March 2023

A Note From Rene’

Spring is in the air…or at least it was! I hope that wherever this newsletter finds you, that you’re looking out your window and starting to see signs of new growth and new life.

The articles I’ve chosen to share this month are about growth and professional development, for both staff members and leaders. We all need to continue to challenge ourselves to learn something new every day. I like to think of myself as a forever learner, do you?

In a conversation with a client the other day, we talked about complacency. In my opinion, it is a disease that can spread quickly. Resistance to learning new things is a form of complacency. I hope you will be inspired to keep challenging yourselves and your teams each and every day.

If we haven’t chatted in a while, please drop me a line to let me know what’s happening in your world.

Kind Regards,
René

How to Help Your Team Learn in the Flow of Work

When we ask teams across different companies and geographies how often they’re learning at work, they typically respond with “occasionally” and “infrequently.” And when we ask what that learning looks like, the answer is often “when I took a course.”

For many people, learning is still seen as something formal, structured, and scheduled — owned by organizations and delivered by experts. But in a work context characterized by complexity and uncertainty, it’s a dangerous strategy to limit learning to something that’s separate from our day jobs.

You Don’t Need to Be “the Boss” to Be a Leader

To become an influential person at work, we’re often told we must rise through the ranks or collect a series of fancy credentials. But this is a big misconception.

Most people don’t identify as a “leader” unless it’s written into their role, despite the fact that leadership is a skill, not a title. Over the years, through my work as a leadership consultant working in the trenches with companies in nearly every sector, I’ve seen hundreds of early career professionals and individual contributors project more influence than their own managers. The best leaders don’t wait for a promotion to step up. They begin practicing long before then.