Take Charge of Your Learning

There’s an important truism regarding your professional life that you should always keep in mind:

This is not to say that no one else cares at all. Most companies want you to do well, and should recognize the value of training and other development opportunities. Many companies appreciate the boost in employee engagement and retention that comes from a learning culture. There are a lot of good bosses out there who want you to perform well. But they have more to worry about than just your career.

A recent article from the Harvard Business Review suggests what you should do “if your company doesn’t care about” your professional development. The advice is that, in that case, you should take matters into your own hands and take control of your own development. But even if your company DOES care – even if you have a mentor, even if your Learning & Development team is winning awards – they will never care as much as you do.

Six tips that emerge from the article include:

• Understand what you’re evaluated on
• Solve for your own blind spots
• Codify your learnings
• Increase your visibility with the C-suite
• Become an expert in an area of increasing importance to your company
• Seek good counsel and mentoring

Let’s face it: before you go asking your employer to provide you with great development opportunities, you need to show that you’re interested in taking advantage of them. Put the effort in before expecting others to do so, and the return can be exponentially great.