What is the gap between your capability and your desired results?

The research is pretty clear – personal growth and development are key factors in creating engagement on the job.

If we are lucky, we have a job situation where continuous learning and development is built into the culture. But in my experience, this is definitely not always the case.

So if no one else is looking out for your growth and development then maybe you should take it into your own hands – if not you, who else?

In order for us to develop and grow as human beings – and managers – some forms of learning probably need to take place.

But what does it mean to learn?

One definition that I like is this one:

“To learn is to increase your capacity to accomplish the results that you desire.”

Think about that for a moment.

What does it take for us to learn then?

For learning actually to happen, there must be a gap between your current capability and the results that you desire.

This makes it all a bit trickier. Because that means that in order for learning to actually take place, you will need to:

• have an awareness of the the gap
• be willing to declare your incompetence (at least to yourself)
• commit to learning

So your first step here is to start the search for appropriate gaps between current capability and desired performance.

There are several ways to start thinking about this. But let’s start with the very big picture – and draw a 2×2 matrix.

On one axis, we have you as an individual versus the organisation; On the other, we have the internal vs the external perspective.

This then gives us four large areas to choose from:

1) My internal drive, attitudes and motivation. How I choose to see and understand the world – This will, to a very large extent, determine how the world responds to me.

2) How I relate and connect to people around me – Strong interpersonal dynamic is a key to succeeding in any kind of managerial role.

3) My knowledge of an ability to shape the culture that I am part of – Culture eats strategy for breakfast remember.

4) My understating of an ability to influence the myriad of external stakeholders , customers, supplier, partners etc.

So take a moment now to reflect.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your achievements in each of these four overall areas? Where do you see a gap between your current capability and the results that you desire?

I leave you with these thoughts for now – next week, we will continue our exploration of how we can take responsibility for our own growth and development.

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If you have the curiosity to take a deeper dive into the subject of how we produce engagement on our teams, you are welcome to download my ebook Understanding Engagement.

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In this brief e-book, we will look at how the lack of engagement is to a large extent a function of leadership. And that if we really want to change the engagement levels on our teams, we will need to make radical shift in how we understand the world of work. The shift is all about moving from a transactional mindset to a transformational mindset. We will look into what that means, how it can help you as a manager and why it is so important.