Sunday 14th February 2010
Managing Your Career - Continuous Personal Development - There’s No Escape!
I guess the first question you should ask will be, “why use the word managing”?
Well this is because “career” development, at least for managers and specialist professionals, is much more complicated than it used to be, certainly here in the United Kingdom, and also in most highly advanced countries. It is becoming equally more complex in the shrinking world we now live in.
The days of: - leaving school, leaving university, finding a job, working in the same place for 20, 30, and 40 years, are over in almost all sectors - thankfully!
It may have been a form of “security” for individuals, but it led to sterility, poor practice, inefficiency, laziness or a hostile resistance to change. Some rare individuals behaved creatively, enthusiastically, took risks, were ambitious but these few could never counter the millions who settled in, kept their heads down, and looked forward to retirement sometime in the next century!
Thankfully, again those days are over. Now, all organisations in the commercial sectors, and most organisations in the public sector, are demanding evidence that each individual is continuously developing, is learning new skills, and is preparing for change positively and enthusiastically. Being years and years in the same job, waiting for promotion by “stepping into dead men’s shoes”, those individuals only have the same skills and knowledge that they had when they started, “10 years in the job, 1 year’s experience”
These are no longer tolerated, not by the organisation’s senior managers, or by customers. The organisation has a people development policy (PDP), each department has a local staff development plan and each individual is now expected to have a “Personal Development Plan”. Some professions, such as accountancy, the legal profession, engineering, teaching, nursing, must show hard evidence, that they are up to date in the knowledge and skills currently needed, otherwise they risk being prevented from continuing in that role.
So for those employed by organisations, career development is now a permanent or part-time, job. A series of activities, such as being aware of developments in the business sector, planning ahead, identifying training needs, selecting appropriate ways to achieve those needs, finding courses, choosing between classroom and distance learning and of course, finding a way to pay the study fees! This has to go on year after year after year … continuously, Continuous Professional Development, (CPD).
If you are familiar with quality management techniques, you will recognise this as a form of continuous improvement Kaizen, as the Japanese call it, is a major, never-ending, personal task and as such, needs considerable thought and considerable effort. A strategy, a plan to ensure that you don’t fall by the wayside and watch others race ahead, beating you to the best jobs, the key roles, the interesting projects, the higher salaries, the better conditions.
If you are, or are, planning to be an entrepreneur; there’s no escape for you just because you don’t work for someone else, you have others in your life who are equally demanding: -
Suppliers, clients, customers, employees, other entrepreneurs and professional colleagues, these groups rely on you; expect you, to be as knowledgeable and skilled as you possible can be. If you’re not, your suppliers will take advantage of you, your clients will reject you, your customers will disappear and your employees will leave you. You will eventually find that other entrepreneurs will take away your suppliers, clients, customers, and your best employees and worst of all; your professional colleagues will lose respect for you.
As professional people, (CPD) should always be at the forefront of our minds, we would never dream of not researching the next project, or researching the next major prospective client I was going to see, would we?
I know that (CPD) is very much a “buzz word” these days, but let me go back in time, to when I was Sales-manager at Arrow Chemicals (CPD) was always at the forefront of all training and that was back in the early 1970’s and still goes on to this day. When I was planning going to see one of the very many large clients that were around in those days, I would try to find out as much information as I possibly could. At the time I am talking about, we had no internet to look them up on. We had to find other ways.
This may have been looking up about them: -
Ø In the Chamber of commerce lists
Ø In local news articles
Ø At companies house
Ø By ringing up on the quiet
Ø By talking to the gate man
Ø By talking to the receptionist
There are many other ways I could go into but I won’t; it might incriminate me!!
Nowadays to keep ahead of the competition we need an edge. We must always be thinking of developing our own abilities; I’m now nearly 67 and I’m still researching all the time for material to help others.
Managing Your Career - Continuous Personal Development - There’s No Escape!
I guess the first question you should ask will be, “why use the word managing”?
