Is professional development a top item on your bucket list?

Have you thought of how you will go about growing yourself professionally?

Do you have a game plan?

Let me ask in a metaphorical way.

What is the difference between:

• buying a book and
• renting a book from a library?

I will lay out a case for why you may be grossly under rating and underutilizing a unique resource.

Libraries!

What, you ask?

Hang on, I am getting there.

I will convince you why having access to a library will raise your professional development to great heights.

In fact, it will result in something you ignore for the most part.

And which is at your own peril.

What am I talking about?

Let’s find out.

This blog post will cover

Book Vs Library Metaphor in Professional Development

Take a look at the infographic below:

If you wanted to learn about only one topic, you could buy a book on that.

However, here is the catch.

You generally would want to learn about more than one topic.

Particularly since topics are always related to other ones.

This is not true just about leisure reading.

It is equally, if not more, applicable to work related reading.

As a manager, you cannot read only one book and become proficient in your job.

Possibly you cannot get proficient in anything with that approach.

No doubt you will have gotten some ideas from the book.

What if I told you that libraries are like professional development centers?

They cover a huge range of topics.

If done right, they can elevate your learning.

Sharpening the Saw

Heard of the principle of Sharpening the Saw?

Abraham Lincoln once said:

If I was given the task of cutting down a tree in 5 hours:

• I will spend 4 hours sharpening the saw and
• 1 hour in cutting.

Steven Covey in his perennial bestseller 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talked about it in a major way.

Well, the “saw” in your case is professional development.

When was the last time you gave this some attention.

As a hotel manager you have been so busy running the operation that you have no time to upgrading yourself.

That is not an encouraging sign.

You need to be able to continuously build skills and abilities in yourself.

So that you are considered and in fact are the candidate most suitable for promotions and opportunities.

Don’t lose sight of your priorities.

Learning Vs Professional Development

This brings us to a critical difference between learning and professional development.

Learning for the most part is about gaining knowledge.

You learn new concepts, steps, techniques and so on.

Professional development on the other hand means growing skills, abilities and experience.

You might have learned about a concept.

However, did you acquire any skills or new abilities from that learning?

This is a question that we often ignore.

This brings us to professional development.

Professionally developing yourself means you acquire new skills and abilities.

It is not merely learning concepts.

You gain the skills of applying those concepts.

Skills like:

• problem solving,
• decision making,
• conflict resolution

and so on are critical in achieving success as a manager.

This is where the Financial Skills Academy Membership libraries come in.

With multiple library types like:

• videos
• audios
• infographics
• slideshows etc.

to name a few, you build skills and abilities over and above learning.

This is professional development.

3As is a mantra that guides this process.

What are the 3As?

3As Mantra of Professional Development

The 3As of Financial Skills Academy Membership libraries are:

• Absorb
• Apply
• Achieve

Absorb

To absorb something is to add a key layer to your learning.

The layer of inner meaning.

Absorbing means to get to the core of a topic or concept.

It means understanding inner meaning.

Or you could also say master the basics.

No learning is complete unless you understand thoroughly the basics.

Unfortunately many managers skip the basics.

And make it difficult for themselves later in applying that concept to their operation.

So, remember this always: learn the ropes well.

Libraries in Financial Skills Academy Membership go to great lengths to instill basics.

We have libraries committed to just basics for beginners and learners.

Multiple mediums are used like video, audio, infographics to nail down fundamentals.

Libraries are tailored to unique learning needs through preliminary quizzes.

Apply

Dale Carnegie said: Knowledge is useless if it is not applied.

To acquire the skill of applying a concept you must have absorbed basics well.

Application allows you to practice learned skills.

For example:

Merely knowing what Profit Flow Through is meaningless if you cannot use it in your hotel operation.

To boost your bottom line.

Make it a habit always to seal your learning (absorbing) by testing whether you can apply it at your work place.

If you can, you have absorbed and applied learning.

You have acquired skills and abilities.

Or in other words you are growing professionally.

Let’s get to the third A - Achieve.

Achieve

For you to achieve professional success you must have absorbed and applied learning.

Professional development is the combination of skills and abilities to carry out your job responsibilities successfully.

Mere learning will not cut it.

Even more crucial is that success becomes more consistent.

It is not so difficult to achieve success once.

However, to be able to perform successfully time and again is not so easy.

The 3As of Absorb, Apply and Achieve allow you to grow professionally.

Taken together with multiple methods of learning, our membership takes professional development to new levels.

Higher Learning Per Dollar

This brings us to the question of how we acquire professional development.

Let me ask a question.

Would You Prefer Entire Professional Development Libraries At Your Disposal OR Just Single Course Content?

Each online course targets a certain learning level.

You might have to go back to another online course for higher, different learning.

Instead of one course you have entire professional development libraries at your disposal with our membership.

In the longer term, membership provides you with higher learning per dollar invested.

You would want that, right?

See a comparison below.

Membership Customized to Your Learning Needs

There is one huge additional benefit of our membership.

Professional Development is achieved through understanding your unique learning needs.

Single Online courses just teach you knowledge.

They do not take time however to know your unique learning requirements.

Each one of us learns best in a particular way.

Our membership through a preliminary quiz gets to understand what learning is best for you.

The level of learning you are most comfortable with is what drives our membership tiers.

While we accommodate all levels of learning, it is your learning needs that are the priority.

Beginners require simple, non-technical, usable content and courses and we have you covered.

We have a Learner membership tier entirely focused on beginner level requirements.

To guide you in your learning, we have Learner Mentoring Sessions.

These sessions literally hold your hand in your quest for building financial skills, knowledge and ability.

For experienced hotel middle, senior managers, we have the Professional tier which goes beyond basics.

At this level, the content, courses and other assets allow you to utilize your learning to take consistent, successful financial and business decisions in the operation.

All toward your professional development.

Now for the icing on the cake.

Professional Development with Leadership & Productivity Practices

Our membership professional development does not stop there.

We also bring in Leadership and Productivity Practices through our libraries.

Leadership brings in relevant elements that are needed to head teams efficiently.

Productivity practices introduce you to simple strategies to set systems, targets, measure and achieve consistently.

Multiple Learning Method Choice Libraries

How do you grow yourself professionally?

The pandemic has made professional development an individual responsibility.

You must take ownership of it.

So, making the right choice for your learning growth is critical.

You want learning that can be squeezed into your hectic schedule.

And is self paced.

Which gives you choices in your learning methods.

Financial Skills Academy Membership is your ultimate online learning go to resource.

Why?

Because, to begin with. you have a host of libraries to choose from.

You have member only access to:

• Premium Content Library
• Premium Course Library
• Video Library
• Ultimate Guides Library
• Podcast Library
• Infographics Library
• Asset Library [Templates, Downloads, Excel Workbooks etc]

Why Should You be Sharpening Your Saw Right Now?

As a hotel middle manager if you do not do it now, you are going to be left behind.

Post pandemic, competition has heated up.

Organizations are becoming more selective in their hiring.

Professionally developing yourself is not an option.

It is the ticket to your survival and performing at high levels consistently.

Make this a priority right now.

Next Week- Market Share Vs Fair Share Battle

Next week we will get back to Part 3 of the 7 part series.

Are you Out or Under Penetrating your market?

Why should you know this in the post pandemic era?

Find out next week in Hotel Rev Mgt Strategies - Market Share Vs Fair Share Battle

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