CHAPTER 7

Thriving in Your Career: Powerful Plans for Lifelong Learning

Catherine Lombardozzi

How often do you stop to consider how much of a privilege and challenge it is to be a learning professional? Our work consistently puts us in the center of important changes in people’s lives—starting a new job, upskilling to stay current, learning new tools and practices, and honing needed skill sets. Our organizations count on us to deliver the capabilities necessary to successfully complete initiatives and meet important goals. Organizational leaders and employees depend on us to enable them to be the best they can be.

To effectively provide this support, we need to be the best we can be. Our role is to be experts in the dynamics of learning and in the tools and techniques of our trade. Given that learning theory, tools, and techniques are constantly being advanced, mastering our trade is a lifelong process. Just like the people we aim to serve, we must continue to learn every day in an environment that is often demanding.

We need to be exemplars in the techniques and activities of learning and lead the way in demonstrating how to manage a challenging personal learning agenda. To do that, we’ll need to apply the learning expertise, design skills, and tools we employ in our work to the service of designing our own learning plans. This chapter will give you reminders and insight on how to do that.

Practices for Lifelong Learning

The practices for lifelong learning combine to make you the expert you need to be. Not surprisingly, they are reflective of the overall arc of an effective learning and development project, starting with defining goals and ending with improved performance.

These are the practices you’ll want to put into play, and they will be elaborated on in the rest of the chapter:

•  Committing to professional excellence. Making room for your own professional development requires deep motivation. You’ll need to have a compelling vision of the kind of professional you wish to be, and you’ll need to pledge your dedication to achieving that level of practice.

•  Identifying development goals. The skill set for an exceptional learning professional varies widely, so you’ll have to start by defining the development you need in your role and context. Making progress depends on focusing on specific knowledge or skills so you can strengthen the most important areas for you.

•  Designing learning plans. How you go about developing your skills depends on the nature of the targeted skill, your projects, your work environment, and your time commitment. There are several approaches you may find useful for different situations (which are described later in the chapter). Regardless of the overall approach, you’ll want to research and curate the best resources and activities for your need and organize how you will tackle working your way through them.

•  Applying learning skill. As you work through learning materials, you need to activate learning processes that help you to translate those inputs into guidance for future action. Successful self-directed learners exhibit a specific set of qualities and skills that you’ll want to cultivate.

•  Demonstrating mastery. In the end, your goal is to employ your skills in the work of helping others succeed. As a professional, you should have some evidence of your mastery in the form of project artifacts, portfolios, and endorsements.

Committing to Professional Excellence

Working in a profession means you have a calling that requires a specialized body of knowledge. While many professions require deep academic preparation for entry, talent development does not. Still, those who work in talent development need to make a commitment to developing a deep understanding of the underlying theory and advanced techniques of the work. That’s where lifelong learning comes in.

Most talent development professionals manage their own professional learning. They identify the knowledge and skill they need for their roles and seek out the training and development activities they need to ground their work. They also take pride in learning by doing and gathering experiences that allow them to claim certain skill sets. All that requires a certain amount of dedication and pride. Your first step in your own development is envisioning the level of knowledge and skill you need to be effective—to be the expert that your clients, business partners, learners, and peers need you to be.

What does professional excellence look like in talent development? Professional organizations in our field have invested energy in cataloging the necessary capabilities, and they have created comprehensive competency lists and standards. These analyses make it clear that experts need both the technical skills of talent development and core professional and business skills to be successful.

You can use these capability lists to self-assess your current skill set and define any areas that need further development. While individual professionals likely need only a subset of these skills to competently perform, these competency lists set out aspirational goals for expertise in a variety of areas in our field. Additional information and the URLs can be found at ATDHandbook3.org.

•  Talent Development Capability Model from the Association for Talent Development. This model defines 23 capabilities in three domains: personal capability, professional capability, and organizational capability.

•  Learning and Performance Institute Capability Map. This map defines 25 capabilities in five practice areas: strategy and operations, design and development, learning facilitation, performance and impact, and learning support. Each capability is behaviorally anchored at four levels of expertise: foundational, proficient, advanced, and strategic.

•  Learning and Development Capability Framework from the Asia Pacific Institute for Learning and Performance. This framework defines key behaviors for 18 capabilities across six dimensions: professional attributes, strategy and planning, design and development, execution and delivery, evaluation and feedback, and business smarts.

•  International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (ibstpi). Ibstpi offers role-based competencies and standards for instructional designers, instructors, training managers, and evaluators.

