36: Professional Development: You Can’t Succeed Without It

Hey there. Welcome back to the Confident Communications Podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. I'm also your friendly crisis communication consultant, public speaker, communication planner and workshop facilitator. And soon online workshop facilitator. And I'm a big believer in professional development because you cannot be a leader without it. On today's podcast, why being a continuous learner helps you become a continuous leader. There are articles and books aplenty about using personal development to help grow as a leader. But something that's missing because we're so hyper aware of mindset and self improvement these days is professional development. If you are listening to this podcast in your office, take a look on your bookshelf. How many books are staring back at you at this very moment? Cracked and never cracked my view from my office while I record. And I've Marie Kondoed my bookshelf after Marie Kondo. My closet is by color and my books are by section. For instance, I have a PR section. I have Cutlip and Center's Effective public relations, the 11th edition. It's kind of considered the Bible of PR. I have the AP style book from 2015. It goes all the way back to 2005, I believe. I have a book on crisis communications, Master of Disaster, and then I have a finance section. I have books from Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman. I have grammar books. I have entrepreneur books that there's the Side Hustle. There's the Tim Ferriss's five Day Work Week. There's Profit First. Then there's my Mindset shelf, the Power of positive thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Daring Greatly Brene Brown. I have my public speaking section on TED Talks. I do have some social media section here, but I'm going to get rid of a lot of those books because social media, a social media book is can be as antiquated as they get because they are dated as soon as you buy it. Next, I have select texts from my teaching days as an adjunct professor. So there's news reporting and writing and yet another social media textbook. I think you get the picture. Oh wait, there is one more shelf has all my running books and my favorite book is how to train for and run your best marathon. That book helped me get through five marathons and it's filled with all these great pencil marks in there. But my point is this. Everyone has their own bookshelf and a lot of the books on there are lovingly used, but some of them have never even been cracked open. Ask yourself how many of them do you really, really read Chances are, like my marathon book, the ones that are open are the ones that you have a passion for or a need for, but the ones that you think, hey, this is something that I should learn, you maybe never quite get around to reading it. Hey, I think you kind of get it now that there is a difference between learning from a book and professional development. Because a book that's based on your interest and you read it on your schedule and you may or may not get through that book. But books I find are great supplementals for your interests and your talents. But let's face it, the books we usually gravitate towards are the books where we hold an interest. We're not really pushing ourselves professionally when we order books off of Amazon. The real learning comes from pen to paper, or working through a module, on screen, or sitting in a classroom. It's learning about the things that you may feel that you need to learn or that you want to learn, but there isn't this huge strong desire to learn it, perhaps, or even I might have to say, you're forced to learn because your office is making you go through this. Or you have to fulfill some form of credentials. But depending on what industry you're in, you may be required to take a certain number of continuing education hours to stay up on your craft. And this is a requirement in most law, healthcare and financial fields. But it's also a requirement in many other fields as well. And that's one of my gigs. I work with a lot of leaders. I work with CEOs and board members on how to communicate in today's heightened environment. It's an all day course, usually where I offer a playbook on how to manage public opinion and how not to step in a pile of it, if you know what I mean. But this type of professional development I find comes with a group of people. Many of them want to know the information, but when they walk in the door, they're looking at a full day of learning. And it's hard. Our brains now are not wired to sit and listen to one person speak to all day. We're all of the smartphone generation, not just millennials, not just Gen Z, but all of us for the most part use them. And our patience and our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. Because I'm mindful of this, when I do my training, I try to keep it light, try to keep the information as sticky as possible. I do write it down for a book, but that it's easy enough that it will just stay in your brain. So even if they walk out the door and toss the book that it will still stick in their brain. Excuse me, recycle the book. I always want to keep it nonpartisan. I use political figures a lot as examples, but I tread very, very lightly, especially when I'm in a male centric middle age group of guys in the Midwest because being a female flying in from Boston, sometimes these guys, they'll look at me and they'll lean back and they're just itching for me to rub them the wrong way about President Trump. It's like I'm marching in the room wearing a pink hat, if you know what I mean. But I work in public relations, so it's my job to get them to trust me and turn a professional workshop into a political dust up. But I love facilitating these workshops for a number of reasons. One