Is This Really Professional Development?

Unless you've been cruising the galaxy, you have been on this earth for a number of years. No doubt you have had to attend hundreds of meetings, trainings, seminars sessions, and workshops around a variety of work related, career, or personal improvement activities designed to upscale or improve your skill sets, abilities and mindsets. For some of us, these activities are welcome retreats that add value to our day to day and long term professional or personal lives.

"Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential." — John Maxwell

However, one can make an argument that there are many disconnects from what is taught, learned, discussed, or reinforced at many professional development, educational, and skill enhancement trainings or workshops. From an organizational or business perspective what is introduced or taught does not always match how individuals incorporate, view, practice, and apply their new knowledge or skills upgrade. Why the disconnect?

Each year billions of dollars are invested in the name of training. It doesn't matter if the training is for teachers, doctors, soldiers, salespersons, or cashiers, there is always a dynamic of whether the training is worthwhile, valuable, relevant and useful to those participants receiving instruction or enlightenment.

I'm sure that many of you would agree with me that some of the trainings or skill upgrade sessions you have attended would have better served you and your time by being handled with a memo, an email, or phone call.

Having spent many years in the fields of Education and Workforce Development, I can honestly say that most of the professional development trainings I attended were not very impactful or well thought-out. It wasn't because the company, organization or school didn't mean well or intended to deliberately provide subpar instruction or skill upgrade. Unfortunately, they simply had the mindset that their trainings would fit the needs of all who attended. They failed to understand that not every training is for everybody.

Ultimately, they ignored the cardinal rule of all learning: We all learn best in different environments, bring different levels of prior knowledge, bring different levels of experiences, learn in different ways and at different rates which are all impacted by our mental /emotional constructs and mindsets.

So, the idea that a one time or occasional professional development session would offer any kind of long term, sustainable, and useful impact for each learner or participant without considering, planning, and implementation steps for the cardinal rules of learning is a waste of time and money.

Unfortunately, there is a professional development session, training, workshop, or seminar you will attend today, in the next few days, or months from now that will ignore the principles I have just outlined. Consequently, this disconnected cycle will continue highlighted by the reactions of many of us that will range from dread to a resigned acceptance of let's get it over with, so I get back to my real job.

History

As society advanced and constantly moved forward, the demand for skill development or the educational upgrade of employees or staffs continued to increase. Companies, Organizations, Schools, the Military, and other entities had to deal with large numbers of employees having to handle rapid change, skills upgrades, innovations and applications of new knowledge.

To that end, the need for professional development opportunities that would, service the needs of an advancing world and workforce became a prominent factor in the growth and sustainability of any company, organization or school that wanted to consider themselves relevant, sustainable, and thriving.

Thus, various branches of knowledge dissemination and training formats were necessary. While in-person and online workshops, seminars, professional development, professional learning sessions and communities have nuanced elements that separate and distinguish them, they all have at their core a common expectation of results and impact that is supposed to benefit the participants and their companies, organizations, and stakeholders.

From one-on-one training to a person training a small group of individuals, to an entire floor of Learning and Development specialists planning trainings for more than one thousand employees, the task, challenge, and charge is always the same: To provide knowledge, skills, abilities, and relevance that translates into a healthy and positive return on investment for the providers of the trainings as well as its participants.

Why do organizations and individuals continue to struggle to succeed or benefit from professional development or trainings?

Even after multiple trainings facilitated through professional development, many companies, schools, and organizations struggle to see significant gain in the skill levels and abilities of their newly trained employees. What are they doing wrong?

According to www.knowledgecity.com, there are several reasons trainings fail:

1. Lack of Engagement- Someone reading a slide presentation is not professional development or training.
2. Irrelevant Content- "preaching to the choir"- lack of knowledge of the skills sets and abilities the participants already have.
3. Inadequate Planning- One size does not fit all. Professional development and training must not be a two-to-four-hour rush to completion, but it must be based on relevant learning design principles that incorporates all levels and abilities of all types of learners.
4. Failure to get (Effective) Feedback- Filling out survey sheets and dropping them at someone's desk or in a basket is not significant or effective feedback. Real conversations of what went right and wrong; what was effective and useful and what was not should be a part of ongoing weekly feedback gathered through mini-reviews (small groups -twenty - minutes or less) for each professional development or training session. In many cases, staff will speak more freely and honestly in small groups.

"Tell me and I forget, Teach me and I may remember, Involve me and I learn"

If one more closely examines the failures of professional development and other training formats there are significant factors that should be priority concerns in any effort to change or successfully impact the upgrading of the knowledge, skills, and abilities of participants:

Leadership -

Leadership is an action verb not a state of being, leadership is a competition, you against the best version of yourself. Without a leader that seriously considers and emphasizes organizational messaging as well the importance of training and retention, a staff will develop inconsistent levels of commitment to any professional development activities or training.

Leadership or the individual leading an organization, company, or school must see professional development and any commitment to staff improvement as one of the foundational and critical elements to the growth and sustainability of the organization. Too often, many leaders abdicate their leadership and don't imprint the importance, significance, and critical nature of professional development or training on their staff.

Psychological Safety-

Many employees or staff members don't seriously invest in professional development or other training activities because of a lack of psychological safety. Psychological safety demands that everyone has a right to question, challenge, make mistakes, or suggest innovation without the fear of consequences or repercussions.

If employees are not allowed to be heard, feel respected, and appreciated for the knowledge they have, they will attend a professional development or training to keep their jobs but won't seriously invest in the content or retention of the information.

"Free your mind and your A..... will follow."

Funkadelic

Mindset-

Another reason professional development activities don't translate into long term progress, change, or success for many organizations and individuals is that there are often few conversations around how individual staff member goals can or should be merged with organizational goals. What's in it for me? What's in it for the organization or company? How can both win?

Of course, one could argue that the organization or business does not have the luxury of concerning itself with the individual goals or aspirations of its staff, it but must be focused on results and their bottom line. A counterargument would be that without a concern for the dreams, goals or aspirations of the staff, many staff members would lack motivation and a long-term commitment to improving an organization's results or bottom line.

Carol Dweck in her book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" speaks of a "Growth Mindset" as a desired framework for attacking new learning or problem solving from a perspective that those with a high growth mindset:

"Believe that abilities can be developed—they are more likely to see effort as something that propels learning and to see setbacks as opportunities to build new skills."

Because some professional development or other training session participants lack a high growth mindset, they fail to retain or absorb new learning because of apathy and fear. They've made up their minds about any training or professional development before they even attend. Their fear of failure gives them an excuse not to take the training seriously or totally invest in it. Their apathy makes each professional development training or session an unwelcome disruption in their day.

Ultimately, the competing mindsets of organizations and the individuals that work or service their customers or clients must be addressed and mitigated to the extent that opportunities are found or developed that bring more value and reward that embrace the desires, goals, and mental /emotional frameworks of each entity.

The billion-dollar industry of professional development varies in sustainable results and often leaves both participant and provider unequal partners in a dysfunctional relationship.

Until changes are made to instructional design, timing, presentation, and there is a serious investment in the cardinal principles of learning by leadership, there will always be wasted dollars and time as part of professional development disconnects and failures.

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