by Jose Astorga

Created on: September 20, 2009

There are two types of growth available to an individual, personal growth and professional growth. Personal growth does not necessarily lead to professional growth; however, professional growth can lead to personal growth.

The key ingredients: opportunity and desire. Opportunity is an environmental factor and desire is a personal one. A person may have the desire to grow but not the opportunity or the reverse.

Maybe the desire is not strong enough. Maybe the desire is hindered or influenced by other issues outside of personal control. Maybe someone's experiences have been so limited and they are so set in their comfort zones that their desire to grow reaches only as far as the next sitcom on Friday evening. They are very content with their lives. I wonder if more of us shouldn't simply sit back and be content; oh wait that can't be possible in the brutally competitive and profit margin driven business world.

Some people have reached an age where they just couldn't be bothered with any kind of growth. They are also very content. There is nothing technically wrong with the attitude of content so long as when change hits fast and hard and the content individual is not prepared he holds himself accountable. Can't blame anyone but himself, although he will try. Complacency leads to very unpleasant surprises.

Then there is opportunity. If a person doesn't recognize the possibilities then the loss of opportunities increases exponentially. The saying luck favors the prepared applies here. It is incumbent upon management and or corporations to provide opportunities for professional growth to employees in the form of funding for various levels of training or schooling. The benefits of such opportunities are far reaching and, depending how applied, can be personally rewarding.

The two ways I know of promoting growth in staff are by example and by lecturing.

I often use myself as an example because I have twenty plus years of hard learned lessons under my belt that can be used to provide real life examples on cause and effect; the negativity of complacency; and the ignorance of myopia. The success rate of motivating employees to simply reach beyond their current comfort zones depends greatly on their personal environment, how they view the world, and whatever precedent the corporation has set forth in valuing and rewarding employee growth.

One sure way of ensuring some measure of professional growth is by tacking external training onto the performance appraisal. Although I abhor performance appraisals and any kind of forced anything, I recognize that if a company and manager provide time during the work day to allow training, it becomes palatable to the employee.

Employees that educate themselves on their own time are the ones that normally succeed. Those that have the attitude of entitlement, well, they'll get by. It's part of why corporations have come to classify employees as A, B, or C based on the old 80 / 20 rule. Yes, even at work we are classified.

Ten years ago, I had a conversation with one of the top selling salesmen in the organization I worked for. In reference to motivational speakers, he opined that the best salesmen don't need someone to come in and fire them up to sell and I quote, *that's bull!@#*. They don't need forced external motivation. They are motivated by their individual perceptions of personal accomplishment and professional reward. The top selling salesmen are self motivated. Desire and drive are innate.

I don't think his view is restricted to sales.

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