INVEST IN SUCCESSHow to use professional development to boost your confidence and your career

Minnesota Library Association Conference -- October 8, 2014

by Tiffany Eatman Allen & Susanne Markgren

Our Goals for the Next Hour...• Tell you who we are

• Discuss why you should care about professional development (PD)

• Get some feedback from you

• Provide some simple ways/ideas to add PD into your life

• Talk about creating a PD plan

• Give you some goals to work towards

• Motivate you to charge-up your own career!

Tiffany: Work History

Susanne: Work History

Who are We?

http://librarycareerpeople.com

The Book!

Q: What would be the best second master’s degree for an academic librarian to get?

Q: How can a part-time librarian get the right experience for career advancement?

Q: I want to be a children’s or young adult librarian, but I have no experience. How do I make myself marketable?

Q: What are online portfolios? Why should I care about them? And, how do I get one?

Q: How do I convince my director to let me go back to school?

SurveyWe conducted a survey, on managing a successful career. By

early 2012, 2,369 people had started it and 1,922 had completed it --

an 81% completion rate."If you want a successful career in librarianship - or

just about anything else - you have to manage it. You can't sit back passively and let things happen to you.

You have to be proactive and figure out what you want; where you want to be in 2, 5, or 10 years; and what it will take to get there. Then start working on

it." - survey response

Professional Development

Barriers to (or lack of: __ )• Time

• Money

• Motivation

• Encouragement

• Support

• Incentives / rewards

• Disengagment

Advantages (PD can help you: __ )• Find a job

• Find a better job

• Change roles

• Advance in your career

• Break down barriers to creativity & innovation

• Become more confident

• Become a happier, more engaged, professional

... is the key to managing a successful career

Are you Engaged? Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company.

Not Engaged employees are essentially “checked out.” Putting time — but not energy or passion — into their work.

Actively Disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness.

70%OF AMERICAN WORKERS ARE “NOT ENGAGED” OR “ACTIVELY DISENGAGED.”

State of the American Workplace Report, 2013. Gallup measures employee engagement based on workers’ responses to its Q12 survey, which consists of 12 actionable workplace elements with proven links to performance outcomes. Download the report.

"We disengage to protect ourselves from vulnerability, shame, and feeling lost and without purpose. We also disengage when we feel like the people who are leading us ... aren't living up to their end of the social contract."

- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

Download the full manifesto

Different Engagement Strategies• Employees are most engaged when they have the opportunity to do

what they do best every day.

• Engagement is connected to having a strong sense of what their organization stands for.

• To increase retention among Millenials (the most likely to job-hop), provide plenty of opportunities to learn and grow.

• It's not enough to put the right people in the right jobs -- we must invest in people's talents to optimize their performance.

• Create a culture of well-being.

Audience Questions

• Question 1

• Question 2

Ten Professional Development Action Steps

Assess

"Take the time to assess your skills and then translate them into the language of the job you want."

- Susanne & Tiffany, Career Q&A

Network

“Networking is both an art and a science. But in the end – networking should be fun, exciting and a rewarding approach to advancement. The more you network – with a positive outlook – the more you will learn. And if you’re always learning, you are growing and thus developing yourself.”

-- "7 Reasons Networking Can Be a Professional Development Boot Camp." Glenn Llopis,

Forbes.com

Mentor

"Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction." - John Crosby

“Most people can do absolutely awe-inspiring things. Sometimes they just need a little nudge.” - Timothy Ferriss

Learn

“As a teacher, my goal was to go home at the end of each day with more energy than I had at the beginning of the day.”

- "Ten Steps to Better Student Engagement." Tristan De Frondeville. Edutopia.org “Live as if you were to die

tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Gandhi

Seek

"There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself."

- Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

Audience Questions

• Question 3

• Question 4

Collaborate

• Knowing that I am not alone with my dilemma, that I can call on others for their expertise, which increases my self-confidence

• It can open doors for funding -- pooling of resources

• Different points of view and people who might see things that I am simply overlooking

• I've participated in some group presentations and writing projects that I never would have dared on my own

• Projects developed with others tend to have better outcomes and more staying power

What's the Best Thing about Collaboration? (survey responses)

Create

"USE CONSTRAINT TO FUEL CREATIVE ACTION: Given a choice, most of us would of course prefer a little more budget, a little more staff, and a little more time. But constraints can spur creativity and incite action, as long as you have the confidence to embrace them." - Tom Kelley & David Kelley, Creative Confidence.

"Think about the overlap between your personal passions and the workplace options that might be available to you. Learn new skills. Start writing the new story of your working life." - ibid.

Fail

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas A. Edison

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” - Henry Ford

“The front end of innovation is supposed to be messy.” – David & Tom Kelley, Creative Confidence

Redefine

The thing is, you never really start over. You don't lose all the work that's come before. Even if you try to toss it aside, the lessons you've learned from it will seep into what you do next. - Austin Kleon, Show Your Work. "What we know

matters but who we are matters more." ― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly.

Share

• document and record your process

• scoop up scraps and residue and shape it into something interesting

• share something small every day

• use social media sites to share updates

• secure your own online space (register a domain name)

• don't think self-promotion, think self-invention

- Austin Kleon, Show Your Work

Audience Question

• Question 5

What are is the next step in your professional plan?

Creating a Professional Development Plan

• is a personal endeavor

• is always a work in progress

• should be used to help you self-assess by:- exploring strengths and limitations- figuring out what is most important to you (at this point in your career)- understanding and predicting expectations- defining goals- creating actions steps

Professional Development Plan: To Do -• Reflect

journal, organize, synthesize • Gain self -awareness

satisfaction, engagement• Seek outside input

supervisor, mentor, peers • Develop action steps

update resume, seek a mentor, attend conferences, enroll in courses, join discussion groups...

• Set longer term goals 3 years, 5 years -- look at the bigger picture

Creating a Professional Development Plan | EDUCAUSE

Recommended Reading• Career Q&A: A Librarian’s Real-Life, Practical Guide to Managing a Successful

Career. Susanne Markgren and Tiffany Eatman Allen. Information Today, 2013.

• Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All. Tom Kelley, and David Kelley. Crown Business, 2013.

• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Brené Brown. Gotham Books, 2012.

• Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. Austin Kleon. Workman Publishing Group, 2012.

• Show Your Work: 10 Ways To Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered. Austin Kleon. Workman Publishing Group, 2014.

Thank you!

Tiffany Eatman Allen&

Susanne Markgren

This presentation is online at: http://bit.ly/mla_invest

Library Career People : http://librarycareerpeople.com/

@LibCareerPeople

librarycareerpeople@gmail.com

Photo Attributions: cc Creative Commons• Assess: rafal_olechowski, Career development in word tag cloud on white, iStock photo

• Network: Marc Smith, https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/6871711979

• Learn: courosa, https://www.flickr.com/photos/51035553780@N01/2311845824/

• Seek: Chris Goldberg, https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisgold/7179893537

• Collaborate: styff22, Zen Still Life, iStock photo

• Create: Create Color, Jonah G.S. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonahgs/319116679/

• Mentor: ffaalumni, https://www.flickr.com/photos/40490812@N03/9045254666/

• Fail: Jeffpro57, https://www.flickr.com/photos/37357703@N08/6167125536/

• Redefine: Michael Tapp https://www.flickr.com/photos/59949757@N06/9179224517/

• Share: Sharing, Ben Grey https://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_grey/4582294721/