Some professionals may also want to examine broader competency sets for human resource professionals. Here are a few to explore:

•  CIPD New Profession Map. This map defines six core knowledge areas, eight core behaviors, and nine areas of specialist knowledge. These specialties include learning and development, talent management, and organization development and design, as well as people analytics, diversity and inclusion, employee experience, employee relations, resourcing, and rewards. Each of the knowledge areas, behaviors, and specialist areas are further defined by standards at the foundation level, associate level, chartered member level, and chartered fellow level.

•  SHRM Body of Competency and Knowledge. This competency set recognizes behavioral competencies in three domains (leadership, business, and interpersonal), along with technical competencies in 15 HR functional areas, including learning and development, organization effectiveness and development, and diversity and inclusion. The body of knowledge identifies proficiency indicators at the core and advanced levels.

•  HR Certification Institute. These competency sets cover five functional areas with different weights and specifics depending on the kind of certification desired: business management and strategic leadership, talent planning and acquisition, learning and development, reward systems, employee and labor relations, and engagement. HRCI certifies professional and senior professionals in human resources and other specialties.

Identifying Development Goals

If you explore published capability lists, quality review checklists, and job descriptions, one of the first things you’ll notice is that the skill set in talent development is incredibly varied—and virtually impossible for one person to have. Your first task in managing your professional development then is to identify your personal development goals and ensure they’re aligned with your situation and career trajectory.

Your goal selection is influenced by many factors, and often through more than one of these lenses:

•  Career intentions. Consider the role you want to play or the kind of work in which you want to engage. Review job descriptions for the role or talk to hiring managers or people in the role to get a sense of what you’ll need to be successful. Evaluate yourself against that set of criteria and note what you need to strengthen.

•  Feedback. Refer to your appraisals or seek more detailed feedback from your peers, supervisors, and clients. If you are being derailed because you lack a specific area, that may need to be a priority. Otherwise, look for areas that are solid but need to be enhanced to take you to the next level.

•  Strengths. Marcus Buckingham’s work has shown that people grow the most in the areas that are their strengths—with strengths defined as skills that make you feel confident and put you into a flow state. Consider the activities that get your energy flowing and make goals that advance those skills so you can add more value when engaging in work activities.

•  Skill stacking. One of the things that makes you unique is your particular set of skills and experiences. Consider strengthening your knowledge and skills in different areas that could give you a niche practice area. For example, you could cultivate a combination of skills (such as consulting and e-learning design) or practices for a particular industry or role (for example, training for nurses). Align your development goals to bolster these skills.

•  Competency development. You can assess yourself against any of the competency frameworks cited in the previous section and select development goals based on that analysis. Your own organization may also have a competency model to guide your evaluation.

•  Trend analysis. Keep an eye on where the profession is going. Perhaps you want to develop skills in designing learning experiences that use virtual reality or augmented reality or any of the other up-and-coming specialties. The field is constantly changing and there is always an opportunity to be on the leading edge.

Once you have a sense of the topic you want to pursue, it’s useful to put together a short list of guiding questions for your learning project. You don’t need to create formal learning objectives; in all likelihood, you won’t have enough background in the topic to know what those formal objectives might be. Instead, decide what you want to explore and use that to guide your selection of learning materials and activities.

When pursuing a complex or long-term goal, there are two additional points to consider. One is to articulate why you are embarking on this journey: What do you hope to be able to do with the knowledge base or skill? And what is your driving motivation? To manage your own development, you’ll need to have a compelling why to fuel your persistence. The other point is to put some markers down so you can track your progress. Imagine a long novice-to-expert continuum with a scale from 0 (no knowledge or skill at all) to 10 (expert), then make note of where you are currently and where you want to be once you’ve completed this project (note that this does not need to be all the way to expert level). Whenever it’s time to reassess, you can use this scale to gauge your progress.

Designing Learning Plans

Once you know where your learning journey is heading, you can make a plan for exploring the arena you chose. The nature of your plan will depend on the nature of the learning project. In general, there are three types of plans:

•  Reskilling or upskilling plan. This is an intense, focused effort for developing a new skill or substantially deepening a skill you have. The process of addressing a skilling need encompasses identifying a learning need, curating materials and activities, making a learning plan, learning, applying, and self-assessing progress.

•  Continuous professional development plan. This is a longer-term, consistent pursuit that helps you keep a finger on the pulse of the areas of L&D that are important to you. Planning for continuous professional development involves first isolating a knowledge base or skill that you want to deliberately develop over time, then curating sources (who’s putting out high-quality content in this area) and setting up feeds (journals, social media, internet alerts), and, finally, taking note of news and advances that enrich your perspective (continuous learning). This kind of plan usually contains more ongoing activities than a skilling plan; it’s heavy on continuous learning sources, social learning, regular participation in professional gatherings, and consistent reflection and application activities.

