Are you spending the right amount of time learning?
Think about a profession where the "practice-to-performance ratio" is high, such as a musician. A musician can spend days or weeks working on a piece, some alone, some with others, all in preparation for a concert performance that may last an hour.
For a leader, an analogous metric is the "learning-to-performance" ratio. There's lots to learn regarding planning, motivating, communicating, hiring, coaching, selling, etc. How much time do you spend learning? And given the time, what should you learn exactly?
On a weekly basis, how much time would you say you spend learning? Does that strike you as too low, too high or just right?
If you are looking to increase your learning time -- or to refocus it -- here are some approaches you can consider:
Feedback: Process the feedback you have received from others, or seek more feedback. Feedback can identify blind spots, highlight others’ expectations and help you figure out what you need to work on.
Emerging topics: Read about emerging issues, new technologies and other changes that are shaping your industry.
Inspiration: Who inspires you? What excites you? Read about a broad range of topics to boost your motivation and generate insights.
Career plan: Map out your next move. Think about what you need to learn, or new skills you will have to develop to get there.
Understand yourself better: Do a personality or strengths assessment; these often come with development suggestions. Do an exercise to surface your values. Complete a purpose exercise.
Leadership skills inventory: Pinpoint the skills and the associated behaviours that you need to develop.
Capture your key takeaways and one thing you can try based on your learnings. This will allow you to retain more of what you learnt and add more value in your work.
