Well, I don’t think Employee Development on a Shoestring will put the training industry out of business. Far from it. I wrote this book because I am passionate about learning and development. I wrote this book because I am passionate about supporting leaders in their efforts to become more effective. And I wrote this book because often, training is simply not the answer.

It is estimated that 70 percent of all leadership development takes place via on-the-job experiences rather than formal learning events. The “70-20-10 rule,” as this idea has become known, says that development happens in three ways: 70 percent on-the-job experience, 20 percent through relationships and feedback, and 10 percent from formal training opportunities.

All over the world, supervisors and professionals like you are faced with a challenging task of helping their staff members grow and develop within limited budgets and timelines and ever-increasing pressures to perform more with less. Supervisors and employees desperately need alternatives and complements to the usual approach, because it is not enough. And so many of you are so overwhelmed with a growing workload that you simply don’t have the time or the requisite knowledge to come up with creative ideas for developing skills within the parameters that are presented to you.

Well, this book is here to help.

You don’t have to spend any time searching for ideas, because they’re right here in this book. You don’t have to spend time thinking up possible obstacles to each method—I’ve done that for you. And you don’t have to spend lots of time designing implementation plans because I’ve created the tools and supports that can help you quickly ensure that your employee development methods are successful and sustainable.

Who Can Benefit From Reading This Book?

Employee Development on a Shoestring is written primarily to address the needs of those in a position to help employees develop in their current jobs. Whether you are a supervisor, a manager, a director, or an executive, a key part of your role (“Job 1” as Elaine Biech puts it in her foreword to the book) is to ensure that employees are growing and learning. If you are a talent management, human resource, personnel, talent development, training, organization development, or workplace learning professional, your job is to ensure that supervisors throughout your organization are tending to this “Job 1.” Perhaps you are a mentor or career counselor or coach, and you are using this book to help your protégé or client make career development plans. And if you are a self-motivated, self-starting employee, you may enjoy reading this book to get ideas about how to take your development into your own hands rather than waiting for others to suggest strategies to you. Anyone who wants to ensure that employees are developing new skills and knowledge and who realizes that sending them to a training class cannot be, and should not be, the only path to achieve that outcome, should read and benefit from the ideas presented in this book.

Modified excerpt from the Introduction to Employee Development on a Shoestring by Halelly Azulay (ASTD Press, 2012)

Headphones image by Kevin_Morris via Flickr Creative Commons

The following is an excerpt of a story I wrote for a new book called The Insider’s Guide to Supervising Government Employees, edited by Kathryn M. Johnson (Management Concepts Press 2011). The book is a collection of stories from many supervisors whose purpose is to help government supervisors (new and seasoned alike) navigate their responsibilities and challenges more successfully. It covers several key areas including understanding yourself, getting the best work from others, and supervising in a changing work landscape. In this particular story, I illustrate the importance of ongoing self-development to help supervisors continue to achieve success in their role. In my upcoming book, Employee Development on a Shoestring (ASTD Press, expected pub. date April 2012), I describe in much greater detail both the value and suggested approaches for many development methods that happen outside the classroom.

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Chris’ excitement was through the roof when he learned that he had been promoted. Finally! He was now officially a supervisor of a newly formed team in his agency. Chris felt a quiet confidence in his ability to excel as he emailed his mentor, Soo-Lin, to share the good news with her. After they scheduled their next monthly “coffee talk” meeting, Chris sat at his desk making lists of ideas and action items.

A few weeks later, Soo-Lin relaxed into her chair as she congratulated Chris once again on his accomplishment and listened to his tales of his first month as a supervisor. Sipping her coffee, she listened to his stories of excitement and frustration from her perspective of having been in supervisory roles in the federal government for the past 20 years.

“What are you doing to ramp up your supervisory skills, Chris?” Soo-Lin inquired.

“What do you mean?” asked Chris.

“Well, you have a whole new skill set you need to acquire, and fast. You will certainly learn on the job, but what are you doing to proactively enhance your skills?”

