Assignment
Kelly Carmon knew that the best approach to obtaining endorsement from her boss, Patricia Edwards, for her professional development was to devise a plan. By creating a formal plan, Carmon would be able to outline her professional development goals and build a case for why achievement of her goals would be important. Further, by developing a formal plan, Carmon would build the evidence case for her professional development, drawing from the available research literature she knew Edwards respected. Though this process was difficult, it helped her to focus her own goals so she could be clear and compelling when she presented her case to Edwards. She focused on two- and five-year time horizons to keep herself from feeling completely overwhelmed. Knowing that the best goals were those that were measurable, Carmon outlined her professional development goals and their associated metrics as a starting point for her discussion with Edwards.
Two-Year Goals
1) Improvement in conflict management skills, reflected in improvement on Annual Performance Evaluation section of "Managing Conflict"
2) Improvement in team-building skills, reflected in improvement in Annual Performance Evaluation section of "Building Professional Teams"
3) Successful completion of cross-system project, involving collaboration out- side Division of Cardiology
4) Expansion of professional network to include at least two West Liberty executives
5) Higher personal job satisfaction
6) Promotion of at least one direct report to manager at West Liberty
Three- to Five-Year Goals
1) Promotion to director at West Liberty
2) By year three, Annual Performance Evaluation strong in all areas
3) High job satisfaction of direct reports, reflected in Annual Employee Work- Life Survey
4) Promotion of at least two direct reports to manager at West Liberty in years 3-5
Once Carmon had outlined her goals, she saw that the next step in her professional development planning process was to highlight specific areas of development necessary for achieving her goals. Several areas jumped out at her in particular: (i) conflict management, (ii) building professional teams, (iii) internal networking, (iv) cross-system collaboration, (v) leadership development, and (vi) employee development. Carmon recognized that Edwards, similar to many others, was a visual thinker. One tool Carmon knew of that might help both her and Edwards envi- sion alternative professional development options was a scenario analysis exercise that described what success might look like if things did or did not go as planned. Carmon got herself a glass of iced tea and imagined how things might happen for good or bad, considering whether she was able to enlist the support and make the personal and behavioral changes she believed were necessary. Exhibit 5.2 shows how she envisioned these three scenarios for the two-year time horizon. Scenario 1: Stormy Weather Unable to enlist sufficient support for her own professional development, Carmon was forced to continue the development process on her own. She signed up for multiple class offerings through West Liberty's education division, but she was limited by both the course catalog and her own schedule.
Though she successfully completed several online courses that introduced her to focused topics, her inability to get away from her job prevented her from completing any courses that required in-class sessions. The director of cardiology was supportive of Carmon's efforts but unable to provide additional resources for her to travel to off-site conferences or participate in courses that required time away from operations. Carmon's performance evaluations continued to be positive, but the director's comments consistently indicated room for improvement in her people skills. The director was particularly concerned about Carmon's ability to work with established nurses and her inability to generate and sustain productive teams that involved clinicians. On Carmon's part, she remained frustrated about her lack of free time and about a seemingly endless career as a manager who would never be promoted. She started to look outside West Liberty for new positions but realized her lack of professional development had limited her job possibilities to lateral moves. Scenario 2: The Long and Winding Road Though initially frustrated by her need to be continually available to meet her job's incessant demands, Carmon began to see windows of opportunity for her development.
With her director's support, she was able to sign up for a new mentoring program at West Liberty, and she developed an interesting professional connection with the director of food services in the health system. This director had been at West Liberty for her entire career and was able to provide advice about important topics such as negotiating the poli- tics of the health system and using the performance evaluation process as an opportunity for shameless self-promotion. As the director pointed out to Carmon, West Liberty did not like to lose good people, so building one's professional image as one of the "stars" of the system was an excellent first step toward getting promoted. In addition, through her mentor, Carmon was able to find a similarly minded manager of operations in food services who was interested in learning more about West Liberty.
With the help of both directors, Carmon and her colleague negotiated a job switching arrangement whereby the managers would spend two hours each day in the other's role for a three-month period. During these three months, the managers also agreed to have lunch together at least twice per week to ensure that they had direct opportunities to coordinate with each other so that their job rotation hours would not result in lost productivity for either department. Though the job rotation itself did not directly lead to a promotion, this creative arrangement helped reduce Carmon's frustration with West Liberty, and it enabled her to see opportunities throughout the system for the coming years. Scenario 3: Sunny Side of the Street Carmon's meeting with the director went better than she could have hoped. The director was in complete agreement about the need for Carmon to focus on her professional development and offered to provide whatever resources she could to help Carmon succeed. After reviewing Carmon's professional development plan, the two agreed on a plan of attack for the coming year, and they were able to identify two specific off-site conferences that were well aligned with Carmon's need to develop her conflict management and negotiation skills. In the meantime, the director suggested that Carmon read several books related to these topics, and she offered to serve as a sounding board to discuss the books at a series of monthly lunches they would schedule.
The director also offered to recommend that Carmon be placed in the new pro- gram that was being developed at West Liberty for "high potentials," ensuring that she would receive executive-level attention to her leadership development for the coming two years. At the end of the meeting, the director handed Carmon a copy of one of her recommended books-Crucial Conversations, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler (McGraw-Hill, 2002)-and the two agreed on a date for the first lunch meeting. Nine months flew by, and at Carmon's annual performance evaluation meeting, she had her next formal opportunity to discuss professional development with the director. They agreed that the book discussion lunches were both productive and fun, and they listed the next three books they would plan to read and dis- cuss. They also spoke frankly about external courses Carmon had taken at a recent professional meeting and about issues she faced in applying what she had learned; this part of the discussion highlighted several opportunities for Carmon to further develop her leadership skills and practice new behaviors.
Task
A. How has Carmon's analysis built or weakened her case for spending time away from operations to develop her professional skills?
B. What has to happen for Carmon to achieve her two-year and three-to five-year professional goals? What will lead to the best scenario, "Sunny Side of the Street, becoming a reality?
C. What should Carmon do if the meeting does not go well? What should she do if her plan does not work?
D. How much of professional development is one's personal responsibility, and how much is the responsibility of the employer?