By now you may have found a personal mentor but have you found the time to sit down with him, or even just yourself, to seriously discuss your own personal development plan?

You’re going to spend a ton of time helping your team mates and employees formulate personal development plans to enhance their own careers, and you shouldn’t let your own fall through the cracks. Here are a few things you need to consider when brainstorming your plan:

What are your ultimate goals? Where do you want your career path to take you?

How will you achieve your goals? Do you need to obtain additional training or start working on new projects in order to reach those goals?

How will you evaluate your progress? Will your own manager or mentor monitor you and hold you accountable for your level of success?

Remember, setting goals for the development of your management skills and career is a personal task. Take the project seriously. Come up with your own ideas as opposed to using a generic list of “goals” you’ve found on the internet or on another training website.

Your own supervisors, peers, and even your subordinates may have valuable suggestions for you to use in developing your personal development plan. Make sure you ask for their help or, better yet, make creating a personal development plan into a group project so that you can all help each other at the same time!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

When I first started out as a manager I found myself spending hours upon hours coaching and training my employees, but at the time I had poor time management skills and wasn’t making enough time for my own personal growth. I quickly realized that if I was going to continue to grow I was going to have to find a mentor, but doing so was easier said than done.

At first, I was frustrated because I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. After a bit of self-reflection I realized that finding a mentor, or even multiple mentors, didn’t have to be as difficult as I was making it out to be. Here are a few things I learned along the way:

You want to find a mentor with a similar personality to yours. You’ll want to learn from someone you can get along with, so look for a mentor with a similar (or better) work ethic and personality.

It’s ok to ask your coworkers and peers for help. Those you work with may have already been through the process of searching for a mentor, and there is no reason to be ashamed to ask for help with your own search. Even if they haven’t found the need for a mentor, your peers may know someone they consider an excellent resource or teacher. Ask for referrals and introductions, if necessary.

I’ve already had mentors and didn’t realise it. I am willing to bet that you’ve had a personal or professional relationship with someone, at some point in your life, in which that person acted as a mentor. He may have helped you in school, coached you through sports, or helped you find your first job. Do you still have a relationship with this person; and can he or she still help you?

There are a myriad of places you can look for a good mentor. Don’t forget to consider more experienced peers, upper management, and online forums. Businesspersons from any field of work, not limited to your own, are also great sources of information and mentorship.

Remember, you can’t grow your career without networking and continuing your education. A good mentor will be a valuable source of information and guidance. Do any of you have mentors already? If so, how do you feel they’ve helped you with your career?

Thanks again,

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

In this blog I am going to cover a subject that is close to many of our hearts!

………the Development Plan!

Yes, we have set our objectives and now it is time to put together a development plan of the activities and skills that we need to improve upon and how we can achieve them
throughout the next review period……and that’s when a lot of our minds go blank!

Sure we know what skills we need help on and what we need to improve but HOW is the question!

Many managers just think that by placing you on a course that it will do the trick - believe me I have seen many people attend our public open courses who were "TOLD" that they needed to attend by their manager!

Whilst management training is my livelihood and it keeps my wife in GUCCI and PRADA (she wishes! well, ok,  Marks and Spencers and Next then!) there are other ways to help your development.

Training is an excellent vehicle to learn new skills in a safe environment, there is simply no other activity to match it - but I would say that wouldn’t I!

But what I am saying is that attending a training course is not the be all and end all of your development.

Next time when you are putting your development plan together, sure, include training courses in there but also think of some of these development activities that you could include as well:

Coaching (internal and external)
CD Roms
Computer Based Training (CBT)
Role Plays
Observation
Simulations
Feedback from others
Shadowing
Mentoring from others at least 2 positions higher than you are
Books
Action Learning Sets
Questionnaires
Leadership & Management development programmes
Taking on roles within your team
Taking some of your managers work on
Team building days
Cross training
Multi skilling
Job rotation
Job swapping

I hope this helps you?

Sean

MTD Training - The Management Training Company