As you succeed in your development give yourself a reward. Of course it could be
that you make such good progress that the rewards come from elsewhere and isn’t
that what it’s all about !!
Remember that at each stage of your progression, new development
areas in relation to your progress may manifest themselves. Therefore at each
stage of your journey continue to review strengths and development areas
relative to the stage of that journey.
We will now look at the practicalities of doing this. It is
important to note that you do not move to a point of self demoralisation. Do
this activity with a clear perspective – a weakness is an inhibitor to you. If
it’s not holding you back or making you feel bad don’t get hung up on it. Be focused on the
positives at this stage. Once you have got that focus it is in your kit bag to
be re-applied as and when required.
Stage 1
Self Review
Who : You
Action 1 : Write down your objective.
Action 2 : Attributes Required
Action 3 : List perceived weaknesses
Action 4 : Grade weaknesses them in terms of materiality/quick wins.
The following format will enable you a reference point which
you then present to your Review Panel for verification or amendment.
Objectives
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Attributes
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Weaknesses
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Impact
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Action to Resolve
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By When
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Success
Criteria
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Measure of Success
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|
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High/Med/Low
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|
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Achieved
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|
|
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|
|
|
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Review Panel
Who
Professional : Peer , Manager, Employee, Customer
Initially build a clear demarcation between your
professional and personal assessment. The first will give you the definition
around your business approach- how you act and react in different situations,
how you deal with pressure and importantly the development needed in enabling
your progress to a higher level of business management.
It is important however that you do not just accept areas
they point out. Ask them to back up with specific situations and illustrate
where the weaknesses were apparent and the impact those had which may have been
detrimental to the objective. If it is a situation you recognise and where you
feel you should have done things differently then so much the better. This
shows you are already understanding your development areas. If you don’t
recognise the situation ask the panel member to outline where doing things
differently would have provided a different result. This demonstrates a
willingness to understand and improve. On-going do not be afraid to ask for
guidance and regular feedback through 1-1 sessions.
Social : Partner,
friends, sports club acquaintances
These individuals are best placed to feedback on you as an
individual; those traits which people find endearing and those perhaps not so. It
is sometimes difficult to take criticism from this group, more-so than the
professional team as these are the individuals you are more familiar with. This
means these are the individuals you are most likely to challenge on their
views. As with the professional panel ask them to give specific situations and
where a different reaction may have gained a different and more positive
result. Please remember you are asking for these people to give guidance and to
appraise you- do not become confrontational in your challenges, they are your
friends because they want the best for you. If people didn’t want you to
succeed they wouldn’t make you aware of your weaknesses and allow you to carry
on making the same mistakes- remember that !!
Once you have feedback from both panels review and ascertain
where personal weaknesses in your character may contribute to those development
areas in your professional life.
Grading of Issues
The impact grading of issues should be aligned to the direct
impact it will have on your ability to progress. For example a complete lack of
knowledge on numbers would prevent you from progressing in a financial role.
Therefore if you wished to move into a financial role you would need to get a
grasp of numbers hence this would be a “High” impact. The inability to type
quickly would be “Low” impact.
Both extreme examples but people can be extreme when asked
to give deep thought to something !!
Success Criteria
Success criteria should again be directly aligned to the
objective. It is crucial that the success criteria is stretching and moves you
to a position where you can confidently feel the inhibitor has been overcome.
There is no point in
giving yourself an easy target, that may only go some way, if at all to
eradicating a weakness. You are therefore leaving yourself vulnerable to that
manifesting itself at a later stage in your development path. This is the worst
thing to allow ; it would present doubt in your mind as to how much
progress you had actually, overshadow the positives and dent confidence in your
ability to progress further.
DEAL WITH YOUR
WEAKNESSES COMPREHENSIVELY FIRST TIME !!
Timelines
Be realistic with timelines.
Don’t rush for the sake of it, similarly don’t delay
unnecessarily.
Some of the actions you undertake may require the help of
others and you need to account for that.
Build in a reasonable timeline to review progress by
yourself and of course your Review Panel.
You can’t just change overnight- you have to demonstrate
that you have dealt with the weakness and a such provide a measurement of
success that you are happy with and that the Review Panel can confirm. This
will not only enable you to recognise when you make progress but confirmation
from others is even more encouraging- it demonstrates to you that you know
when you have achieved something which
is key throughout your entire journey.
Measurement of Success
It’s crunch time ! You believe you’ve overcome your weakness
now you have to prove it. Let’s assume your weakness was the inability to
articulate yourself. To test this out put what you have developed into a
situation you create- a presentation or any other opportunity to speak up. This
cannot be a single event, you must try out different environments and audiences
to fully assess how far you have come. Again your progress will be more
apparent and effective in some situations and perhaps not so in others but
progress is progress nonetheless so take strength and go forward.
If there is a
situation where you felt the progress was not so apparent, perhaps to a more
senior audience assess what you could and should have done differently and
drive an opportunity to revisit that situation. The fact that you do this not
only gives you greater practise but shows those individuals you are actively
looking to learn and progress. There is nothing more management respects than
the tenacity, courage and investment of an individual to do better.
However it is also
important to assess and revisit those situations where progress was more
apparent to build even further and excel in that area.
People will then begin talking about you these are the
initial publicity shots of your new reputation.
RECOGNISE YOUR OWN
SUCCESS !!
You have now reached the first stages of your development.
This is the baseline for charting your progress. Once you are confident you
have found your feet spend time making a robust foundation. Immerse yourself in
meetings and situations each time taking stock of your performance. They won’t be
perfect all the time and some will be better than others but if the old
weaknesses are becoming less visible and less inhibitive, you are succeeding !!
After a period of around 3 months of dealing with situations
where the previous weaknesses have not come through then it is time to move to
the next stage. This may sound like an age but this is the most critical stage.
If your platform is weak it may crack as you go higher and the last thing you
want is to slip and have to do the climb all over again !!
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