Developing yourself

To some extent this is a matter of developing yourself in deficient personal competences and qualities. In this regard... 

What your personality type might be is less relevant in the context of developing yourself than understanding the nature of your preferences. According to the Myers-Briggs model we have preferences for ... 

The objective of this part of the chapter is to set managing and leading, proactivity and reactivity, in context so that you can discern how you might best utilize a project to develop yourself in all these aspects of managing effectively. 

A review of your own development needs is an obvious starting point for a developmental project. You cany out some form of self-diagnosis of your strengths and weaknesses, and seek out a project opportunity that will involve you in managing in an area that you want to develop. For example, to develop yourself in the area of interpersonal relations you might choose a project that involves you in setting up arrangements for interdepartmental collaboration. 

If you are serious about developing yourself you will need feedback. Your own reflections on your experience may or may not be sufficiently Insightful. You cannot know this without some feedback from people who work with you about whether your performance and impact are what you think they are. You may get this in the normal course of events. Or you may need to seek it out. You may therefore wish to consider enlisting the support of a trusted colleague to give you the feedback that will aid you in your development. 

In working on yourself you can err to one of two extremes. You can be overly critical of yourself, thus undermining your self-esteem. Or you can be too complacent, failing to be aware of areas where you should be developing yourself. Preventing yourself from erring in either direction may well demand that you talk your self-perceptions through with a trusted friend. 

This may lead you to think in terms of acting in the first instance as a mentor , though this need not be to the exclusion of coaching and instructing roles. How to develop yourself in such roles is well described in an excellent guide to facilitation skills for managers by David Megginson and Mike Pedler (1992). 

In order to develop yourself as an effective manager you need to have the experience of managing effectively. To create this experience you need to undertake and successfully complete a managerial task as a result of which you achieve some worthwhile purpose. 

All these objectives are relevant for this book, which is concerned both with your practical development and developing yourself at a personal level. 

When asked about the professional development programs that support upward mobility, a European Big Bank branch manager and an employee shared with us that while you are allowed to develop yourself, it depends on your boss some promote your potential and others don t. That one s professional development opportxmities were subject to the idiosyncrasies of one s boss explains why, overall. Big Bank stakeholders didn t feel that there were fair (or widely communicated) opportunities for promotion or professional development (see Career development communication section in Chapter 6 for deeper coverage). 

Develop yourself into a critical thinker with courage. To be a critical thinker you must resist the temptation to be a pleaser. Be a nonconformist. Rather than always knowing the answer for your boss, ask questions for understanding the safety issue. Challenge your boss s thinking with questions. An... 

Medical training doesn t have to be a conveyor belt, with your life neatly planned out. Take time out, develop yourself personally. Find out what your deanery offers in terms of OOPEs, etc. Although MDBS, then training, RCPsych Membership and even consultant status are fantastic achievements in their own right, it s about the journey, not the destination. Fulfilment and satisfaction aren t always the same as clinical and academic accolades. 

Rate yourself by placing a check mark (0) in front of each action that is typical of how you handle giving feedback. The ones you don t check represent opportunities for development. 

The Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) is a non-profit group that defines clinical data standards for the pharmaceutical industry. CDISC has developed numerous data models that you should familiarize yourself with. Four of these models are of particular importance to you ... 

Only after you have made a determined effort to solve each problem should you turn to the solutions in the manual. If you simply read the problem, think about it briefly, and then look up its solution, you will have fooled yourself into believing that you would have come up with the solution on your own. If you take this approach, you will never develop the ability to solve problems. There are many different ways to solve problems and, on some of the following pages, alternate methods of solution are presented. Some of the solutions given in the manual differ slightly from those shown in the text. This will help you realize that there is often more than one... 

The rest of the book deepens and generalizes the ideas developed in this chapter so that they are applicable to a wide variety of problems. In reading the rest of the book, if you feel lost you can reorient yourself by coming back to this chapter. 

Do not restrict yourself to the list of questions that you developed before the project started. The team is free to ask additional questions at any time. 

If you are a true lover of our Art, you will carefully weigh and ponder these words, lest, with other sophisticators, you fall into the dangerous pit prepared by the common enemy of man. But whence are you to obtain this seed This question you may most easily answer by asking yourself another question. What do you want to develop from this seed, and what use do you wish to make of it There can be no doubt, then that it must be the root, or first substance, of metals, from which all metals derive their origin. It is,... 

Thisis due to hydrogen sulfide gas being generated in the stomach.lt is a bit unpleasant, but not dangerous. If you feel yourself developing the symptoms of cyanide poisoning, break an ampoule of amyl nitrite and inhale its contents. Seek medical attention. The foregoing does not mean that with the antidotes you can inhale fumes with impunity, only that you prob-... 

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