Take a look at the professional development story you currently tell. First, there’s your job title, pay grade, level of education, and generation. Next, look at your resume and LinkedIn profile. Also, what is the story behind the actions, behaviors and professional mindset you carry into the virtual workplace each day?
Do you tell a professional development story about being change-resistant? Or, does your story showcase being professionally comfortable within continuously-changing business contexts?
If there is one lesson we learn and re-learn each day, that lesson is about Change. Because continuous change continues to be our professional constant. And Change has been our professional constant for the last 10 years. Because right around that time, the plate tectonics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution crashed into Third Industrial Revolution business and hiring models. That is where we still find ourselves, Today.
Consider how the interconnected software and hardware environments in your workplaces are built to handle continuous change. Yet, your professional development strategies often tell the world a different story. What is the professional story you tell?
Yearning for the Next Normal to replicate the workplace you left in March? Consider that a Next Normal Professional Development Strategy perceives Continuous Change as “normal.”
That thought is completely overwhelming, isn’t it? Like running a marathon race where the finish line keeps moving further away, the closer we get.
Take a moment. There are 42,195,000 millimeters in a professional change marathon race. Each day, the choice I ask each of you to make is the same choice I make. Move one millimeter beyond what is professionally comfortable, Today. To get to where you need to go, tomorrow. Together.
On September 29, 2020, I’ll present my keynote “Build Trust. Your Purpose-Driven Story is the Key to Professional Innovation” at PMI Minnesota’s Virtual Professional Development Day 2020. Create a professional development strategy to become more professionally visible, cross-functionally relevant and strategically valuable within The Project Economy ecosystem. To register, follow this link: https://join-us.pmi-mn.org/PMI-MN-Events/PDD/PMIMNEvents/PDD/2020/2020-PDD.aspx?hkey=0f451210-b74d-467b-873a-bb603c23d02c .
Ready to take your next one millimeter step forward and create your own professional development strategy and story which leverages, rather than resists, change? Then contact me here and set up a time to discuss your current story. Let’s get to where do you really need to go next. Together.
Babette Ten Haken is a card-carrying STEM professional and left-brain thinker specializing in cross-functional leadership, new product development and professional innovation. She leverages Voice of the Customer Market Research and Design-Driven Storytelling to translate across strategic communication and collaboration disconnects between people and professional disciplines. Her One Millimeter Mindset™ virtual and in-person speaking programs get everyone to where they need to go, together: one millimeter at a time. Build trust. Retain employees and clients. Her playbook of cross-functional tools, Do YOU Mean Business?is available on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here.
Image source: Adobe Stock
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