...stays in Vegas!
The second of two posts about owning our ongoing development and how we as individuals and managers can enable Fulfilling Performance.
Image credit: YS-Park
Hello fellow Enablers,
Whilst this post references Vegas, my mind is currently on Australia.
I’m planning a visit to deliver some Discover Fulfilling Performance workshops, have some meetings and catch up with friends and former colleagues.
I was excited to make this trip in November but, as I looked into visa applications, processing times and flight bookings I realised that, if my visa didn’t come through in time, I risked letting people down at the last minute which I don’t want to do.
So I’ve decided to reschedule for early 2025 and make the most of the extra time to plan an even more productive trip.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to deliver Discover Fulfilling Performance workshops in the UK. If you’re interested to attend a physical event and explore Fulfilling Performance with me and other like minded leaders, let me know and I’ll share more details.
…stays in Vegas!
This is the second of two posts. In the first, “What happens in Vegas…”, I reflect on how our paradigm at school is that we are there to learn and develop new skills.
Here, I’ll share some thoughts on what happens when we transition from formal education to work and suggest how we as individuals and managers can proactively handle that shift and enable Fulfilling Performance.
The priority shifts from individual to collective success
Once we get a job, our paradigm becomes that we're here to work. And to achieve the goals of our team and the organisation. The objective is no longer solely about our personal development and academic success. In fact, if you reveal yourself to still be a fan of personal development as a grown up, you may find that even your friends think you're a bit weird.
You may be lucky to find yourself in an organisation that's exceptionally clear on its mission and its objectives and that helps you to be clear on where you fit into that. They may even be really dedicated to making sure you get the development and feedback that you need to perform at your highest level and to keep growing every day.
Chances are that you're not in that kind of environment and that a large part of the responsibility for your own development has passed across to you without any formal ceremony. In fact without anyone really mentioning it overtly at all.
When your work is also your passion, you can't help but continuously do things that will result in you developing your capability in your field. This is a huge benefit of finding work you love.
But unless you've already found a professional vocation that grips you and motivates you to continuously improve yourself, your development can very easily slow right down at this point and even stall. If that happens, it isn't great for your employer. But more importantly, it's not great for you.
The pace of change now is faster than it's ever been. And it's accelerating. You simply can't afford for your development to not keep pace with the external environment. If you don't continue to develop your capability you will fall behind.
The manager’s role in enabling Fulfilling Performance
What does this mean for us as managers and as individuals?
As a manager, you need to create clear expectations for your team. They need to know what they're supposed to be doing and why. They need to know how they're doing against those expectations in real time, not during an annual review process.
You need to be helping them to develop their capability. And by that, I mean their knowledge, skills, experience and mindset. And you need to provide the resources for them to execute against their objectives.
You need to develop the same expectation to try new things and develop new skills in your team environment that they would have experienced in their school classroom.
And you need to develop an environment where they feel safe and are encouraged to challenge themselves and do things differently, even if they might not get it right first time.
The individual’s role in enabling Fulfilling Performance
And as individuals, we need to take responsibility for our own development.
We need to work hard to identify the career and life direction we want to go in personally.
We need to know what is expected of us by our organisation and manager. And, if we don't know that, we need to ask repeatedly until we have that clarity.
We need to know how we're doing against those expectations in the eyes of the people who are going to have a say in our future career progression.
We need to identify the knowledge, skills, experience, mindset and resources that are going to get us where we want to go.
We need to do everything we can to equip ourselves to perform at a high level without waiting for our manager or organisation to spoon feed it to us.
We need to be prepared to be uncomfortable, maybe embarrassed, as we learn and practise new things, just like we did every day at school where we considered it normal.
We need to push ourselves in the way that our teachers hopefully did and that our managers unfortunately, may not be as focused on doing because unlike our teachers, that's not their only goal.
And we need to take knowledge and concepts that we learn from books, articles, blogs, podcasts, Ted Talks or wherever and apply them in our work.
If you're fortunate enough to be part of an organisation that does invest in your professional development, and you find yourself benefiting from formal programmes, remember this, the corporate classroom is not Vegas, what happens there must not stay there.
If you want to continue to grow and increase your capability and maintain the value of your contribution in these rapidly changing times, you must take the new ideas and approaches into your workplace and start practising new skills and behaviours.
CAREER-VIEW MIRROR #190
Jean-Luc Cartwright: an eternal car nerd whose initiative, adaptability and ability to lead have propelled him to Lexus, Tesla and now his own classic car business.
Jean-Luc is a Director at Maple House Classic Cars.
His first experience in the motor industry came at the age of 13, working weekends cleaning cars at a Sports Car specialist in Cheshire in the Northwest of England. Jean-Luc describes himself as an eternal car nerd who has been fortunate to work with some of the most forward thinking automotive brands in the world Lexus and Tesla - He is now pursuing a personal passion by looking back to classics with Maple House Classic Cars.
In our conversation we talk about his early experiences, including his father's influence on his engineering mindset. Jean-Luc explains how he secured his role at Lexus and his subsequent transition from Lexus to Tesla, highlighting the culture shock of joining a startup. He emphasises the importance of building rapport and relationships and acknowledges the mentoring he received. He shares how he adapted to his leadership roles in Edinburgh, Dublin, and Newcastle. Jean-Luc's story underscores the value of initiative, adaptability, and the ability to lead and develop teams.
I enjoyed getting to know Jean-Luc better through our conversation and I'm pleased to be able to share his insights. As always, I look forward to hearing what resonates with you.
Listen to the full episode: Apple Podcasts / Buzzsprout / Spotify
Check out the directory of all our guests and episodes on Instagram.
The Aquilae Academy: Guided peer mentoring and coaching for executives, senior leaders and business owners.
[If your email says, “Did not find video”, you can view it here. 57 seconds of me explaining the Academy]
Running a business or holding a senior position in an organisation can be very rewarding. At the same time it can be challenging and even lonely.
There are certain topics we are either unable or uncomfortable to discuss with colleagues no matter how self aware and open we are.
Sometimes it is just not appropriate to discuss an issue with a colleague. Maybe they are the issue!
Our partners and friends may want to listen and help but they may not have relevant experience or be completely independent.
The Aquilae Academy is for senior leaders and business owners who:
acknowledge that they can’t and don’t have to do it alone
value interdependence and
are looking to continue learning and growing with the support of a team of like minded peers
If this sounds like you, contact me and I’ll happily tell you more.
Thank you,
Andy
E: andy@aquilae.co.uk