Developing Professional Competence for the 21st Century--Consultants, Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Pizza Chefs

"For a boy with a shinny new hammer, all the world looks like a nail." "If we have only one tool in our toolkit, while we may find creative new applications for that tool, we won't be able to do what we could if we had more appropriate tools for the requirements of the job."

In the early days of America, shortly before the Revolutionary war of 1776, many jobs were based on the master-apprentice model prevalent in Europe.  A boy would be apprenticed to a trade.  The owner would be a "master" craftsman and there would be other stages including journeyman and down to the level of apprentice.  Variations on this model still exist today, including a popular concept of an "internship."

One of the purposes of such a model for acquiring professional skill over time was to have a wide variety of work experience allowing the learner to develop a repetoire of skills and tools with which to approach the professional challenges the learner would experience.  The apprenticeship model also allowed people to move through the personal performance change curve (see slide 8).

In sales, many people rely on scripts developed to allow more junior sales personnell to cover key aspects of a sales transaction.  When someone is obvious in using a script when trying to make a sale, the person who may be buying may be put off by the script.  On the other hand, in professional management training, checklists are often used to make sure that managers follow the key steps in managing the appropriate interaction.  While some employees may not like that their manager follows a script, others have claimed in the past, "Please follow the checklist.  You are a much better manager now that you have one to follow."

That could be true for sales people and sales scripts as well.

Consultants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, pizza chefs, and many other professionals are expected to develop by practicing over time and by becoming reflective practitioners (learning by reflecting on their experience and improving their performance and outcomes).

Often someone comes up with a good idea that everyone likes and trys to implement.  Peter Senge and the Fifth Discipline had a major impact on the consulting world.  Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers) and Michael Gerber (eMyth Revisited) are both popular authors whose books have inspired many consultants and many follow-up ideas.  Eliyahu Goldratt (The Goal, Critical Chain) has developed a series of books and concepts and teaches consultants to work with a Process of Ongoing Improvement ("Poogi").

Professional consultants can benefit from all of these authors and need to integrate relevant tools into their professional toolkits so that they can bring out the most appropriate tool for the situation in which they find themselves. 

A problem with consulting firms with massive teams of consultants is that most of the consultants were university trained and focus on relatively low-complexity tasks.  The firm brings a wide variety of resources with multiple consultants with varying seniority to meet the challenges of their clients.

When someone works with a smaller consulting firm, the consultant needs to be more flexible, with a solid background of expertise and a network of professional contacts who can be called on to supplement the consultant's skills and tools as needed. 

LinkedIn is a good social network for consultants to connect with peers.  Sometimes consultants with websites provide links to others in their personal network and sometimes contracts are written so that networked consultants can be brought-in on appropriate pieces of client work.

These ideas are all part of evolving the concept of developing professional competence in the 21st Century.

Networking, Connections, Social Networks, New Opportunities, Ideas and Inspiration

This week I have been exploring some new ideas to make a positive difference and to generate more income.  (Visit my earlier blogs for this week.)  Today I went back to LinkedIn to join more networking and alumni groups so that I can connect with former colleagues and others who share similar interests and values.

I needed to connect with people I can trust (often alumni network members) who live in other parts of the world and who can help me find some connections for global businesses.  What I like about these social networking groups made available via LinkedIn is that we can share ideas, discuss, and inspire each other.  Often someone will ask a question that someone else will have an answer for--or a resource or an idea about.

This one service provides me an opportunity to expand my thinking and to connect with lots more people who can help me make some dreams come true--for lots of people.  If you're interested, visit my LinkedIn profile.

Creating Conditions for Quality and Value

There have been years of debates about “nature vs. nurture” with numerous points of view. To put this age-old debate into modern terms, each of us has gifts and talents which can come forward to be shared to benefit others with environmental conditions are right for the sharing of those gifts. Most of us have experienced frustration when we had something we thought was valuable to be shared and the environmental conditions either made the sharing less than effective or stopped it completely.

Teachers often have great lesson plans that never seem to be fulfilled because of the environmental influences of the school and the students and the teacher when he or she attempts to implement these lesson plans.
In business, a thought leader will have a wonderful idea for the organization—only to find that the environmental factors influencing the organization diminish or negate the value of the idea.

The phrase “an idea whose time has come” evokes a sense of enthusiasm and excitement over something new that is about to unfold. Often ideas come at times when they cannot be effectively implemented. When times change and become more favorable, those ideas are frequently no longer available.

Leaders need to be aware of this challenge and to go about creating conditions for quality and value--finding the talents and valuable contributions that can come from others and molding the environment to be supportive of the sharing.

We also need to look for environments where we can bring forward these same talents and valuable contributions. It is a rare organization that creates this type of environment on an ongoing basis that can accommodate the range of diverse talents and values of the people working with it.

Getting Past "You can't get there from here."

It is amazing how many ways this concept is communicated on a daily basis.  "You can't get there from here" seems to be a theme song of today's economy in the United States.

One thing is certain, we need help to navigate how to achieve our goals and "get there from here."  I love the Global Positioning System (GPS).  I have a GPS on my iPod Touch (2nd Generation) (which works when I am on a WiFi network) and another portable one I use for my car.  One of the things I like best about a truly portable GPS is that, when you don't follow its directions, it recalculates a new set of directions from where it finds your car and tells you how to get where you told it you're going even when you go your own way.
Now, if we could get more people to do with the "thinking" GPS gadgets do, we could really accomplish our goals!!

In my work with English language learners (ELLs) in the K-12 school systems in Illinois, I have discovered that introducing students to unabridged eAudiobooks with their companion books in print is a great way to motivate reading and to improve academic performance.  I have published a research paper on this idea and am working to turn it into a pilot project for use in schools.  Along the way I would like to receive some grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education to test the concept and to assure that the innovations we develop will be available throughout the USA.

Unfortunately, the way these grants seem to work, to gain funding to develop an idea, the "proof of concept" seems to need to be already tested.  Grant funding is not for the first stage in development--putting the idea into practice.  Instead it seems to be for a second stage--improving on the idea and developing materials to clone it.

At this stage in our development as a nation, we need to step "out of the box" and find out how to get there (helping ELLs learn to read and improve their academic performance by working with unabridged eAudio books and companion books) from where we are today--with or without federal grant funding.

Anyone want to help?  Contact me via my Wiki project page.