•  Spot learning plan. A quick search for resources, this plan can be immediately applied to your in-the-flow-of-work learning needs and curiosities. Spot learning is a relatively simple process of searching for material, vetting for credibility, learning from your found sources, and applying that learning to the work. This approach generally requires just a few well-chosen resources.

In truth, many professionals often wind up running these different plans simultaneously. You can imagine, for example, that a designer may want to upskill for e-learning design while still keeping core instructional design skills sharp and one day needing a quick refresher on the functionality of an e-learning course development tool.

The elements of these three plans are similar: you’ll need a set of resources from which to learn; activities to process your learning and practice your new knowledge and skill; social supports in the form of co-learners, discussion partners, teachers, and feedback providers; and strategies for applying what you’ve learned and verifying that you’re indeed grasping the concepts and skills. All the while you keep re-evaluating whether you are getting what you need so you can redirect your efforts if necessary.

Curating Learning Resources

When you go looking for learning resources and people with whom to network, look beyond the first few pages of your internet search. Seek specific kinds of resources to diversify and deepen your inputs and activities. It’s important to have both inputs (readings, videos, and courses) and activities (people with whom to engage, assignments, and application projects).

When selecting resources and activities, consider where you are on the novice-to-expert continuum for the specific knowledge base or skill you are targeting. People on the novice-to-competent end are more likely to benefit from formal training or education, while people at the competent-to-expert end generally need more social and experiential learning. You should have diverse inputs and activities to be sure, but keep in mind what you hope to gain from each so you can prioritize finding the right kinds of resources.

Take the time to research options, but know that this will likely turn up substantially more options than you’ll be able to complete. That’s why curation is necessary. A worksheet that will help you decide which materials and activities are worth investing is available on the handbook’s website at ATDHandbook3.org. To curate, evaluate the quality of the material, its depth, its relevance to your context, and the credibility of its sources. (Even if you are executing a spot learning plan, be sure to vet your sources! The internet is, unfortunately, full of bad advice too.) Use your professional network to get recommendations and help assess your options.

Making a Plan

Once you have an idea of all you want to include in your plan, you’ll want to treat it like any other project and give yourself assignments and deadlines. Organize the activities into a general flow that stems from typical organizing principles (for example, moving from general materials to specific or weaving activities between various learning inputs).

Decide when and how much time you’ll invest in these studies on a weekly basis and set goals and assignments for the reserved blocks of time. This will keep you from wasting time on just deciding what to do. Share your plan with your accountability partner and request any additional advice. Consider sharing it with your supervisor as well to gather support.

You’ll know you have a good plan if you’ve described a clear goal, curated high-quality learning materials, identified dynamic social learning companions, integrated deep reflection and consolidation activities, and defined challenging, authentic practice and application opportunities.

Applying Learning Skill

The most important part of the project is to execute the plan. Keep your driving goal and guiding questions in mind as you engage in all the activities you have mapped out. Keep notes and notice progress at every step.

Your ability to navigate a self-directed learning plan requires a certain skill set and attitude. Research in self-directed learning consistently calls out these qualities (Lombardozzi 2020):

•  Motivation. Planning for and attending to your own learning project in the midst of other demands requires dedication and commitment. The strongest motivations are internal, from your own desires and sense of self. You’ll need this motivation to maintain persistence in the face of obstacles.

•  Self-efficacy. The belief that you can learn is context and resource specific. You’ll need your generalized growth mindset as a foundation, but then you’ll want to nurture your conviction that your efforts will pay off and give you the outcomes you desire.

•  Self-assessment. Managing your own learning requires candor and strength in assessing your own competency. You use that skill in defining your goal, and you’ll use it again to assess progress. Note, however, that humans are particularly ineffective in judging their own performance, so be sure to request feedback and listen carefully to others’ inputs.

•  Resourcefulness. Despite how easy it is to search the internet or reach out to your network of peers, finding and vetting resources and activities is a tough job. You’ll want to cultivate digital savviness and interpersonal networking skills to find and engage with the best resources. Hone your internet search skills, develop techniques for building your network, and always look for a window when a door closes.

•  Planning skill. When putting together your schedule, use what you know about the dynamics of your own learning (and adult learning in general) to design an impactful flow of activities. It’s critical that you reserve time and plan for how to use it. To ensure you don’t waste time, make a plan before you begin. But you’ll also want to be ready to adjust that plan as things come up, all the while keeping an eye on self-imposed deadlines.

•  Learning skill. Learning under your own direction requires your full array of learning skills, including discourse, annotating, note-taking, reflection, retention, critical thinking, problem solving, and synthesizing. However, the most critical skill is your ability to translate what you’ve learned into guidance for future action.

