Monday, March 9, 2009

Economic Downturn and Professional Development

By Pamela Jett

At first glance, the phrases "economic downturn" and "professional development" likely don't seem very congruent. However, I see it differently. I believe it is extraordinarily important during an economic downturn for individuals and organizations to be committed to professional development. The challenge is that during an economic downturn, many organizations and individuals may believe that professional development is a luxury they just cannot afford.

Knowledge is power and the more we know the better decisions we typically make, the quicker we are able to solve problems, the more creative we can be in thinking of ways to stimulate the bottom line. I believe there are really only two ways to gain knowledge.

One way to gain knowledge is in the "school of hard knocks". By that I mean learning things through experimentation, through trial and error, by making things up as we go along (anyone currently enrolled?) While there is nothing wrong with learning from our own mistakes and experiences (in fact, some would argue, and I would agree, that there really is no such thing as failure unless we fail to learn) the "school of hard knocks" does come with a hefty tuition bill. We can make expensive mistakes, engage in career damaging decisions, and pay a hefty price in terms of our professional reputation and opportunity cost. All this is in addition to the actual "cost" (money, customer loyalty, etc...) a mistake or an error might incur. In challenging economic times, regardless of your current job status, can you really afford to learn things the hard way? I doubt it. I know that I can't.

Which is why I am a HUGE advocate of the second way to learn things - through the knowledge, experience, and advice of others. I want to proactively tap into the resources that are available to me to help me get results without having to experience a steep learning curve. I genuinely believe this approach will help me work smarter. I will gladly part with some of my hard earned resources and my time to attend a workshop, listen to a podcast, or read a book if the end result is that I am able to put into practice tools that will bring more value to my customers or organization. I can't afford to make a foolish error simply because I was neglecting my professional development and thought that attending a workshop was a luxury I couldn't afford. I look at professional development as something I can't afford to neglect at this time.

So, I've been attending workshops, meetings, conventions, listening to audios, reading books, and tapping into mentors like at no other time in my professional career. Yes, some of this costs money. Yes, it all takes my valuable time (opportunity cost.) And yes, I am confident I will see a return on my investment.

My question to you is, what are you doing today to make yourself more valuable to your employer or customer tomorrow? Are you actively acquiring new knowledge? Are you proactively seeking new information to help you solve problems and grow the bottom line? Are you focusing on fear or are you focusing on opportunity? Are you spending your valuable time and cognitive processes bemoaning the economy or are you accepting that we live in challenging times and focusing your energy and efforts on improving yourself?

If you could take every second, every minute, every hour of the last 30 days that you've spent discussing economic problems, listening to pundits repeat the bad news and point fingers and added them all up, how much time and energy would that be? How much more fruitful would that time be if spent on professional development? In challenging economic times, professional development is one luxury in which we can't afford not to indulge.

Pamela Jett is a professional speaker who teaches remarkable communication skills for remarkable results to professionals around the world. She can be found at http://www.jettct.com/ . If you are interested in booking Pamela to speak at your organization or event, call Aimee at 866.726.5388. You can also follow Pamela on Twitter or join her on Facebook.