The Power of Personal Development; How to Grow and Thrive in the Workplace.

In today's fast-paced and changing world, individuals need to be able to learn and adapt continuously. Improving your skills and abilities will increase your performance in your current role. You will also have better career prospects in the future.

In this article, I will describe how Growth happens and how to plan your career path and stay on it. Also, when to focus on developing your strengths vs. weaknesses, and look at a popular development framework.

Growth and the Circle of Expertise

I remember some time back when my mentor, Alex, explained to me visually how Growth occurs. Alex pulled a piece of paper and drew an irregular circle in the middle. Alex explained that inside this circle was my complete skill set, my toolbox, and everything I knew to do quickly and comfortably. Let's call this the Circle of Expertise.

Then Alex drew a point inside that circle representing a task I had to complete. Since that task existed within my current abilities, I could finish the job easily. This is the Performance zone, where our execution is effortless and accurate.

Next, Alex drew a point just outside the Circle of Expertise. Completing this task required new skills I didn't have and had to learn. This is the Learning zone; you must develop a new skill to accomplish this new task. The progress is slow, you make mistakes, and the process is difficult.

Once you complete this new task, your Circle of Expertise expands to include the newly acquired skill. This is how Growth happens. Doing it often increases the size of your toolbox, and you become a better professional.

See the image below. 1) You start with a particular skill set. 2) You receive a new task or a problem you must solve. If you already possess the skill required, you complete it quickly. If you don't have the skill needed, you must acquire it, and Growth occurs. 3) When the execution of the new activity becomes flawless, you incorporate it into your expanded skill set. Next, you are ready to take on new challenges and progress further.

Maximizing Opportunities

What is the best way to maximize the ROI of your growth initiatives? When should you take on challenges, and when should you pass them? After all, not all challenges are the same, and you don't have to take on all of them equally.

The best way to solve new problems and learn from them is when you are not too bored or too challenged and have fun while doing it. If the new task is too easy and sits just outside your Circle of Expertise, the challenge will be minimal, and you will get bored. Upon completion, Growth will be minimal.

But if you take on a problem that is too difficult and extends far beyond your Circle of Expertise, the challenge may be too high, and you may fail. Your Circle of Expertise will not grow, your failure may project a negative light on you, and frustration may set in. You may be afraid to take on additional risks in the future to avoid disappointment.

Let's look at an example of how a project may fail if the challenge is too hard or too easy.

Cleo is a marketing coordinator assigned to build a social media campaign for a new product launch. Cleo doesn't have prior experience in social media marketing and doesn't receive much help from the manager. As a result, Cleo struggles to reach the target audience and generate engagement effectively. This leads to a lack of success for the campaign and failure in the project.

However, let's say Cleo is instead assigned to manage a social media campaign for a product that already has a large and engaged following. In this situation, the campaign runs mostly on cruise control, and it doesn't feel like Cleo adds any value to the project. As a result, learning or growing doesn't occur. This can lead to boredom and a lack of personal development in Cleo's career.

Knowing when to provide the appropriate challenges to your employees is a valuable skill that great managers use appropriately. People have different learning curves and abilities, and you must treat each of them accordingly. With the proper support and guidance in her project, Cleo would've succeeded despite her lack of experience.

Career Growth Path

All of us are unique in our ways, as we have different motivations, abilities, and desires. Some of us are highly motivated for success and willing to make sacrifices for achievement, while others are satisfied with having a regular job. Some experience early success, some late. None of these options are objectively good or bad but subjectively fit well to each individual, and because of this, everyone's career path may look different.

Below are a few versions of typical career paths. Some people settle into a Job without a need for a Career and are content with an easy job without progression and learning (4). In contrast, others push hard, have a higher-than-average drive, reach their full potential, and experience early success (1). Others may have an average career (3). And others, after experiencing early success, are content where they are and slow down later in their career, even experiencing a relative drop in their contributions late in their careers (2).

Most of us have a Growth Mindset and aim to maximize our career growth and reach our full potential. We want to do our best. To reach our full potential, we must push our career path as high as possible, expand our Circle of Expertise, and learn & perform to the extent of our abilities. If/ when learning stops, our careers will plateau, and decline will inevitably follow.

