Work has given me the opportunity to undertake some additional PD; not normally my thing but having looked I have been surprised whats available. I have settled on; Essential Management Skills, Emotional Intellegence for Business and Improving Professional Confidence. Thing is I now need to justify what this will bring to me and the organisation!

Anyone got experience, hints, tips, useful phrases……… full well formed paragraphs 🙂

Not being funny, if you don’t know how to justify why these will be useful to your job then they probably won’t be.
If any of my lot came up with a half assed reason then they would be unlikely to get it, however if it is actually relevant then you will already know why and be able to justify

Just do your job. No matter what they tell you you’re doing, you’re still just doing your job. Just **** a.ll of that shit and then **** it again imho

If we all just carried on ‘doing our day job’ then we wouldn’t get any better at anything.

where do you see yourself in 5 years? Do you see yourself as a manager and believe that their are skills that you lack? etc

Most managers lack management skills and even good ones would benefit from formal training.

The notion that training is only for new skills seems to be one applied to business regularly, yet most people wouldn’t think twice if it were a sport.

Hard to provide you with justifications but think about what it means for the business. Can better management of your team increase productivity? Could they have less absence days because you can help them better manage workload (and thus stress)? Could you identify and deal with performance issues more quickly?

Get your job description out, get the one of the available promotions from your position. Make a list of what skills you lack a d work from there. What do your reviews say?

Anything to do with how to build relationships and communicate properly with your colleagues. Especially the maturity to put the organisation’s needs before your own.

IME a small increase amongst any workforce in the ability to do these things would make the UK immeasurably more successful and economically productive. My nephews and Godsons (aged between 7 and 11) are more mature than most of the managers in my current workplace. Seriously…

Is there the option to do a coaching course? Even if you don’t want to be a coach it will help you be a better listener and more able to understand other peoples’ perspectives

Also read Steven Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People…

Thing is I now need to justify what this will bring to me and the organisation!

IMO, you’re asking yourself the wrong question here. Why not ask yourself what you can do which will add value to your colleagues and direct reports? (They’re real people with feelings, needs and humanity whereas ‘the organisation’ is a legal entity/artificial construct)

Have done quite a few of tehse and always get something out of them. Sometimes just a few things, sometimes a lot. Found many useful in my personal life too.

Go in with an open mind, absorb and think about what you’ve been told.

I’ve had shed loads of training thru my work – 90% of it utter bollox and completely useless. Unfortunately I have to do a significant amount to keep up my registration so I have to continue

Hopefully yours will be better but I doubt it

Especially the maturity to put the organisation’s needs before your own.

Do people really think like this ?

Hardly suprising there are so many people F&%¤ up by work.

Work hard, learn, take advantage of opportunities that work can offer,

But be clear on one thing No organisation gives a Damn about you as person, whatever HR might say.

Work hard, learn, take advantage of opportunities that work can offer,

But be clear on one thing No organisation gives a Damn about you as person, whatever HR might say.
Well I fear you don’t work for the right people. I know plenty that do and will bend over backwards for employees. Sometimes people also need to recognise that their needs to be somebody to employee you, that may mean you can’t have everything you want for a bit.

The emotional intelligence one sounds interesting – can you share the company that runs it?

I’m looking to do something similar this year; nlp, listening, behavioural stuff.

Are you self employeed 🙂

Yes comapanies do appear to bend over backwards to help people, but in the majority of cases it is to conform to regulations set by government.

My employers are actually very good, and indeed have just helped me out with a problem I was having, perhaps I was a little harsh on employers, however I have seen many many people in my industry be sucked in and chewed up because they are putting the company before themselves and their family.

My two most valuable courses have been

ILM level 5 in Leadership
Public speaking

I have also completed Nebosh recently, which if you have any H&S role is very useful.

Do you have a review process?

You could go back to your previous reviews and look for any improvements or areas to work on.

Essential Management Skills: As pointed out above… not something most organisations often tackle… many managers get promoted without specific skill training.. so this should be fairly easy …
If you have direct reports you can increase their efficiency .. even if you don’t have specific direct reports you can manage tasks, projects etc. more efficiently and have happier (and more efficient) colleagues…

Mention better and clearer communication (both up and down)… better ability to delegate – inspiration of colleagues and more effective leadership

I’d try and proportion into 3 about benefit to you, benefit to company and benefit to reports/colleagues

Emotional Intelligence for Business: A bit harder from the title alone and could overlap the above: Don’t see anything wrong with that… you could word it as approaching effective management from a different perspective.

