Is Your Development at a Dead End: 5 Steps to Crowd Source Your Coaching

Is your development at a dead end?

Some bosses and workplaces place a premium on their employees growth and development. Others?

Not so much.

Your might love your job, love your career, even love your boss, and still your development is stalled. Your growth doesn’t have to stop just because your boss is a development dead end. Don’t get stuck… get a new source.

Crowd source your development.

Organize a crowd of like minded people who want development and use a crowd of experts to develop you. You'll build skills, create momentum, AND accelerate your development.

Here are 5 steps to crowd source your coaching

1. Get a crowd to join you.

   Why go it alone? If you’re not getting development, others aren’t either. There’s amazing creativity, empowerment and accountability when you’re with others. Your crowd can be as small as 3 people or as big as 10-15, and your crowd can meet in-person or virtually.

2. Organize the crowd

   Add a bit of structure to keep moving forward. Identify what you need, but don’t kill it with formality . Just find a few topics. It's better to start than to stall. Then give yourself a schedule or milestones ("This quarter I want to work on presentation skills").

3. Leverage the crowd. Your don’t need experts for everything.

   -Your crowd is your first resource to share and reapply. Understand what people need and what they already do well. Sign them up. If they're not a topic expert, no problem, they can learn. If they are experts, they gain exposure.

   -Learn as a group - Topic lunches work! I had a group that met once a month and one person was assigned to bring in a topic or article and lead a discussion. We enjoyed it so much it went on for almost 2 years.

4. Work the crowd. Learn by DOING.

   -For every topic, discuss how you might apply it in your work setting. Training is not the same as skill building. You have to apply what you learn.

   -Assign accountability buddies. One of my best experiences was someone simply observing and giving me feedback on how I presented. Neither one of us were experienced presenters, but we were observant enough to give each other feedback.

5. Learn from a crowd of experts

   Once in a while, bring in a guest speaker- you'll build your network and gain valuable outside perspective. Use your crowd to suggest experts to bring in to lead a topic lunch or a training session.

No more development dead ends. Follow the crowd instead.

Check out the The Career Toolbox page for more practical tips and tools from popular coaches.