It’s not enough to have a great training program. It has to be sustainable and well-implemented, so many professionals are now focusing on establishing a reliable rhythm that keeps everyone updated and inspired monthly. With so much information at our fingertips and the rise of social media, it has never been easier for your team members to stay informed about new content and developments in your field. However, this makes it all the more important to keep an eye on what’s happening outside your organization to see what trends need to be incorporated into your training programs. Individuals interested in becoming experts in their fields will also benefit greatly from taking time each month to read relevant books, blogs, or other online sources to stay current with topics they may not be as familiar with. Some professionals even dedicate their weekends to reading relevant articles or books and incorporating those learning experiences into their professional development plans during the week.
If you want to stay current in your profession, you have to practice, practice, practice. Many professionals use action learning for professional development. This is where individuals actively engage in their work and incorporate new knowledge and experience into their daily work. When using action learning for professional development, there are a few steps you need to take:
- Situation: What are the challenges and opportunities my company is currently facing?
- Frame: What is this situation?
- Explore: How can I use this situation to further my skills or grow as an individual? What resources do I need to pursue this goal?
- Reframe: How can I use these skills or information/resources to impact my team or organization positively?
- Action: Implement what was learned from the process of reframing, exploring, and acting.
It’s not just about what you know but also about what you can share with others. It’s important to try and find a regular time each month that you can share your learning experiences with other members of the team. This will help them to stay up-to-date on your latest training programs and help them better understand how they might be able to contribute their own experience in the future. Suppose you have a digital platform that enables you to share this information, such as a blog or social media account. In that case, you can also use these outlets to connect more effectively with members of your staff who are looking for advice or guidance related to their professional development plans.
There’s no denying the importance of reading, but for professional development, it’s smart to read in a way that’s beneficial to your work. The most important part is taking what you read and using it somehow. For example, if you read an article online about how to improve your leadership skills, take some time and write down the top three or four changes you would make to implement them in your team. If you see something on social media that’s not relevant anymore, archive it and move on. You don’t want to be stuck looking back at old posts when so many new ones need your attention. If you spend time reading content from social sources, make sure to bookmark those sites, so they are easy for you to access later on. That way, whenever something pops up on Reddit that looks like it could be useful for your audience or if someone shares an article from a blog with a related topic, all you have to do is click the bookmark instead of looking through several different tabs or scrolling through endless feeds trying to find what might be useful.
It’s important to have a shared understanding of your practice’s history to build a culture based on that knowledge. Writing down and out – the process of writing about your experiences – can help you share stories made available to you to build this knowledge. When everyone is on the same page, it becomes easier to establish traditions and rituals around these shared understandings.
Adapted from Figure 8.5: The Rhythm of Professional Development, pg.179, Facilitating Action Learning: A Practitioner’s Guide by Mike Pedler and Christine Abbott, Open University Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2013). Amazon Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3TR3qV1