Professional Development

I rarely post about this sort of thing…. mostly because I’m too busy doing “keeping my blog focused” – yeah right – Really it’s because I don’t have anything insightful to say. I have had lots of success but haven’t spent a lot of time turning that around into how I can help other people be more successful. One blogger I read does though!! J.D. Meier is an MS blogger and posts on a variety of topics… including some posts on how to improve yourself, your person effectiveness, and your career. A post from the weekend has a great list of questions that you should ask yourself on a semi-regular basis (I would say every 6 months)…

For the full write up go check out J.D.’s blog

Improvement Frame

Area	Prompts
Thinking / Feeling	Do you find your work rewarding? Are you passionate about what you do? Are you spending more time feeling good? What thoughts dominate your mind now? Is your general outlook more positive or negative? Do you have more energy or less in general? Are you still worried about the same things? Are you excited about anything? Have you changed your self-talk from inner-critic to coach?
Situation	Are you spending more time working on what you enjoy? What would you rather be spending more time doing? Do you have the manager you want? Do you have the job you want? Are you moving toward or away from your career goals? If your situation was never going to change, what one skill would you need to make the most of it?
Time / Task Management	Are you driving your day or being driven? Are you spending less time on administration? Are you getting your “MUSTs” done? Are you dropping the ball on anything important? Do you have a task management system you trust? Are you avoiding using your head as a collection point? How are you avoiding biting off more than you can chew? How are you delivering incremental value?
Domain Knowledge	Have you learned new skills? Have you sharpened your key strengths? Have you reduced your key liabilities? What are you the go-to person for? What could you learn that would make your more valuable to your team?
Strategies / Approaches	What are you approaching differently than the past? How are you more resourceful? How are you finding lessons in everything you do? How are you learning from everybody that you can? How are you improving your effectiveness? How are you modeling the success of others? How are you tailoring advice to make it work for you?
Relationships	Are you managing up effectively? Are your priorities in sync with your manager’s? Has your support network grown or shrunk? How are you participating in new circles of influence? How are you spending more time with people that catalyze you? How are you working more effectively with people that drain you? How are you leveraging more mentors and area specific coaches?

UPDATE: 08/17/2007: Here is an interesting tool from some of the guys in the EMC MS Practice. Kind of a SUPER short version of the above (I guess the short version is better for people with less time?)…