I was lucky enough to catch a great panel the other day on LinkedIn. Titled ‘Prioritising Your Professional Development – Insights from L&D’, we heard from a number of experts in the L&D space about where some of the gaps are in the development of the L&D professional.

I asked a question in the chat about how much time people put aside for their development and Laura Overton on the panel highlighted that it wasn’t necessarily a time or monetary issue but about intent.

I mentioned intent yesterday when talking about peer engagement and it prompted a few questions.

• How many people at work learn things accidentally?
• How often do you stumble across stuff to learn?
• Do you create the space where people can investigate things for themselves?

I’ve mentioned that self-determination and self-direction are different; self-determination encourages free choice whereas self-direction is a choice from a supplied list. If you want to encourage people to have more intent, craft self-determined space where people can find things for themselves. They will appreciate the freedom to explore and are more likely to share – with you, their peers, and across the organisation.