Personal development with no budget

None of us are perfect.

We should all be working to upgrade our skills every day.

There are ways to do this without the budget to attend conferences and seminars.

We can improve ourselves, even if we think we are excellent, in one or more of these areas:

• Understanding the business, including the business environment
• Leadership
• Managing others
• Managing up
• Communications
• Active listening
• Presentations
• Working with difficult people
• Technical skills and knowledge
• Technology
• New ideas
• How others see us
• and so much more

Here are some ideas for your consideration. Please share any I have missed in the comments section, below. These are not necessarily in priority order. You should set the priority based on your own needs.

1. Watch, listen, and learn from the people “in the trenches”: salespeople, engineers, maintenance workers, credit staff, accountants, customer service representatives, etc. Understand what it’s really like in the business: what they do and the challenges they have every day. Consider spending a day a month doing this.
2. Spend time and get to know middle management, their work and challenges. Don’t judge, don’t audit. Listen and learn. If they ask for your opinion, give it cautiously. Seek…