February FAQ — Building My Own Development Plan
One Friday each month, I dedicate the post to looking at some questions I have heard recently from developing leaders. Sharing those questions and my thoughts for them is a way for me to spread the information to as many leaders and future leaders as possible. If you have a question about leadership or just a situation you would like some additional insight on, please email me at [Effective Retail Leader.](#) Let’s take a look at this week’s question.
> What Are Some Ideas or Tools for Helping Me Build My Own Development Plan?
I love this question. It is always exciting to see and hear about people who are actively engaging in their own development. After all, you are the one that truly owns your development. Your company, your manager, and your team all play roles in that, but you are your own project manager. There have been exciting developments in this area. I have talked about self-development before and shared a recent article on some of those ideas based on the idea that you are the most important person in your development. We have also discussed the importance of embracing feedback and turning that into actionable ideas for your ongoing growth. Now that you are taking that leap, are there other tools or resources that you can use to further your development journey? I have a resounding yes to that question.
The tried and true
There are some basic elements that must be included in any personal development plan. They may seem like the boring basics, but they are the basics.
Books - there is still a ton of value in picking up a book and reading (or grabbing the audiobook and listening). Hearing different author’s perspectives and their exploration of full topics is still one of the best ways to learn new things and be exposed to innovative ideas. Three great suggestions right here: Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara, How Leaders Learn: Master the Habits of the World's Most Successful People by David Novak, and a new one from Dan Heath, Reset: How to Change What's Not Working. These cover a wide variety of topics, but they will provide new learnings for almost any leader in any industry. You can find additional recommendations from my 2024 reading list.
Podcasts - another excellent source of information on a recurring basis. There are so many options now. You can find a podcast on almost any subject. It is a great way to get exposed to new thinking and approaches to work, planning, leadership, team building, and more.
Articles - like podcasts, these are prolific. You can find an article on anything now. In fact, the bigger issue may be that there is too much to choose from when you do a basic subject search online. Identifying some of your favorite sources is a great way to narrow that down and stick with those for a while. You can always switch it up later. Of course, one place I recommend is Effective Retail Leader.
The new and exciting
AI is all the rage; we hear about it almost every day related to nearly any subject. There are some exciting developments in this space as it relates to personal development. The easiest way would be to start with a Google search on something you want to learn about. Not only will you be presented with article links and business websites that can help with the topic, but Google Gemini (their AI platform) will provide a summary within the search results. Or, you can fire up ChatGPT and ask your questions there to get full responses. Each of these can be completed for free and are excellent ways to get research level information quickly. Other platforms like Microsoft’s CoPilot and Claude provide experiences similar to those of Gemini and ChatGPT. There is so much change happening; it is a question of which platform is most up to date on any given day.
However, there are some additional tools that I think can be really exciting.
Notebook LM
Notebook LM is powered by Google and its Gemini platform. However, it is designed to be more personal and as a research tool more than a general AI large language model. Notebook LM allows you to provide your own sources of information and then query against that information. It can be enhanced by additional outside resources, but it is primarily driven by what you feed it. That can help protect privacy, but more importantly, it keeps the ‘discussion’ with the agent tied to the topic you specifically want. For example, you could provide it with several different articles you have found on the topic of personal development. Maybe you also watched a couple of YouTube videos on the topic as well. Then, your manager provided you feedback on your performance over the past ninety days. You could load that into your notebook as well. With that information provided, you can now ask questions or get summaries of that information in ways that you want.
One of the coolest features Notebook LM offers is the ability to create an audio summary. Think of it as an AI-generated podcast created specifically for you with your information. In a fairly lifelike setting, two ‘hosts’ will discuss your subject matter and create an audio file that you can listen to summarizing your shared information. There is also an option to have a ‘call in’ feature. Think of your audio cast now as a ‘live’ radio show where you can be a caller into the show and ask a question about what they are discussing. It is a very clever idea and shows the potential of where this technology will go in the future. It is difficult to explain it fully here, so I would encourage everyone to go check it out for themselves.
Notebook LM is free to use with your Google account. You can provide up to 50 different sources to use. Each source can contain up to 500,000 words, so if you can combine sources together, you can provide even more information to your notebook. All told, you could provide up to 200 GB of information to use for your learning on a specific topic. You can have up to 100 different notebooks. That is a lot of information and data you can work with. You can expand that further and get additional AI tools with a Google One Premium account, which is $19.99/month. That will also give you access to Google’s most advanced Gemini platform as well.
Other AI
I expect that AI offerings will only grow in the coming year. Two I found that looked very interesting are Rocky.ai and Bunch.ai. Both offer AI-based coaching options via web or mobile apps. These will allow you to ask questions and get coaching-like responses to help specifically in leadership development. I think there are a ton of possibilities with these types of applications and uses for AI in the future. I will continue to explore these. In the meantime, it is worth checking them out for your personal development process. Both of these offer some level of free use, and both have a seven day free trial of the premium features. Rocky.ai offers its premium version for $9.99/month or annually for about $72. Bunch.ai offers their paid tier for $199.00 per year. When I downloaded it and went through their setup process, I was offered an annual option of $129.00. I did not see any monthly offers. Your experience could vary based on promotions or timing.
One thing to note about both of these is that their apps are designed for iPhones and Android phones. There is not a specific iPad app. You can use them on the iPad, but it is the scaled version of the iPhone app. Workable but not ideal. Using these on the phone, though, will make it very convenient to have them with you at any time and easy to complete activities while on the go.
I will explore each of these in more detail and provide future updates as well.
You're in control
The great thing about personal development is that it's your path. You ultimately are the one deciding what you need to work on and where you want to spend your time. There are a growing number of resources available. The choices are nearly infinite at this point, so try new things and see what works best for you. You’ll never go wrong with the tried and true, but there are other options that can really enhance your learning levels that I encourage you to take a few out for a test spin to see what more you may be able to get for your personal growth adventure.
Good luck and happy learning!
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