it it helps me in my job today because I get to see firsthand how executives think and from across the board, males, females, younger executives, older executives, longtime executives, short term executives. What are their triggers for inspiration or for frustration. I like helping them break through. I want them to have that light bulb moment, that aha moment. I don't necessarily need to change their minds, but my objective is to make their minds open to seeing another perspective. Because I know and I try to tell them that digging your heels in is bad for business in this day and age. Being open to seeing the other side is not just a benefit as a leader, but also it offers a peek into the opponent's playbook. It's quite tactical. It's not a weakness. So we're never too old or too important to learn. Stepping outside your comfort zone. That's where all the good learning comes from. But what about the professional development that makes you more well rounded and relevant in today's digital age? Do your continuing education requirements address things like communication skills and how to to be more visible in the online space? This is important knowledge for any business leader to have, and I get questions all the time about how to address professional development as an executive or a business leader. So as I continue with this episode, I'm going to share more about the importance of adding your own professional development practice to your own learning so you can grow as a leader and of course a communicator. Here's the problem. Sometimes your organization offers professional development to middle management and entry level positions, but nothing for executives. Or you're a business owner or a small business owner and you're on your own to find professional development that's suitable for you. And frankly, who has the time if you do, you're not feeling up to speed online, you're not visibly online, people can't find you. There's a lot of personal development available, but nothing that's catered to developing your knowledge base professionally. Here's how you can solve those problems. The solution is taking the initiative to learn. The first place I went when I was researching for this episode was to the Society for Human Resource Management, also known as shroom. But since I'm a PR person, I know I'm not saying that correctly. We have prsa, which is very easy to say, but shroom, which is shrm, what I found when I was researching their information. First, they like to identify specific skills that you need to grow a professional professionally. So you want to know the type of delivery style that works best for you. And what I mean by that is do you like your learning in person or online or inside of a cohort, like group learning, self paced, etc. Also researching the topics and type of learning that you need, what is the best? And you can also talk to your HR department for advice. Another option for you is working with an executive coach and they can walk you through the process. A lot of people will work with executive coaches and life coaches to help them try to define what they need in order to kind of uplevel their job. You can also rebrand yourself with your new savvy social acumen. You know, people will know you as a modern age leader. Now you hear me talk about this all the time and you know what this means is that the more wired in you are about feeling comfortable and more confident with putting yourself out there online, people will associate you as a savvy communicator. Now one of the reasons why I'm mentioning this idea of professional development is because I'm bringing a new community, a new learning community to the Internet. It's called the Confident Leader Network. And it's essentially my roadshow, what I do on the road. And I'm bringing it to the Internet because I want to help people learn in the comfort and the safety of their own space. Because a lot of people come up to me and they share with me that they don't understand the basics and they're embarrassed. There's a lot of shame attached to that. But whenever someone does that and they acknowledge that they are struggling with certain areas of online communication, I tell them, admitting that you don't know something one takes courage and doing something about it takes real courage. So this program that I'm developing, you can learn from the comfort and the privacy of your own home or office. And I created it for the people who do walk up to me after my talk has ended or after a workshop has ended and I see the look of shame on their face because I can't always stay after a talk for a long period of time, though many times I wish I could, because I love to help people learn. But more than that, I love to break down the challenges and break down the fear of how you can learn how to communicate better and communicate about yourself and your business online. And with the Confident Leader Network, you will learn how to get more visible online and navigate social media so you can be heard, be seen and stay relevant. And every month I will drop a new training, a relevant training, and you'll have lifetime access to all of it. Plus you'll have access to me in a free group so you can ask questions and get insider information. I'll also have cohort sessions where people can learn together in the chat feature. In other words, it's me after my talk, staying afterwards and answering all the questions. Now the benefits of professional development in general, whether it's with my Confident Leader Network or some type of professional development that you seek out, it will help you stay sharp and more relevant. It will keep you informed of new technology and insight. You'll develop all the new skills that you need to learn in this day and age. And you don't always have to ask a junior staffer