As a parallel effort, you’ll want to evaluate the degree to which you have these qualities and skills for your project. If you find that you’re weak in some areas, you should include activities in your plan that shore them up along the way. For example, define behaviorally anchored criteria for self-evaluation. Or create reflection questions for a book or long article you plan to read and take the time to write down your thoughts. Or quickly review recommended practices for making a checklist (a spot learning project) as you set about creating one based on the information you’ve gathered.

While you are in the process of learning and taking notes, consider how you want to change your behavior going forward. It’s useful to plan to make these new practices a habit if you can. Habituation requires you to:

•  Clearly identify what you want to do and why.

•  Set up a reminder about your commitment to that behavior.

•  Make it as easy as possible to implement the behavior.

•  Designate a positive outcome to the action (possibly rewarding yourself).

It’s important to define exactly how you will integrate new knowledge and skills into your way of working to ensure that your new knowledge is not simply tucked away and never used.

The beauty of managing your own plan is that you have the luxury of rethinking it at any time. Regularly assess whether you are making progress. Notice potential side journeys and figure out where they fall in your list of priorities. If your curated resources and activities don’t live up to your expectations, revise them to ensure you are getting the kind of depth and challenge you need.

If (read: when) your plan goes off track, evaluate causes. Shore up supports and mitigate barriers that ensure you can stay on plan. Get back into the flow as quickly as possible and evaluate how the delay will affect the plan going forward.

Demonstrating Mastery

Most adult learning projects are initiated to enable you to do something. The ultimate measure of success, then, is the degree to which you are able to demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skill you’ve been pursuing. And the real proof of that is application in the real world.

As noted, your plan should include application projects. To start out, you could take on small parts of a project or specific tasks of a process, or you may ask to be assigned to a team of people who are sharing the work. If you aren’t in a position to do the work, you can create mock projects to flesh out your portfolio. When you are practicing or applying, it’s useful to get feedback from a knowledgeable party rather than rely on your own imperfect judgment of your performance.

As a professional, you should have a portfolio that demonstrates what you are able to do, and its elements can include exhibits beyond the obvious project artifacts and endorsements. These can include in-depth practice or demonstration projects as proof of concept for what you know how to do. You can also consider keeping a public blog or engaging in some other way of working out loud. These serve the dual purpose of contributing to the profession’s common knowledge base and showcasing your growing expertise. Contributions to professional conferences and journals do the same. Overall, it’s wise to have a digital presence that serves as a resume or calling card of sorts so that people can easily see what you have to offer.

Final Thoughts

Our profession puts primary value on outcomes and performance, too often glossing over the deep learning that enables exceptional work. As learning professionals, though, we should be expert learners and exemplars for our colleagues in other roles. We should apply what we know about adult learning, learning strategy, design, and quality learning products to the task when designing and executing our own learning projects.

The work of talent development breeds a huge array of roles and work products. Your specialization may change many times over the course of your career. The tools and techniques of the talent development field and the challenges we’re encountering in our work are also constantly evolving, and that changing kaleidoscope of needs requires us to evolve our own capabilities as well.

Learning enables human flourishing, and it is no doubt a lifelong process. You can find inspiration and energy in the reinforcing cycle wherein your learning improves the learning and performance strategies you recommend to clients, which in turn improves the talent development initiatives that feed the capabilities organizations need to succeed. Learning starts with you, and it never ends.

About the Author

Catherine Lombardozzi is a lifelong learning and development practitioner and founder of Learning 4 Learning Professionals. Her work focuses on supporting the professional development of designers, facilitators, faculty, consultants, and learning leaders through coaching, consulting, workshops, and development programs. As an active workplace learning professional with nearly 35 years’ experience, Catherine often contributes to professional conferences and journals, and she teaches graduate-level courses in adult learning, instructional design, digital learning, and consulting. She is author of Learning Environments by Design and holds a doctoral degree in human and organizational learning from George Washington University. Learn more at L4LP.com.

References

Lombardozzi, C. 2020. Self-Directed Learning: Essential Strategy for a Rapidly Changing World. Santa Rosa, CA: Learning Guild.

Recommended Resources

Biech, E. 2021. Skills for Career Success: Maximizing Your Potential at Work. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Cohen, D.J. 2016. Developing Proficiency in HR: 7 Self-Directed Activities for HR Professionals. Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management.

Lombardozzi, C. 2021. Charting Your Course Workbook and Guidebook. Wilmington, DE: L4LP.com.

McLagan, P. 2017. Unstoppable You: Adopt the New Learning 4.0 Mindset and Change Your Life. Alexandria, VA: ATD Press.