“I’m not sure I have any ideas. What do you suggest?” said Chris, looking at Soo-Lin quizzically.

Over the next hour, Soo-Lin shared with Chris some of the resources that she found helpful, including books, seminars, and training classes. But it was the story she told him that really got Chris thinking about how to keep his skills and knowledge fresh now and into the next stages of his career development.

“You know, when I first got promoted, there were no supervisory training classes offered and no resources given to me to prepare me for my new role. I had to learn as I went, the hard way. Things went very well for the first couple of years and my hard work was rewarded and rewarding.

“But then, things began to shift. I was no longer getting the results I wanted from my staff. They seemed unmotivated and deflated, and I felt frustrated with my job. I applied the same techniques that had worked before, but they were just not working in the same way. I felt really stuck and unhappy. Word got around that there might be a reorganization in our department and I started to worry that I might lose my job.

“That’s when I began to realize that I had become stale; my skills and knowledge were not sufficient to produce the performance results I wanted to see. I felt baffled and lost, so I started reading every management book in the library, searching for answers. I also started looking for role models to talk with, both inside and outside my office and agency. I was amazed how happy these successful supervisors were to share their ‘best practices’ and ‘lessons learned’ with me, and it was great to learn from them about things I could do or avoid doing—and not have to learn them the hard way! One told me that he attends the monthly meetings of our field’s professional association to learn new techniques and connect and network with other professionals with whom he collaborates and shares ideas. So I started attending these meetings also—what an eye-opening experience!

“What I learned, slowly but surely, is that your skills and knowledge need to be constantly upgraded and challenged. You can never rest on your laurels just because you have reached a certain rung on the career ladder; you need to keep working or you’ll find yourself falling off—or getting pushed off. And there are so many different ways available to help you retool, refresh, and learn.”

This is an exciting time to be a supervisor. You have the opportunity to influence others in a changing landscape. You will be challenged to handle day-to-day issues effectively in the context of an ever-evolving work environment. The best way to create a balance that serves both your employees and your organization well is to keep strengthening your personal capabilities as a supervisor. Only then will you be ready and able to help others envision and prepare to meet the demands of the 21^st century government work environment.

More to Think About and Try

• What are some books, training, and other resources you could access to upgrade your supervisory skills? Are there resources that would help you on an ongoing, continuous basis?
• Who are some key people who could help you learn and develop your supervisory skills? Are there any groups you could join or people in your current network you could tap to become your mentors or “master-mind” group?
• Can you branch out and increase your network to include role models and kindred spirits?

• Can you find opportunities to bring supervisors together? Who can—and is willing to—share their lessons learned?

Excerpted with permission from The Insider’s Guide to Supervising Government Employees, edited by Kathryn M. Johnson. © 2011 by Management Concepts, Inc. All rights reserved. www.managementconcepts.com/pubs

I've been working with a Fortune 100 "Big 4" client this month to facilitate multiple learning events called "Building Relationships" to Generation Y high-potential accountants. This two-day workshop is meant to prepare these young professionals to engage on a higher level of leadership with their peers, staff, leaders and clients. I feel very honored to work with this client, one of CNN Money's 100 Best Companies to Work For, and these very bright and ambitious learners. It's great to be surrounded by people who mean business and work hard to do great work.

One of the biggest lessons participants learn in this workshop is that "conversations create Connections, which in turn build relationships". Learners become more aware of the importance of first impressions, their personal brand, and the link between how they come across in their interactions to the bottom line results, customer satisfaction and customer and staff retention. Regardless of your industry and occupation, your technical competence is incredibly important - it's imperative. Yet, for leaders of every rank, the differentiator for sustained retention (both of staff and clients) is rarely your expertise. It is often how you made them feel when you worked with them.

When you connect with others through conversations, you show your humanity - your personal brand. You let your personality and uniqueness shine through. You show curiosity and empathy for THEIR personal perspective and needs. And you create a connection that helps you build a relationship, which is then nurtured and grows with additional conversations and connections. The better the connection, the stronger the relationship. The stronger the relationship, the better the satisfaction of both parties in the work results. The more forgiveness and wiggle-room for any mistakes. The more sustainable the business.