You could say something like: Understanding what managers/reports/clients are really asking? More effective communication and influencing?

Improving Professional Confidence – I’m struggling a bit as it seems hard to justify without saying you might be crap … but you might use this as a wrapper for the other two and make it about management confidence?

What sort of justification do you need? Are they asking for a paragraph of so or bullet points?

*does the little ‘smug contractor who doesn’t have to worry about this bollocks’ dance* 😉

What IHN said 😉

I’ve had shed loads of training thru my work – 90% of it utter bollox and completely useless

+1

Training courses are worse than long haul flights, at least on a flight you can go to sleep or listen to music.

I just teach myself new stuff using Google as my text book….

How do you feel those courses are going to address gaps in your current skillset/capability?

Try to write that down with a positive spin.

Training courses are worse than long haul flights, at least on a flight you can go to sleep or listen to music.

I just teach myself new stuff using Google as my text book….
How does Google feedback to you? How does it address the weaknesses you have but don’t acknowledge?

OK so in the spirit of being helpful rather than disruptive here are some suggestions assuming you are either currently a manager or aspiring to be a manager of people.

Essential Management Skills – this should pretty much do what it says on the tin so: Essential Management skills will support me in understanding and practicing the key skills expected of me in a management role thus allowing me to be more proficient in my role. ** if you can focus on something that you have been struggling with that would be great.

Emotional Intellegence for Business – this is something that is actually pretty useful so shouldn’t be ignored. so: My intention with attending the Emotional intelligence course it that I would like to be able to better understand both myself and others, their behaviours and reactions in order to improve my performance as a manager and my ability to both say the correct things and manage more challenging interpersonal situations effectively, professionally and without causing unnecessary offence.

Improving Professional Confidence – who wouldn’t want this. I would like to improve my confidence to support me in …… * you can make this bit up for yourself.

Hope this helps.

The single most determinant factor in the success or value of any professional development programme(in any spehere) is the willingness of the individual to learn.

Without that, there isn’t any content or material that will make any difference to that person’s performance.

It’s also true, that there is a strong correlation between performance and a willingness to learn and those that aren’t willing to improve are also the people who typically under perform and who you ideally need to manage out of the business.

I’m very proud of the fact that the professional development programmes the company I work for provides to large companies (and which I am responsible for selling) usually generate a measured ROI of around 400-500%.

How does Google feedback to you? How does it address the weaknesses you have but don’t acknowledge?

No different to any course / class. You don’t know what the real strengths / weaknesses are in your skill set are until you apply it in the real world, and then the real world provides copious feedback (although you have to be receptive to notice it).

You get feedback every single day to everything you say or do…

You don’t know what the real strengths / weaknesses are in your skill set are until you apply it in the real world

This.

I can’t quite work out why you have such a negative feeling towards professional development in general, but such an open and positive mind towards it when you’re the one driving it.

Actually maybe that is the reason.

I can’t quite work out why you have such a negative feeling towards professional development in general, but such an open and positive mind towards it when you’re the one driving it.

If that was intended for me then it’s because I value my time and hate wasting it. I’ll happily pay for one on one lessons eg skiing as its the most efficient way to improve and none of my time is wasted. Sitting in a PDP class, with a diverse range of people, is my idea of hell on earth, as it’s such an inefficient process.

If that was intended for me then it’s because I value my time and hate wasting it. I’ll happily pay for one on one lessons eg skiing as its the most efficient way to improve and none of my time is wasted. Sitting in a PDP class, with a diverse range of people, is my idea of hell on earth, as it’s such an inefficient process.

Yes I quite understand your point of view (and yes it was intended for you).

You’re identifying the weakness of generic or even ‘open enrolment’ programmes, where you attend a programme with people from other companies.

I call it ‘learning congruence’; if the class you’re in doesn’t immediately feel 100% tailored to your needs and your experience of your job (and can show you how to apply it so that it makes a difference), then the learning impact will be immediately reduced.

FWIW, you can have classroom based learning that doesn’t feel negative but it’s much more expensive to deliver.

Hi all, just wanted to say a big genuine thanks for all the input, particular thanks to shortcut, I appreciate the assistance.

