In honour of the transition that is leaving 2013 behind and embracing 2014, I took a moment to reflect on the lessons I've learnt from my boss, Louise Worsley, over the past year.
At the start of every year; decide how you are going to invest in your personal development that year. Pick one course to attend/tool to master/challenge to overcome and invest in it - invest financially, with your time, with your mind and develop your capability.
Communicate, share ideas, work through challenges together, learn from the experiences of others, create a culture of investment in and connection to the work being done - this ultimately leads to greater commitment to work and a healthy team culture.
Want your team or superior to embrace your new idea/opinion/insight? Tell a story. When people listen to stories the part of their brain that empathises lights up, in other words they put themselves in your shoes and start to own the story. Don't be surprised if you suddenly hear your idea/opinion/insight repeated in the corridors, and if someone takes it as their own? Well, that just could be true influence in action.
If you want to develop to a point where your instinctual decisions are the right ones, then you need to engage in more information sharing and less training, more decision-making exercises and less process learning, more story sharing and less lessons learned reports, more conversations with experts and less show and tell. Look at your/your teams development differently, engage, aim long-term don't just tick boxes.
May your 2014 be one where you find yourself managing situations with greater wisdom, growing in capability, confronting challenges with relish and leaping forward both personally and professionally.
