Hit the Refresh Button -- Professional Development is Non-negotiable
Which person is most like you?
1. Burned Out Betty
It’s Monday morning. Again. A new work week awaits.
Betty glared at her agenda for the week: meetings to attend; event planning to shape; communications strategy to consider. Her “To Do” list exceeded her 40-hour work week. Like many nonprofit leaders, Betty lives and breathes her work. She habitually checks emails after work hours; edits documents while watching television; sends multiple emails before collapsing into her bed at the end of another exhausting day.
Betty’s work was never-ending. The kind of work that causes burnout. Betty is passionate about helping adults learn to read. She devotes endless hours and resources to this noble cause. She trained volunteers; organized book donation drives; posted articles on the value of investing in adult literacy. It was good work. Great work. But it was draining Betty dry. She recognized the symptoms of burnout: exhaustion, anxiety, and depression.
2. Hit the Refresh Button Freda
Freda knows her role well as a nonprofit executive leader. For the past five years, she has been responsible for her organization’s mission and vision, outcomes, infrastructure, strategies, plans, expenses, revenue, staffing, growth, and public image. Her work has included creating more efficient operations and greater impact for donors. Because of this intense workload, Freda knows her knowledge, skills, and experience require regular fine-tuning.
Freda takes time each Friday afternoon to plan her schedule for the next work week. As is her habit, she selected two hours for professional development. When she could, she scheduled up to four hours to add to or sharpen her skill set.
Freda recently completed strategic planning with her team. The goals for her children’s hospital organization were fresh on her mind. She knew where she needed to lead this team. She had clear objectives on how to get there. She knew she needed to select professional development options that would advance the next steps to achieve the goals.
Freda knew it was important to keep informing herself and maintaining avenues for growing her skills. Her staff needed to see her model good self-care which included finding joy and overcoming challenges in her work. She knew part of that came from scheduling weekly professional development opportunities.
She found help in a variety of ways to continue to learn and grow in her work as Executive Director. Some opportunities were free and others available at a reasonable cost.
On her weekly appointment calendar, Freda took time to add one of the following items:
Meet her mentor for lunch. Freda continued a relationship with a fellow nonprofit Executive Director she had met at a nonprofit conference a few years ago. Her mentor had many more years of experience and was willing to share her wisdom. Freda shadowed her friend for a brief time to see for herself how a successful nonprofit executive conducted herself. Freda’s mentor was not only a career advisor for her, she had truly become a friend she could count on to discuss work challenges as well as gain invaluable life lessons.
Listen to podcasts https://www.nonprofit.courses/podcasts-for-nonprofits/ The variety of topics included event planning, financial planning, tax advice, and much more.
Be Involved in a professional group. Freda joined Women in Development, https://widny.org/.
Here Freda found community, opportunities for advancement, and genuine friendships. Freda learned that the key to making lasting connections with people was when there was real give-and-take in the relationship. The women there generously shared their time, experience, and resources.
Read a blog, article, or book. When she had a little extra time, Freda did a quick search to find a multitude of reading material that helped her understand a nonprofit topic from another point of view. https://themodernnonprofit.com/best-nonprofit-blogs/
Attend a webinar. The months of COVID-19 allowed Freda more opportunity to attend webinars instead of in-person seminars. She found much help through AFP, The Association for Financial Professionals, https://learn.afponline.org/
Schedule a virtual conference. She found a list at https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/nonprofit-conferences-2021/ It was a mixture of in-person and virtual conferences. She spent time selecting and scheduling the conference most interesting to her.
Meanwhile, back to Burned Out Betty. As she lay in bed, tossing and turning, her brain just wouldn’t power down. She thought about how her days had turned into a constant run to help people. She knew why she was doing this work. She just needed to remember how to keep her personal and professional well full and pace herself for the years of work ahead.
Before Betty turned off her laptop, she read one more blog: https://www.classy.org/blog/resilient-nonprofit-team-prevents-employee-churn/ She wanted to model being a resilient leader. The adults learning to read at the Center needed her to be strong. Their families would continue to benefit from the jobs they received from their language skills. Tomorrow, she would start her day off by researching some professional development opportunities. She would encourage her staff members to do the same. She would schedule appointments to talk one-on-one with each staff member to ask them if they had everything needed to accomplish their work. Betty wanted to hear their vision and how they could enhance their careers through professional development. She would recheck the budget and visit with her financial officer to see how they could use funds to attend seminars and workshops. Maybe they could attend some of those events together. And she would also organize some Lunch and Learn events onsite.
Before she turned the light out for some peaceful sleep, she sent a text to her friend, Freda. “Can I join you and your mentor for lunch or coffee sometime soon? I’ve got a lot to learn.”
How about you? Are you most like Betty or Freda? What will you do to grow professionally this week?