for help. You can, but now you can be more conversant in what you do with your training online. So many of the topics that I use in my training are ripped from the headlines and ripped from this podcast and in many cases I'll have a podcast episode. And then I will encourage you to go to the Confident Leader Network for a deeper level of learning. I will have again the monthly live and recorded sessions where I will answer your questions and any question that you deem to be a stupid question. But I'll say right now, no question is ever a stupid question. And the Confident Leader Network will have a separate membership portal so you can log in on your own convenience and you can learn from any of the trainings in the library. I'm also going to have guest instructors like Brad Phillips. He was on the episode that I'll link to in the show Notes about Media Relations. He's the chief throughliner of the throughline group and he has agreed to dive a little deeper into the content of media relations. That is a value plus. Now some of the objections that I hear about professional Development. And the first one is a biggie. You know, I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time to sit in a classroom all day and listen to someone train me. I don't have enough time for online learning. I'm too busy. But the beauty of this network that I'm creating is that it's on demand and you can learn at your own pace. So that way you can take your time and go back to the content over and over again. Another objection. Too expensive. A lot of trainings are expensive. You want to know why? Because they're really good trainings and it's very valuable. But the Confident Leader Network is going to be priced exactly right for what you need in today's day and age of trying to communicate as a leader. There are other affordable options out there too, if you look. But here's another bonus that many people I don't think really know is that any type of training that you do on your own can be deducted as a business expense. Ask your HR department about it to see if they'll pay for it as well, because you can use it for your own tax deduction. Another objection is that there's nothing relevant out there for me to learn. Now. You need to do your research for that and find out what's interesting to you and what you want to learn about. But if you're not finding what you're looking for, ask around. Ask your HR department, your colleagues. Ask people what they're doing and what they're learning. Find someone who has the skills you need and you want and ask them. Where'd you find out about that? Another objection. I'm not tech savvy enough. I don't know how to use a computer. I don't know if they're going to ask me some things to download on my computer. I'm not going to understand it. My Confident Leader Network, that's the reason why I created the course, is because to help people develop as a leader, you need to understand and learn the technical skills that will keep you relevant. Now, the next steps, if you're interested in learning more about the Confident Leader Network, the network is opening very soon and I'm offering a founders rate when we go live. And with this founders rate, it's going to be the lowest rate that the Confident Leader Network will ever be offered at and you will receive a lifetime access to this low rate. So if you get on the list now, I will guarantee you this founders rate for as long as you want to be in the network. So join the Confident Leader Network today and you can learn from the comfort and privacy of your own home. You'll find more information information on my website, Molly mcpherson.comnetwork. you will learn how to get more visible online and navigate social media so you can be heard, be seen and stay relevant. And again, remember that new trainings are going to drop every single month and you'll have a lifetime access to all of it. Plus access to me in a free group so you can ask questions and get insider information. So again, sign up now to mollymcpherson.com forward/network. Now the last piece that I want to talk about and I saved it to the end because it's specific to the Confident Leader Network. The three areas that I'm going to focus on in this network, social media communications and reputation management. Because those three areas, those core pillars of leadership are the areas that I find that most of the leaders that I work with or most of this C level people that I work with struggle with the most, but they're the most valuable. You don't necessarily need to understand every nuance of social media, but you need to understand how it works. You need to understand how your publics are using it, how your customer, how your stakeholders are using social media. I'm going to give you the background that you need to learn how to do that. The same thing with communications, all of the how tos, how to use media relations, how to use video, why you should be using online technology to brand your business and to brand yourself as a leader. And the last part, this is a critical one, reputation management. How can you keep your reputation or that of your business clean in the digital age? I will offer plenty of modules that will be easy to follow, easy to understand on how you can protect the reputation of your business and your in this very dicey heightened age of digital media. So again, if you want to join me in the Confident Leader Network and sign in now to get the special founders rate again, the lowest rate that this network will ever be offered at for my listeners. Go to mollymcpherson.comnetwork to sign up on the waiting list and as soon as we're ready to launch and it will be very, very soon, you will get all the information that you need. So that's all for this week. Thank you so much for listening and remember to keep learning.