Professional Development

I’ve never been a fan of anything that can feel like a box tick or a paper pushing exercise.  I recall plenty of such exercises from my time in corporate America, and I’m sure you can also relate.  But there are also things that often get treated as such that shouldn’t be — personal development plans are one example that comes to mind.  Who has time for these annoying things when there is work that needs to be done?  Besides, don’t people learn more quickly and effectively if they just throw themselves in at the deep end and figure it out?  Challenge builds resilience after all! Interestingly that used to be my approach to learning and development.  When I transitioned my career from risk management to leadership development, I unconsciously and somewhat ironically took that approach.  One day I worked in one department and the other day I worked in a completely different part of the organization in a totally new role, with no thought to what competencies I was strong and weak in, what I may have been lacking, who I could turn to for help, what resources were there to support me.  I had initiative and passion and that was enough, right?  It had gotten me through the interview and that was good enough as far as I was concerned.  Off I rode on my white horse to save the day on a passionate high, totally blind to what lay before me. Six months in I literally wanted to jump off a cliff.  Every day I considered resigning.  Nothing I produced seemed to be good enough.  I knew I was missing the mark, but I wasn’t sure why.  I was running completely in a reactive state and a place of fear, almost paranoia.  I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone or anything.  My relationship with my boss and coworkers became strained as I buckled under the stress.  I had always prided myself on being a high performer.  And high performers can perform regardless of the context, right?  Otherwise, they’re not high performers.  The judgment from my boss (which trust me was substantial) was nothing compared to the internal shame and judgment I put on myself day after day.  Looking back, it’s fair to say it was the most painful chapter of my life to date.  A Personal Development Plan supports sustainable growth, not growth at all costs… All this to say, “winging it” is not the best strategy if you really want to learn and grow in a sustainable way.  While I did learn a lot and grow a lot from that experience, it came with a huge cost.  I spent quite a bit of time working to build back my self-confidence and sense of self-worth from that experience.  And that took years, not months by the way.  But this kind of thing can be deceptive, especially when we’re bombarded with messages that you need to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” or constantly be setting “Big, […]