Don't Stagnate. Take on New Challenges

Growth is not consistent; progress is not linear in your career. You will likely see periods of significant development when you work from your Learning zone and push the hardest, followed by relative stabilization and slow Growth when you focus more on the Performance zone and apply what you have previously learned.

The key is continuously challenging yourself and building on your previous successes, moving from strength to strength. Once you have topped a challenge, compound your Growth and jump on to the next one. And if you feel your Growth slows, find a new development path. If you sit within your comfort zone and prioritize Performance over Learning, your career will plateau, performance will level, and you will experience relative stagnation.

How to Choose Your Growing Opportunities

As I mentioned earlier, the most effective way to learn something new is when you are not bored, the task is not too challenging, and you are having fun. But you don't always have the luxury to learn only things you enjoy doing. Most of the time, learning is uncomfortable and demanding.

When making a development plan, start with the low-hanging fruits and choose the things you like doing and are passionate about. For the few lucky (or wise) ones, you may figure out a way to make a career out of your Vocation and only do things you enjoy. For the rest of us, we will have to push through the discomfort and develop the tools most likely to enhance our careers.

Exploring Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Understanding your strengths and weaknesses is essential to personal development and Growth. But which ones should you focus on more? Should you work on improving your strengths or your weaknesses? I believe you have to pay more attention to your strengths.

Success in your career will be determined, for the most part, by your strengths, not your weaknesses. What you are good at will set up apart from your competition and thrust you forward. In general, getting better at what you are already good at is the way to go.

However, you must be aware of potential critical weaknesses that can hold you back or hinder your success. These may be skills or abilities required for your job. Or there may be broader abilities needed to succeed in various professions.

For example, if you are trying to advance in your career, a weakness in communication skills might hold you back. Or improving your Impression Management would be beneficial for you.

Also, remember that working on your strengths is easier as you enjoy the learning process, bringing you a sense of satisfaction and happiness and keeping you more motivated. Likewise, doing something you don't like can be draining and demoralizing. It can also lead to feelings of frustration and resentment.

What if somebody with a magic wand would mysteriously appear one day and gave you a choice to instantly improve a single ability one step, either from bad to mediocre or from good to very good? Which would you choose?

It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than to improve from first-rate Performance to Excellence.

Peter Drucker

70-20-10 Learning Framework

What are the optimal sources of learning? In the 1980s, Morgan McCall, Michael M. Lombardo, and Robert A. Eichinger created the 70-20-10 framework. It states that we acquire 70% of our knowledge from job-related experiences, such as projects, assignments, and problem-solving, 20% from interacting with others, such as mentors, colleagues, and networking events, and 10% from formal education, such as courses, workshops, and seminars.

Go ahead and do an exercise, pick something that you are good at and think about how you have acquired that knowledge.

This is true for most of our knowledge; this concept even applies to our entire careers. If you work in Finance, Marketing, or Sales, how much have you learned in school, from your peers, and from hands-on work?

Consider this concept when approaching a new learning opportunity. Complete the required courses and classes but be ready to do the actual work right away, asking your peers for advice when necessary.

Do you want to become a better public speaker? Go ahead and read books on the subject, attend a class, and ask others for advice, but you won't improve much until you start talking in front of others. Do it in front of your colleagues first and ask for guidance; then, to take learning to the next level, do it more often in front of strangers.

Do you want to run a marathon? First, choose a training plan, purchase running equipment, and ask for advice from others who have completed a marathon. However, you will become a better runner only when you start running.

Conclusion

By investing in our professional Growth, we can succeed in our current roles and position ourselves for long-term career success. For this to happen, we must prioritize our development and seek opportunities aligned with our goals and interests.

Some of the most valuable skills you can develop are knowing what you need to learn and when to learn it, translating your knowledge into action, and performing at your peak. Be open-minded, and you will accomplish everything with the right mindset and effort. You can become everything you want to be with the proper focus.

Once you expand your skill set and grow your areas of expertise, you will become an expanded version of yourself, better prepared to meet the current challenges in your job and ready to take on new ones. When you move from strength to strength, new opportunities will become available, new jobs reachable, and new goals achievable. It will look like everything has changed around you. However, the only thing that changed was yourself.