Even if you're an accountant.

This is true for ANYONE.

What connections are you making? How are you nurturing your important business relationships?

Photo credit: anoldent via Flickr Creative Commons

Previously, I discussed how to put your strength to work. I also mentioned briefly that there might be some of you who, upon assessing your current situation, find that you have a deficit in your ability to use and grow your strengths in your current context.

You need to shift something. There are a few ways to do this that I mentioned briefly in my previous post. I'll now expand on each of them:

1. Change Your Approach
2. Change Your Perspective
3. Change Your Role

4. Change Your Environment

1. Change Your Approach

First things first, look in the mirror: Are you SURE you can't use your strengths in your current situation? What could you be doing to contribute to this reality? Are there assumptions you are making that are not based on actual observable facts and/or which you have not actually tested? 

Many times, we jump to conclusions about what is or isn't possible without actually fully examining the possibilities or even fully assessing the root cause of a (real or perceived) problem. So before throwing your hands up in despair or looking for a change in your situation, try to find as many different ways to examine, observe, and understand your current situation. You might find that the obstacles in your way were a figment of your imagination...

2. Change Your Perspective

If you are pretty certain that you are, in fact, blocked in some way from using your strengths in your current work situation, you might be able to use a technique called 'reframing' to help yourself change the situation in your favor. Reframing is looking at something using a different perspective, or lens, to change how you experience it.

Marcus Buckingham*, one of the leaders of the Strengths Movement, said this well in his book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work.  When you are faced with activities that are not supporting your strengths, Buckingham suggests you "[l]ook at the activity through the lens of one of your strengths, and you might well be able to transform its effect on you." Try to think of ways that this activity you loathe may work in service of one (or more) of your strengths rather than just seeing it in isolation. Says Marcus, "[i]f you loathe confronting people but love the feeling of follow-through, shift your perspective so that you see the confrontation as merely one step in following the project ... through to completion. If you loathe doing budgets but love being viewed as a vital member of the team, shift your perspective to see how doing the budget will ultimately help the team."

*Check out this picture of yours-truly with Marcus Buckingham when I produced his presentation here in DC for the Metro DC ASTD chapter back in 2007. It's a terribly blurry shot but I was so pleased to meet him. 

3. Change Your Role

Bottom line: if your current role doesn't allow you to use your strengths regularly, perhaps you need to shift your role to one that does! I know it's not that easy. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. But it's worth doing because of the endless returns you will receive by shifting from being in a place of working from weaknesses to a place of working from strengths. Look around the organization and start spying other roles that could let you shine. Think creatively about your current role and department, and think outside the box about other ways you could be doing work in service of the same mission but using other skills. Talk to your boss: you may be surprised that he or she will be willing to entertain shifting your role to have you add more value to the organization. It is a win-win proposition, after all. It's worth a shot.

And, if all else fails, there is always option #4...

4. Change Your Environment

If you've done all you can to change yourself, your perspective, your role within the organization, and it's still not working, you can always change your environment and take a different job. This is obviously not a decision to be made lightly as it has significant ramifications on many aspects of your life, but sometimes I'm saddened by people who resign themselves to a miserable job where they feel depleted and weakened every day because they don't want to consider this as an option. You are not an indentured slave. You are free to choose. You are free to make your life the best life it can be. And life is way too precious and short to be lived miserably or in the shadows of fear. You don't have to just jump into the dark, unknown abyss; you can craft a thoughtful exit strategy. But start now to plan your better future where you can live in your strengths, because you're worth it. And, since the world will benefit from your gifts more fully that way, the world also deserves it.

It's only too late if you don't start thinking about a plan NOW to find a way to use your strengths, daily, and to live a fuller, more enjoyable, more productive life.

What do you think? Please comment below with your thoughts, questions, and challenges. I would love to hear from you.

I'll leave you with this short video clip from Marcus Buckingham.

Photo credit: The Library of Congress via Flickr Creative Commons - it was taken circa 1939. I really like it!