Paulneenan76 – emotional intelligence is through Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, thinking others CC’s likely to do similar courses.

+1

allthepies – Member

IHN said » *does the little ‘smug contractor who doesn’t have to worry about this bollocks’ dance*

+1[/quote]
Yeah them suckers getting paid to do free training and personal/professional development, especially when they get a choice as to what to do. What a bunch of losers, bet they would much rather spend their own time and money doing that.

Most managers lack management skills and even good ones would benefit from formal training.

+ 1 for this. Management skills should come naturally IMO though.

We have SPDR’s (Staff Personal Developement Records) in the prison service.

Complete bullshit & a waste of time & resources.

I find when I attend courses often the most valuable bits are talking to the other attendees in the breaks about their companies and why they are on the course. Often they have the same problems at work that I’m having so can share what’s worked / not worked for us.

My next course is finance for non finance managers. Need to understand better the numbers that are driving the business, unlikely to be a massively exciting one but should be useful learning I can apply immediately.

The Emporer’s New Clothes.

sounds like you work in O&G also lunar ?

it was submit year goals and career plans dead line yesterday for us ….

i gave it a little of what the manager wants me to achieve (and i have no intentions of going near) and then moved into – how about this this and this so i can do my job safely and comprehensively with the paperwork to back it up rather than by the seat of my pants with informal non recorded training that i have had .

will find out monday how that went …… costs money so i dont see it happening.

+ 1 for this. Management skills should come naturally IMO though.

Do you mean management or leadership?

There is evidence that leadership (which is distinct from ‘management’) is correlated to hardwired or inherited behavioural characteristics, i.e. personality but the correlation coeffecient is only about 0.2-0.3 so it’s a pretty weak indicator of likely leadership performance.

Most strong leadership is the result of a combination of personality with other factors that includes experience, specifically have you had the opporutnity to informally act as a leader, the desire to be a leader (motivation) and your cognitive ability i.e. intelligence.

You can teach people how to be better leaders using the Kolb model which is an approach to learning that combines real world experience with critical reflection, abstract theory and then pracitcal application.

It’s hard to provide professional development in this way if what you’re offering people is a generic ‘all welcome’ classroom based event or a pure e-learning package.

mikewsmith – Member

allthepies – Member

IHN said » *does the little ‘smug contractor who doesn’t have to worry about this bollocks’ dance*

+1[/quote]

Yeah them suckers getting paid to do free training and personal/professional development, especially when they get a choice as to what to do. What a bunch of losers, bet they would much rather spend their own time and money doing that.[/quote]

Oh shut up, smartarse 🙂

IHN said » *does the little ‘smug contractor who doesn’t have to worry about this bollocks’ dance*

I’d be really wary about being too complacent and adopting that attitude too freely. Whether you like it or not, agree or disagree, this is the best way to end up in your mid 50s with no one wanting to employ you in any capacity and on the ‘scrap heap’.

That lack of emotional intelligence, empathy, awareness and ability to critically reflect on how you impact on and interact with, people around you might have worked even as recently as 20 years ago but it’s a dinosaur of a model now and unless you manage to pull yourself up into the very upper echelons of senior management in a large corporate, you’re going to be very exposed in the future.

It’s a mode of thinking and behaviour that typifies the worst stereotypes of alpha male behaviour; its aggressive, patronising, egocentric and also regarded as a prime example of chauvinism and patriarchy at work. Our model of business is, thankfully, changing not least as a result of the work place becoming increasingly diverse, especially as more women enter mid and higher levels of management and the dominant thinking and thought processes begin to change. Businesses will continue the trend of valuing people who are able to critically reflect on their behaviour and skill sets and adapt them accordingly. That might seem ‘fluffy’ to a lot of you but you’re going to ignore it at your won cost.

especially as more women enter mid and higher levels of management

I work in Engineering:

1. women in the workplace is still a theoretical concept…..

2. 95% of employees are on the Autistic spectrum, some are so far off the spectrum it’s unreal*

* one key skill to learn is who not to speak to, you can really ruin someones day by saying ‘good morning’ to them and then inducing a panic attack where they work out how to cope with this massive invasion into their personal space.

2. 95% of employees are on the Autistic spectrum, some are so far off the spectrum it’s unreal*

That might mildly amusing if it were not almost certainl true!