So I started asking better questions of myself
Professional Development: No One Was Going to Tell Me What I Needed to Learn — Barbara had always been good at learning what was required of her.
In her role as an administrator in a family-owned business, there was usually plenty to learn.
New systems.
New processes.
New responsibilities.
If someone told her what she needed to know, Barbara would work it out.
But she had begun to wonder what happened when nobody was there to tell her.
The Conversation
It started with a development conversation at work.
Her manager asked what she wanted to develop over the coming year.
Barbara had expected to be given some suggestions.
Instead, her manager asked:
“What do you think you need to learn?”
Barbara paused.
“I’m not sure.”
Her manager waited.
Barbara started thinking about the things she was good at.
She knew the systems.
She understood the business.
She could usually spot what needed doing and get on with it.
But she couldn’t immediately think of something she needed to learn.
The conversation moved on.
But the question stayed with her.
What Was Missing?
Barbara decided to look more closely at her own work.
She noticed that when something went wrong, her first instinct was usually to fix it.
If a process wasn’t working, she would find a way around it.
If someone needed information, she would provide it.
If something was unclear, she would work it out.
She had become very good at making things work.
But she began to wonder whether that was always the same as learning.
What happened when she solved a problem without asking why it had happened?
What did she miss when she moved quickly to the answer?
And what might she learn if she stopped treating every difficulty as something to fix?
A Different Question
A few days later, something went wrong with a process Barbara had helped to establish.
Her first instinct was to sort it out.
She knew how.
But this time she paused.
Instead of asking, “How do I fix this?” she asked herself:
“What is this showing me?”
The question changed how she looked at the problem.
She noticed that the process wasn’t failing because someone had made a simple mistake.
There was an assumption built into it that no longer fitted the way the business was working.
Barbara could have fixed the immediate problem.
Instead, she looked at the process again.
She talked to the people involved.
She asked what they were experiencing.
And she began to understand something she hadn’t seen before.
The problem wasn’t just the process.
Her understanding of the process needed to change.
Asking Better Questions
Barbara began to notice that the questions she asked herself made a difference.
What am I noticing?
I am noticing patterns rather than just individual problems.
What am I assuming?
I am assuming that because I know how something works, I understand everything about it.
What could I learn here?
I could learn why something isn’t working rather than simply finding a way around it.
What do I want to understand better?
I want to understand what sits behind the decisions and processes I work with every day.
What does this tell me about my development?
I don’t always need someone else to identify a gap for me. I can learn by becoming more curious about my own work.
No One Was Going To Tell Her
Barbara had been waiting for someone to tell her what she needed to learn.
But perhaps that wasn’t how professional development always worked.
Sometimes someone else could identify an opportunity.
Sometimes a course could introduce a new idea.
Sometimes a colleague could show us something we hadn’t considered.
But there were also things only we could notice.
The questions that kept returning.
The situations that frustrated us.
The things we handled automatically.
The assumptions we rarely examined.
Those could all become starting points for learning.
Learning From The Work
Barbara didn’t suddenly need a list of new skills.
She needed to become more curious about the work she was already doing.
She started asking herself different questions when something happened.
Why did that work?
Why didn’t it work?
What did I assume?
What haven’t I considered?
What could I have done differently?
The questions didn’t always produce immediate answers.
That wasn’t the point.
They made her stop.
They made her look again.
And sometimes they showed her something she hadn’t noticed the first time.
The Next Conversation
A few weeks later, Barbara went back to her manager.
This time, she had an answer to the question she hadn’t been able to answer before.
“What do you think you need to learn?”
Barbara thought about everything she had been noticing.
“I think I’ve realised something. I’m very good at dealing with what’s in front of me. But I’m always thinking about the immediate problem — what needs doing, what needs fixing, what needs sorting out. I want to get better at stepping back and thinking about where we’re going and how the things I do fit into that.”
Her manager asked:
“What would help you do that?”
Barbara had already started thinking about it.
“I think I need to understand more about what’s happening beyond my own work. I’d like to spend some time with people in other parts of the business, understand what they’re dealing with and how they see things. And I’d like to give myself some longer-term things to work on, rather than only responding to whatever comes up.”
Her manager nodded.
“What kind of things?”
Barbara thought about it.
“I’d like to understand more about where the business is going and what that might mean for the work I do. I’d like to look at some of the things I see happening now and think about what they might mean further ahead, rather than only dealing with them in the moment.”
Her manager nodded.
“And how would you keep yourself focused on that?”
“I think I need a development plan with some things I can work towards over the year. Something that gives me a reason to look beyond what’s happening today.”
Barbara smiled.
For the first time, she could see what she wanted her development to look like.
It wasn’t about finding something she didn’t know.
It was about widening her view.
Professional Development Can Begin With A Question
Barbara had started with a familiar assumption.
That professional development meant identifying something she didn’t know and finding someone who could teach it to her.
She still valued learning from other people.
But she had begun to understand that she could also take responsibility for noticing what she needed to explore.
Professional development doesn’t always begin with an answer.
Sometimes it begins with a question we haven’t thought to ask ourselves.
Barbara had started by asking:
What do I need to learn?
She was now asking:
What is my working life trying to teach me?
That was a very different kind of question.
And it gave her somewhere new to begin.
What questions could you ask yourself about your work that might reveal something you need to learn?
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Explore Professional Development — stories and reflections on professional development, learning and the experiences that shape our working lives.
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