By Russell Cullingworth

What is the point of professional development?

Employees spend an expensive day of valuable time in an often long and tedious PD session, following which the binder (and the learning) goes up on the shelf, only to be dusted off during the annual office clean up, and perhaps reviewed briefly before tossing it in the recycle bin.

Over the years I have accumulated a few of these programs and find them hiding on my shelves; they are a mixture of technical and interpersonal programs—Employment Law for Beginners, The One Minute Manager, MS Office, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Choice by Arbinger Institute… the list goes on and on.  I have kept these materials throughout my career and office moves, but rarely have I ventured back to the notes I so diligently took during the session.

Education Vs. Learning
The sustainability of your investment in professional development comes down to education versus learning. We take in information, but only when it resonates as relevant to our needs and experience do we pay more attention to it. Technical training on software that is critical to performing a job would be an example of education that becomes a solid learning experience. Employees can use what they have been taught and experience the benefits of a more efficient process or a next level pay hike.

The thing is, technical training can only get them so far.  According to a study by Harvard Business Review, 87 per cent of business issues arise from a lack of inter-personal skills, and have nothing to do with the technical competence of the parties.  In his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith correctly identifies that the higher up you go in any organization, the more heavily your job requirements depend on interpersonal skills as opposed to technical skill.

EQ Governs All Relationships
Emotional intelligence (EQ) or interpersonal skills development is a much more difficult area in which to solidify the learning. As opposed to technical training that would be specific to a particular role, EQ covers every relationship that employees have, both professionally and personally; that makes it crucial to turn the takeaways of this training into real life practice and immediate benefits in employee and client relationships, productivity and efficiency.

Here are five tips to help turn interpersonal skills education into solid learning.

1.  Make interpersonal development a priority. The mountain of existing research is constantly growing around the importance of emotional intelligence, or interpersonal skills, in individual, team and organizational success.  Managers may resist this topic because it is difficult and requires more personal investment, but that doesn’t make it any less important.  As an HR professional, you have the unenviable task of influencing senior management to embrace interpersonal skills training. Call it Leadership or Operations Management training if you must, but whatever you do, make it a priority.

2.  Use a program with extensive personalized, practical and meaningful tools that can be used over and over again in various interpersonal situations.  Depth of program is important for those who continue to learn beyond the basics of the one-day session.   Interpersonal skills cannot be developed in a one-day workshop, and attendees require additional tools to help develop their skills.  Find a people development program that is personal to each employee and comprehensive enough to offer depth, continuous learning opportunities and options for various levels and needs, from junior employees through to executive management.

3.  Self-assess constantly as an organization and as a team, and develop this skill in every employee. After every interaction, whether it be a team meeting with colleagues or a conflict with another employee, practice the skill of honest self-assessment about team behaviours, effectiveness and communication.  What can you do better next time? What dynamics and behaviours were exhibited that helped or hindered?  Look for a sustainable PD program will address identified development needs and provide a framework and language for continued self-evaluation and improvement.

4.  Share and engage the team in learning. A facilitator can only do so much to initiate learning and development; once they leave it is up to the team to help each other to learn and grow.  Engaging each member of the team to share responsibility for the professional growth and development of their colleagues is a great way to sustain learning.

5.  Set clear and definite goals to practice and solidify your learning. Every worthwhile PD program results in change and actions to be taken.  Ensure that your PD program encourages each employee to think about new goals as a result of their learning, why these are important, what actions they need to take, what their vision of success looks like and who they can engage to support them in their learning.

Russell Cullingworth, MBA is president of EQAdvantage Learning and Development Inc.