Self development

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Despite a modern focus on continual employee development, many executives often neglect their own learning.

Self Development is an important factor in achieving your career aspirations and ambitions and therefore deserves the same disciplined approach as setting targets and reviewing goals for key areas of the business.

Self Development is where you take primary responsibility for your learning and the means to achieve it. Compiling and reviewing a Development Plan will encourage you to focus on the skills (within and without your industry) you will need to achieve future goals.

Relying on ad hoc courses to do this for you is dangerous and will most often fail to deliver the career progression you are looking for.

Having all of this in place will give you greater control over your future so you can capitalise on the myriad of opportunities that the changing world of work offers to those who choose to control their own destiny.

One executive could recall only one meeting in the last 6 years that focused on his career development - something he mentioned was fairly typical in his industry.

The CEO of one service company believes there is a strategic reason for encouraging his team members to focus on their Self Development. Recognising that an organisation needs to offer appealing non-financial benefits to attract and retain key talent, he includes a Self Development discussion in the annual review process.

His objective is to differentiate his organisation as an employer of choice by paying attention to the support individuals need to grow; for one manager this was a public speaking programme, for another the organisation sponsored an MBA course.

As roles within the organisation continued to change several senior managers benefited from working with an Executive Coach.

As the turnover of executives remains at a relatively high level (14.5% according to research by Booz Allen Hamilton, 50% up on turnover recorded in 2002/2003), Self Development plays a key role in staying ahead of the game.

In situations where roles change or when moving to a new organisation, setting goals will create a focused strategic plan to help you improve and make significant professional developments. Here are some recommendations you may want to include:

Identify the areas you want to focus on. Career progression for one General Manager was the result of tenacity and sheer hard work. But as he approached his mid-40s he became increasing aware of his lack of formal academic qualifications.

Although this was not an issue, he knew that if he decided to look outside of the organisation he would be competing with young talent with formal qualifications.

He approached the Chartered Institute of Civil Engineers and was delighted to find out that his experience would be taken into account and replaced the need to study for several modules on an accredited program.

Look for opportunities: Expand your skill base by constantly anticipating your organisation's future needs and matching the development of your skills to those needs, you will solidify your value to your organisation today and tomorrow.

Take advantage of training offered by your organisation, industry, and professional groups; ask to be assigned new projects that will enable you to develop new competencies; or engage your own Career Coach.

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