Well this is because “career” development, at least for managers and specialist professionals, is much more complicated than it used to be, certainly here in the United Kingdom, and also in most highly advanced countries. It is becoming equally more complex in the shrinking world we now live in.
The days of: - leaving school, leaving university, finding a job, working in the same place for 20, 30, and 40 years, are over in almost all sectors - thankfully!
It may have been a form of “security” for individuals, but it led to sterility, poor practice, inefficiency, laziness or a hostile resistance to change. Some rare individuals behaved creatively, enthusiastically, took risks, were ambitious but these few could never counter the millions who settled in, kept their heads down, and looked forward to retirement sometime in the next century!
Thankfully, again those days are over. Now, all organisations in the commercial sectors, and most organisations in the public sector, are demanding evidence that each individual is continuously developing, is learning new skills, and is preparing for change positively and enthusiastically. Being years and years in the same job, waiting for promotion by “stepping into dead men’s shoes”, those individuals only have the same skills and knowledge that they had when they started, “10 years in the job, 1 year’s experience”
These are no longer tolerated, not by the organisation’s senior managers, or by customers. The organisation has a people development policy (PDP), each department has a local staff development plan and each individual is now expected to have a “Personal Development Plan”. Some professions, such as accountancy, the legal profession, engineering, teaching, nursing, must show hard evidence, that they are up to date in the knowledge and skills currently needed, otherwise they risk being prevented from continuing in that role.
So for those employed by organisations, career development is now a permanent or part-time, job. A series of activities, such as being aware of developments in the business sector, planning ahead, identifying training needs, selecting appropriate ways to achieve those needs, finding courses, choosing between classroom and distance learning and of course, finding a way to pay the study fees! This has to go on year after year after year … continuously, Continuous Professional Development, (CPD).
If you are familiar with quality management techniques, you will recognise this as a form of continuous improvement Kaizen, as the Japanese call it, is a major, never-ending, personal task and as such, needs considerable thought and considerable effort. A strategy, a plan to ensure that you don’t fall by the wayside and watch others race ahead, beating you to the best jobs, the key roles, the interesting projects, the higher salaries, the better conditions.
If you are, or are, planning to be an entrepreneur; there’s no escape for you just because you don’t work for someone else, you have others in your life who are equally demanding: -
Suppliers, clients, customers, employees, other entrepreneurs and professional colleagues, these groups rely on you; expect you, to be as knowledgeable and skilled as you possible can be. If you’re not, your suppliers will take advantage of you, your clients will reject you, your customers will disappear and your employees will leave you. You will eventually find that other entrepreneurs will take away your suppliers, clients, customers, and your best employees and worst of all; your professional colleagues will lose respect for you.
As professional people, (CPD) should always be at the forefront of our minds, we would never dream of not researching the next project, or researching the next major prospective client I was going to see, would we?
I know that (CPD) is very much a “buzz word” these days, but let me go back in time, to when I was Sales-manager at Arrow Chemicals (CPD) was always at the forefront of all training and that was back in the early 1970’s and still goes on to this day. When I was planning going to see one of the very many large clients that were around in those days, I would try to find out as much information as I possibly could. At the time I am talking about, we had no internet to look them up on. We had to find other ways.
This may have been looking up about them: -
Ø In the Chamber of commerce lists
Ø In local news articles
Ø At companies house
Ø By ringing up on the quiet
Ø By talking to the gate man
Ø By talking to the receptionist
There are many other ways I could go into but I won’t; it might incriminate me!!
Nowadays to keep ahead of the competition we need an edge. We must always be thinking of developing our own abilities; I’m now nearly 67 and I’m still researching all the time for material to help others.
I would welcome any comments on the above either direct to my e-mail or on my WebLog
For more information contact me through e-mail: -
geoffrey@geoffreyprince.com my Weblog updated daily: - http://www.geofreyprince.com
Telephone: - +44 (0) 845 643 5972 Skype: - geoffrey.prince
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