I was talking to a friend the other day and we were conversing about our experiences in different organizations when the topic of personal initiative and professional development came up.
I’ve had experiences where personal initiatives above and beyond the assigned job role were looked upon negatively and situations where I was called “over-ambitious” for my disposition. On the other hand, I’ve been fortunate to work for organizations where personal initiatives are encouraged as long as they don’t interfere with your regular work.
A case in point is Google which allows all of its employees to work one day a week on a pet project that is unrelated to their daily job.
The same is true of professional development opportunities that I have pursued as part of my career. While some employers were stern and rigid in the types of professional development they’d support their employees with… others were fairly open.
A case in point here is IBM which generously funds its regular employees’ education, and surprisingly in many cases, the education is totally unrelated to the employees’ jobs. I have heard of cases where people were pursuing a nursing degree on IBM’s funding.
How has your own experience been at your workplace… and how do you go about pursuing ideas and plans that are of special interest to you?
Re: Personal Initiatives at the Workplace
excellent topic, Umar.
on going professional dev. (PD) is absolutely an important aspect of one's work & move upwards and onwards.
yet, having special career based interest/s does not mean that the PD is taken in totally opposite or unrelated fields merely because the organization one is working for, is alright with paying for it for any given employee.
having said this, i feel it needs certain qualities in people who are innovative and at the same time capable of clearly convincing fellow colleagues or senior supervisors as to why new ideas are better for outcomes and therefore deserve a significant amount of new training to have the employees become able in implementing the foundations of something new which is predicted to be more gainful for the overall organizational success and with that its employees'.
in academia, we know for instance, that presenting a new course can take a lot of energy and planning as well as prediction of if a course will gain popularity and establish relevance and so forth. partly it depends on external factors but hugely on who is proposing a new course and what are its merits coming from a research experience background of its proposing faculty. a focused discussion around the future course offer will take place among the academic affairs, its research theory, lab work curriculum/ syllabus creation and proposal analysis committee is formed and works to their relevant ends.
perhaps students' opinions will be taken in as well, before offering the course to determine if there are enough students who would register for the course. a testing class is run in one semester and then a full course might get offered based on the success of the pilot course offer. i am undergoing this at the moment and for that i do require special training which i will taking to improve my odds of successfully submitting course proposals.
the above scenario briefly indicates the processes and system, someone's new plan at work will get carried through. truthfully speaking, the major part of taking on any personal idea and running with it in a work place will come easy if one's supervisors and colleagues are able to give credence to a capable planner of such new ideas. otherwise materializing of any new ideas wont happen as successfully or even not at all.
best,
Dushwari
Re: Personal Initiatives at the Workplace
Nice topic ....and i guess experienced ppl like u can help me out too :)
At my current job our bosses expect us to take initiatives and when we do they arent impressed cuz those initiatives are not best in their interest sadly our bosses want what is good for their own publicity rather then benefit of organization thinking all this sometimes i think am at wrong place theres another boss who reacts exactly the same way u experienced**....“over-ambitious” **so now i have stopped taking initiatives and just go with wotever my bosses want........
Re: Personal Initiatives at the Workplace
no reply??
Re: Personal Initiatives at the Workplace
Stylobabe,
It's tricky..imho, to begin an initiative you need buy-in from management. I'd suggest doing a proof-of-concept, or some kind of detailed plan (depending on your line of work), prior to beginning what would otherwise be seen as a black ops project on company time. The other bad perception is that of a person making a whole load of decisions on their day-to-day work that normally would be run by peers and management, if for no other reason, as a matter of courtesy.
When they encourage you to take an initiative, they don't really mean they want to be surprised by something impressive. If they are good managers, then what they want to see begin is a collaborative process on a certain area of interest.
Once you have buy-in, you can then ask for company resources to realize your ideas...or even fine tune them. But the initial sell is what is important, and what is really rewarded. If you do too much, it starts looking bad...as if you're working on stuff you're not meant to be working on...
If indeed your bosses are egomaniacs using you as a pawn in their own power games, then I'd suggest you get out of that work environment ASAP! That kind of place will kill your self esteem and fog your true sense of self-worth.
Re: Personal Initiatives at the Workplace
^^ u r quite right thanks for all the advices
yeah am thinking of getting out and trying to get a job sumwhere else although m learning a lot from my current job i want to learn thrice of it
Re: Personal Initiatives at the Workplace
you need buy-in from management. I'd suggest doing a proof-of-concept, or some kind of detailed plan (depending on your line of work), prior to beginning what would otherwise be seen as a black ops project on company time.
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If they are good managers, then what they want to see begin is a collaborative process on a certain area of interest.
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Excellent advice picoico…
A draft of the idea simply created to stimulate management interest is a good first step in creating buy-in. I typically do this through a Request-for-Comments but the thing to remember here is that the RFC shouldn’t be circulated to your colleagues and superiors through you directly but through your boss or somebody else with more authority than you. At the very least, this will give your boss a sense of being important in the context of your plans. Also, having your boss as your first point of contact will improve the chances of your ideas being taken seriously by others in your organization.
A proof-of-concept would be the next logical thing to do, and this doesn’t have to be anything fancy… just a basic illustration of your ideas in action.
There’s really no substitute for formalism – whether it is a formal Request-for-Comments, a Proof-of-Concept, a survey of your colleagues and their feedback etc.