Engage, Learn and Grow

This is my last entry for the year 2009. Next year, we’re planning something completely different for the 2 Minute Trainer – I think you’ll like it (but you’ll have to wait ‘til 2010 to find out).

It’s fitting, then, that the last in the series of 12 key indicators of employee engagement that we have been discussing is this:

“In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?”

Employees who are fully engaged will answer “YES!” to this question. Which makes me wonder, have I had opportunities to learn and grow this year? Have you?

It’s been a tough year for many people. More people than I can fathom lost jobs this year; real people, with real mortgages, electric bills and mouths to feed.

Others of us retained our jobs but saw the way we do business change. We tightened some belts and adjusted some spending, all the while grasping with both hands to hold onto our turf in an increasingly challenging playing field.

I have had moments – not this year, fortunately – when I simply asked for boredom; a year with no “opportunities for growth” that were really euphemisms for “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly the kind of growth the Gallup folks had in mind.

I like to think that they had in mind the kinds of opportunities to learn and grow that are fun and innovative; that take us out of our comfort zone and stretch us in a wonderful, exhilarating way.

Like the way I learned a whole new language when I got my iPhone (apps and app stores, for example). And then the way that I learned how to find almost anything at the touch of my finger, including where I left my car and what subway line to take back to the airport. It was fun to learn, and fun to explore a whole new area of knowledge and information.

Or the way my heart simply grew in size when our newest little god-daughter was born. It didn’t hurt a bit, and it was wonderful and amazing.

Could we embrace learning and growth at work in the same way? Could we help our team members experience this, too?

Have you seen the newest ads by the language company Rosetta Stone? The headline says, “What’s the best way to learn a new language? Act like a baby!” The ad points out that learning, for babies, is a thing of exploration and wonder. It’s magical and natural. It’s effective, too.

Somewhere along the line we started treating adult learning like a task – a requirement. It stopped being fun and joyful. It ceased being a natural by-product of our desire to learn more and more about our job, and continually increase our job skills.

Perhaps my wish for you, at the close of a year that may go down in the history books as the last year of the “decade from hell” (if Time magazine has its way), is that you will find, for you and your team, opportunities to learn and grow in the coming year that will inspire, enrich and energize you.

And that you’ll grow and prosper, both as a manger and as a member of this wonderful human family of ours.