Stages of Prof Development LO4635

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@compuserve.com)
04 Jan 96 00:53:58 EST

Was: Pay and Play LO4483

Rol said:

>When a person begins to actively influence others to reach this level of
>conscious development, then they have begun to move to the 6th level.

Rick asked:
>[Host's Note: Rol, it sounds like you are referring to a model here.
>Fifth and Sixth levels in what model? And, I'm curious, what are the other
>four levels? ]

Rick,

I thought I described the levels in another note, but I had a computer
failure, and some stuff was not sent. This was probably one of them.

We are developing our own home-brewed model for understanding the training
needs of people in the department. We began with the four levels
described in the note on the situational leadership course. But we have
added to it in a couple of ways. First we have recognized that there is a
distinction between personal growth and professional growth. We need
people to achieve both, but we require prrofessional growth. We plan to
provide resources to support personal growth as well as professional. For
starters, our model assumes that professional growth and personal growth
go through the same stages. This may change.

Second, there are more stages beyond the first four. We have identified
three more so far. The fifth is for what we call an empowered
professional -- one who reaches well beyond the traditional job boundaries
in order to perform extraordinarily well.

Before I describe the next stages, you should understand the purpose of
the model. Obviously, we would like to be able to identify where any
individual is in the model. Once we have done that, we want to identify
the responsibilities of the person to progress, but we also want to
identify the responsibilities of the various levels of supervisors to aid
that progress. If you are the first level supervisor of a new employee,
your role is very direct and hands-on. As the employee matures
professionally, the supervisor's role becomes more indirect, more
suggestive, less authoritative, more subtle.

For a supervisor to effectively play these various roles, they too need
training. Therefore, the sixth stage is when a person becomes a manager
because now they have responsibilities to help others grow and mature.
They are now teachers.

The 7th level occurs when a person becomes a manager of managers. At this
point they are teachers of teachers, or master teachers. Again, the
skills for a teacher of teachers is dramatically different than for a
teacher or a professional.

My personal prejudice -- which my department has not yet bought into -- is
that all managers are teachers, but teachers with a fundamental difference
from what we commonly refer to as teachers. The difference is that as a
manager, they are also responsible for how well their students execute
what they have been taught. Most teachers do not have to live with these
consequences, and I expect this will bring a certain focus to the task.

One further refinement is that these teachers may not actually teach in
the traditional sense. Nevertheless, they will be responsible for the
educational development of their staff. Thus a manager/teacher may
identify the learning needs of a person and arrange a teacher, arrange a
project, arrange another experience (eg run a United Way campaign, or
other community work), or actually teach.

While I have described managers as teachers, the reality is that everyone
is a teacher, and everyone will do some teaching. It would be more
accurate to say that managers are responsible for the professional
development of their staff.

As it stands now, our model of professional development looks like the one
below. There is a separate model for personal development which is
identical at the moment. There are probably others that are more refined,
but this has the powerful advantage that we own it because we created it,
using relevant material we have found along the way.

Learning Model

Inexperienced. Needs to listen carefully, practice, get constructive
feedback, and reflect on results.

Slight experience. Understands mechanics. Weak on concepts. Needs
encouragement on mechanics. Experiments are suggested. Understands
concept of responsible experimentation.

Experienced. Solid on mechanics. May be erratic on concepts. Needs
encouragement to experiment & reflect on successes and failures.
Understands corporate purpose, but may not always implement in alignment
with it.

Solid performer. Understands all aspects. Requires minimal supervision
and training. Practices responsible experimentaton regularly. Needs
subtle encouragement to reach beyond the job description in ways that will
enhance performance.

Takes responsibility for tasks ouside their responsibility without
encouragement, and thus enhances personal and departmental performance.
This person is empowered.

Manages professionals. Responsible for identifying growth needs of
professionals, providing training, and giving feedback. Accountable for
performance of staff.

Manages managers. Responsible for identifying growth needs of manager/
teachers, providing training, and giving feedback. Accountable for
performance of staff.

--
 Rol Fessenden
 LL Bean
 76234.3636@compuserve.com
--
Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com>