I wrote and sent this article about ‘career development’ to everyone back in about 2018.
My team have been (bullied) encouraged on a never-ending journey to develop themselves and their careers.
They didn’t know it would be never-ending.
I might have forgotten to tell them that part at the beginning…oops.
The team that runs the Frontline business has been working together for most of their adult lives.
It’s quite a thing to watch a team like that grow.
Not grow in number.
Grow as in ‘grow up’. Literally.
Many of them joined in their early to mid-twenties, and many of them are still here.
A bit older. A lot wiser.
The management team have been working almost unchanged for eight years.
That’s an equally cool thing to be able to say.
I can look back now, and confirm my hard line, no-nonsense approach to training and development was the correct approach.
I insisted they took responsibility for their learning.
So, they did.
The following is the piece I wrote all those years ago with just a little bit of tidying up.
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I used to feel completely responsible for the career development of staff.
But over the years, my thinking shifted a bit…
I no longer feel their development is MY responsibility.
The concept of career development reminds me of a speech I heard when I was younger.
I believe the speaker had re-framed a poem by Andrew Motion called Rainfall into a motivational speech.
I can’t remember what his point was, but it doesn’t matter.
I will re-frame it into a way of looking at career development from the perspective of an employer.
To paraphrase my thinking:
My job is to rain.
Sometimes I rain on rock, where it just bounces off.
Sometimes I rain on fertile soil where a forest will grow.
All I can do when it comes to the career development of the team, is to try and create an environment for growth.
I feel that IS my responsibility.
What they do with it is THEIR responsibility.
So that’s what I do.
I try and ‘rain’.
Books are made available for staff; I constantly tell clients to make sure they are developing and training their teams; we have a high performance culture; we have a non-political/no BS culture; I constantly share stories from my own career to try and spark a fire in people around me; and I try to provoke the best out of people despite them sometimes protesting while I do it.
(2024 update – so far this year I have prepared and recorded 13 webinars for the team. Each webinar was followed by a team discussion about how to apply the contents of the webinar to their situation. I have continued to rain in the Philippines for about 13 years and counting…)
Anyway…
Not everyone responds to the ‘rain’.
What does it look like when the rain bounces off rock?
They do no reading; no seminars; no learning - aside from what is put in front of them; they sit like a victim and expect all training to be spoon fed to them; they expect an employer to nurture every aspect of their career; they expect promotions simply after ‘time served’ rather than actual real skill development and increased responsibility; they develop attitude issues; excuses are offered for everything that goes wrong…and the list goes on.
What does it look like when the rain falls on fertile soil?
I think back to my days as an auditor.
I remember when I had lunch with the partner of the firm after my six months probationary period had passed.
He asked me ‘what do you want to do with your career?’
I already knew. I had known when I was still at university.
‘I want to do what you do. I want to be a partner of a firm’, I replied with zero hesitation.
And then I set about making that happen.
Each night, after work, I would sit down with my audit textbook; financial accounting textbook; and my book of accounting standards, and I would study them.
This is AFTER I graduated and was already working in the field.
I did not leave my learning up to someone else.
I took control.
My boss created an environment where I was stretched and challenged, and I responded by constantly improving my skills.
I had a good understanding of how to run an accounting practice a long time before I started Frontline.
In fact, I was learning about this stuff while I was still at college because one day I intended to have my own practice.
I put in the hours.
And I was in an environment where I would say my boss ‘rained’.
While many of my colleagues were successful over the years, some were not.
I would say those are situations where my boss rained on rock, and it bounced off.
What would I do if I was starting my career now?
It's mostly the same.
I would find an employer that stretches me.
You should have that at Frontline, and if you don’t, I want to know about it…reach out to anyone from our team if you are not being stretched, and I’ll personally assist you.
I would not be concerned with job titles, rank, or other meaningless things.
I thought those things would make me happy, but they didn’t.
I would want to find increasing complexity and challenge in my work.
I don’t think a career is always necessarily ‘moving up’.
You can move across, explore different things, learn new things and challenge yourself in different areas.
One mistake I made was thinking ahead a bit too much at times.
For example, I was always thinking ‘when I run things this is how I’d do it…’ and I thought that’s when I’d truly be happy.
But it’s an elusive and probably impossible thing to achieve.
In retrospect, I was actually very happy being challenged on some aspect of an accounting standard and drafting a written interpretation and application of a real-world accounting issue.
Nerdy, but I found that stuff very interesting.
I’m happy now when I can help staff solve problems and watch them carve their own path in life.
But I do miss the technical challenge I used to get in more junior roles.
If you are in a role that is considered junior – don’t underestimate how much personal and professional growth you can extract from that role.
If I was starting again, I would still take charge of my learning.
And if you think about it, I’ve run my own business for the last thirteen years – so I’ve HAD to take charge of my development.
I haven’t had an employer to push me or spoon feed me!
Our business would have failed years ago if I had not developed my knowledge through reading, webinars/seminars, and observation of what works and what doesn’t when I try things.
If I were starting again, I would read and be at the top of my game technically.
Any technical issue my boss gave me would be handled with confidence because I’ve done the hours learning the concepts.
And what you have now that is a significant improvement from when I started is online resources.
You can learn ANYTHING you want by spending some time on Youtube and sitting through various presentations.
How much of that do you do in your own time?
How much technical reading do you do in your own time?
When was the last time you looked at a textbook? Was it back in college?
Have you ever sat down and properly studied Aussie, British, or American tax systems?
And I mean properly studied – not just reading about them.
Did you do the practice problems and actually get good at solving them?
Have you asked your boss what their most pressing issues are right now and how can you help solve them?
Or are you sitting there passively, waiting for someone else to take charge of your learning?
Are you not being challenged in your day-to-day work, but at the same time, not speaking up either?
Don’t expect anyone to read your mind – you need to speak up so changes can be made.
You don’t have to do any of these things of course.
And that’s fine.
It all depends on what you want to achieve.
Battling the Manila traffic on sub-optimal sleep, then switching on and being focused all day, then going home in the same traffic would be exhausting.
And if I was in that position back when I started, I might not have had the zeal to go home and read a text-book either.
But despite the crap circumstances people have to deal with in the Philippines, they are just that, circumstances.
They can be overcome so you succeed, or they can be used as an excuse.
Take my suggestions for what they are.
Just suggestions.
A series of questions to ask yourself.
And don’t limit yourself to the ideas in this article.
The best I can do is create a fertile environment, but the growth must come from the people in that environment.
My job is to rain.
Sometimes I rain on rock, where it just bounces off.
Sometimes I rain on fertile soil where a forest will grow.
P.S. Ready to cultivate a high-performing team that takes ownership of their growth? Schedule a Discovery Call with Frontline Accounting today.
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