of where you want to be and why
Think about where you want to be and what you want to do. Be specific in terms of different lengths of time, for example: one month, six months, one year, five years. Make your vision as detailed as possible, across all areas of life: Career, where you want to live, your hobbies and even relationships. The more detail you can include, right down to how you will feel about it, the easier it will be to hold onto your vision when times are hard.
2.    Determine the skills you need to develop
Work out what skills you need to develop, and why they are important to achieving your goals. Make sure that the skills you are targeting are clearly linked to a purpose, and to your vision. Some examples of questions you can ask yourself are: Do you need certain skills or professional competency to get a particular job, or to advance in your chosen career? Are you struggling to manage a particular task, and need new skills to help? Have you been told that you lack particular skills and need to develop them? Do you need to maintain skill currency by updating training you have already completed? This is also an ideal time to seek feedback from your team, peers, management, and clients where appropriate in order to understand how your performance, skills and knowledge are perceived. A different point of view may highlight a different or new development focus.
3.    Identify the standard you need to achieve and compare this to your current state
The next step to gain a clear idea of the standard you need to achieve, and importantly, how different that is from your current standard. Conducting a skills audit is a great opportunity to gain clarity around this. Once you know the difference between your current skill level and where you need to be, you can plan your time frame, training options and effort accordingly.
4.    Prioritise the skills you need to develop
To use your time efficiently, prioritise the order in which you develop certain skills. Try asking yourself the following questions to help determine which skills you need to prioritise: How important is this to me? How essential is it to develop it now?
5.    Identify and schedule appropriate training opportunities
Now you have prioritised the skills you need to develop, you can identify suitable training options. These should reflect a diverse range of opportunities including formal and informal, in-house, and external. And each opportunity should be clearly linked to the desired development outcome you are hoping to achieve. Where appropriate, you may need to gain approval for time and/or expenses in completing development opportunities or self-fund them where they may reflect your personal or future goals, rather than supporting your current job. Once you decide on the right development plan for you, schedule specific activities as planned and create a clear and manageable timeline for achievement. Following completion of each development opportunity, take some time to reflect on the outcomes of your development against your original goals to determine if you have achieved what you set out to achieve.

Team personal and professional development planning

As a manager you will be required to support the planning and implementation of personal and professional development for your team members. The process is the same as that which you have completed for yourself, however you may need to provide more guidance and insight to your team members so that they can identify appropriate development goals and opportunities.

Where necessary, you may also be required to support the approval process for opportunities identified. This could relate to costs or time away from work required to access formal training, or it could relate to approving access to an internal mentoring program for a team member and supporting them to identify and engage an appropriate mentor.

Following completion of development opportunities, you should also check in with team members to complete a reflection process to confirm the success of the opportunity in addressing the skill or knowledge gap. This conversation may also highlight additional development needs as a next step.

Where in practice, a team members Personal and Professional Development Plan should also align to other internal programs such as the employee Performance Management Program (identifies and sets measures for individuals’ key goals or expectation) or Short-Term Incentive Scheme (aligns performance outcomes to achievement of potential incentive payments).

VIDEO RESOURCE: A Professional Development Plan to Level-up Your Life.

This video walks you through some key steps you need to take to be hyper-capable as a professional. This is about taking control of your professional goals and successes.

Reflection

Post development reflection

The last step in the PPD plan process is to complete a reflection based on the development activities undertaken. The purpose of this step is to:

• Track completion of development opportunities identified
• Assess the value of development opportunities to consider in addressing others development needs
• Reflect on what you have learnt through the development opportunity undertaken
• Embed learning by making a record of key undertakings and learning achieved
• Assess if the skill or knowledge gap was addressed by the development opportunity
• Assess if further development opportunities are required to achieve the desired skill and/or knowledge.

Lifelong learning

Completion of your development opportunities and post development reflection are not the end of your learning journey. The completion of the PPD process is the start of the next round of skill and knowledge assessment and development opportunity identification and initiation.

Lifelong learners recognise the importance of continued growth and development. They consistently seek to build on and improve their knowledge and skills.

Some key habits of lifelong learners include¹³:

1. Read books daily – books offer a range of experiences, perspectives, insights and worlds all offering something to the development of your language skills, ability to consider alternative points of view and so much more.
2. Take courses – there are countless courses available for free online if you look.
3. Do something active or creative – don’t be passive during your down time, seek to experience something.
4. Be open minded to all opportunities and interests – don’t limit yourself to what you think you know and are interested in as you will close yourself off to a potential passion you just don’t know about yet.
5. Embrace change – change is inevitable and to embrace it offers new opportunities, whereas to resist it only creates stress and negativity.
6. Start something new at any time – there is no age limit on development.
7. Step out of your comfort zone – discomfort is the path to growth through overcoming (or not overcoming but trying) new obstacles.
8. Accept failure for what it can teach you – it is all part of the process, and it provides valuable insights on how to move forward.