Happy New Year everyone!
I know that the festive season looked and felt very different for all of us, with ‘festive bubbles’ taking on a whole new meaning. I really do hope you managed to rest, recharge and connect in some way with the people you love, despite the restrictions.
We’re in the process of sharing our 2021 business objectives, which should give everyone real clarity on what success will look like for the company. What does success in 2021 look like for you personally? Throughout January, I hope that we’ll all take the opportunity to explore our development goals. Whether to increase specific technical or business knowledge, master some different mindsets and behaviours, or find new ways of working.
We recognise that, culturally, we don’t always pay enough attention to supporting our own and others’ self-improvement, with less than 40% of us feeling we get opportunities to grow personally and professionally at work. In such a versatile, dynamic and passionate business, the opportunities to learn and grow are everywhere….recognising and seizing them will equip us to deal with the new and challenging situations that these volatile times bring; it’s well evidenced that individuals and organisations with robust development plans emerge far more strongly from crises than those who don’t.
Development starts with you
I know sometimes it can feel hard to work out what you want from life and your career. It’s important to be honest with yourself. ‘Do I want to progress or am I happy doing what I’m doing?’ ‘What might the next steps be and what do I need to do to get there?’ There’s no cookie cutter solution to this and, much as we wish they would, no one can hand you a perfectly tailored growth plan or career path.
First and foremost it starts with you….what you value and need in your life and what you want to achieve in your career. ‘Deep down am I truly committed to growing, or do I just think I should because that’s what others expect of me?‘
In my experience, those that are truly committed and driven make the time, talk to their line manager, ask questions and find a way to shape their development. They don’t wait for anyone else to do it for them. If you’re really honest with yourself and you’re not truly committed to growing, ask yourself why not and what you’ve got to lose… this mindset can result from lots of other feelings like anxiety, complacency or confusion, amongst others. Talking this through with colleagues and your line manager can bring a renewed energy to this and help you to shape some next steps.
The key thing to remember is that there’s no right or wrong answer; it’s about finding the level of focus that’s important to you. If the reality is that you’re happy doing what you’re doing and career progression isn’t a priority (now or ever), that’s ok. The focus might then be about how you stretch yourself and improve within your role.
If on the other hand you hanker after change and progress, start by asking yourself ‘What do I love doing? What am I great at? What interests me?’ Talking to your manager about roles within or outside your department that would suit you is a great starting point, followed up by some research and conversations with people in those areas.
To be able to understand where your gaps and opportunities might be, you also really need to know and understand who you are. This is the first essential step to achieving self mastery; the ability to identify, regulate and purposefully shape your thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
To help get you out of the blocks on this, we’ve developed and shared ‘My Best Me’ toolkits via The Cove to help people and managers explore and reflect on their personal development requirements. If you lead people, there’s an onus on you to consider how you will question, challenge and coach these conversations with team members. Further guidance on how to do this will be available.
Share your development goals and refer to them regularly
The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) did a study on accountability and found that you have a 65% chance of completing a goal if you commit to someone. If you are directly accountable to that person, you will increase your chance of success by up to 95%.
While it seems really obvious, if you and your manager apply the same rigour to your development goals as you should your performance goals, then you’ll make progress. So number one, have some. Number two, talk about them frequently in 1:1s to discuss progress, barriers and support needed. I wonder how many of us actually do that or whether we understandably get diverted by other more immediate things.
Sharing your personal development goals with your peers, team members or key stakeholders is also really valuable. It will help them support you and hold you to account and also understand why, as you start to change behaviour or experiment with different approaches.
Again, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that we have a lot of really helpful tips, tools and resources via The Cove and the following clip is taken from the Good Practice library. As well as giving some useful guidance on setting goals, it will give you a taste of what’s available to help you with this task.
Set aside time to reflect and plan
I love the adage of ‘failing to plan, is planning to fail’. You need to be absolutely ruthless about planning and prioritising your development otherwise, other things will always feel more important.
You can definitely do that by setting time aside for learning, research and reading and exploring resources on The Cove. Only about 10% of your growth and development should and will come from formal learning programmes though. Another 20% will come from other people through communities, networks, coaching, mentoring and feedback and a whopping 70% will come from ‘on the job’ learning, peer support and reflection.
What does that 70% look like in practice? To recognise what you’ve learned takes dedicated time to reflect, otherwise the learnings can pass you by. I personally keep a learning log, taking 15 minutes on a Friday to consider what’s happened in the last week, whether things played out how I would have liked, what a particular situation taught me, how I might have prepared, responded or acted differently. What was really effective? How can I take a different approach next time, or utilise a successful strategy in a different scenario that’s coming up? It’s really important to celebrate small gains and successes; it’s tempting to be very self-critical rather than focusing on what went well.
Slow and steady wins the race
In a world typified by instant gratification, it’s easy to get frustrated that the next career move or personal growth ambitions can take time. Think small moves, marginal gains, iterative improvement. Not every step has to be a giant leap. Consistency is key.
If you want to be better at X, what are the smaller steps that will get you there? What are the things that will lay the foundations for future success?
In the coming weeks, we’ll share some case studies of Carnival UK people who’ve seen their careers grow and thrive, to understand how they did it. If you’ve got a story to share, we’d love to hear it. Please do get in touch with the Internal Communications team.