Reflecting to Avoid Mistakes

Overcome the mistakes Learning and Development professionals make.

I try to remain sensitive to how well I am managing myself as a Learning and Development professional.  It is easy to become complacent when we are busy with projects or our jobs seem secure and we are having success.  But that can be the best time to stop and reflect on where we are on our timeline and how well we are truly serving ourselves and others.  I have used this self assessment exercise before and it still works.

   

Rate yourself in the following areas

1 -poor       3 -fair      5-excellent

How well do you adequately define your unique qualities in terms of capabilities and credibility in blogs, Linkedin, or sites with professional profiles? 

How well have you precisely defined who prospective clients are, both internal and external? Key Decision Makers (KDM)?  Key Decision Influencers (KDI)?

How well do you market services and products?

How well do you focus on relationships marketing?

How well do you create and maintain successful relationships with KDMs and KDIs?

How well are you perceived as an authority in the field?  Here’s how:

·      Write!  Start with small articles for monthly newsletters for local professional groups.  Send copies of published work to other organizations.  Put articles together for publication in national journals or magazines. 

·      Speak!  Speak at local professional groups and conferences. 

·      Get involved!   Join professional organizations such as SHRM, ASTD, and ISPI.  Become an officer or get involved in activities.

How well do you write winning proposals. 

·       Build rapport with internal and external clients

·       Understand client objectives and budgets

·       Define the scope of the work.  A major cause of client dissatisfaction.  Be precise about the scope and terms of the assignment and commit it to paper.

·       Cover all work performed with an agreement.  Document the scope of work, schedules, and deliverables.

Remember to restrict available time to 50% or less on any one client.  More than this takes away flexibility to adapt to current and new clients.

Try to devote 15% of time to marketing all the time. Even if you only work inside your organization, you need to market yourself.

Always give special treatment to old clients.   Return phone calls, visit them, etc…

Finally, review your values and principles from time to time.  Are they still real?  Do you consider them in all that you do?  If you do not have any, here are some I have lived by

Be myself, sincere and truthful - No one likes to hire some who appears anxious

Respect the value of each person - Listen and consider carefully

Analyze the gaps - Look for larger problems, not symptoms

Understand the limits of my ability to change others - Don’t oversell myself

Have a plan - Change takes time

Change the people processes before you change the business processes

Set priorities and have only a few at one time

Laugh at the ridiculous