General News
MRS Uchechi Edosomwan, Fellow, Nigerian Society of Engineer (NSE), on Thursday, identified lack of capacity building as a bane to personal and professional development.
Edosomwan, a certified Information Technology (IT) manager from the IT Management and Leadership Institute, U.S., made the assertion while delivering a public physical/virtual lecture in Lagos.
The lecture with the theme: ”21st Century Professional Development Vehicle,” was one of the activities lined up to mark the week-long 2022 Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Apapa Branch Engineering Week.
She stated that in business or any other life’s endeavour, what was considered most dangerous was the inability to evolve, adding that the qualification for professional development, was to apply what she described as ‘A,B,C.
“In the ABC theory, we will simply define A, to mean: Accept the need to up-skill and re-skill, while B will mean: Beware of distractions and set the eye on the goal and C: Collaborate intentionally and creatively for instance, gamification,” she explained.
She said: ”No one can improve, if the bar is not raised higher than his or her comfort level.
”Professional development for instance, has become a common terminology in the 21st century, with not much to back it up.
“If this has become an accepted norm, why does it look like we have not made good progress?
”Everyone talks about it but our agencies and organisations are yet to enjoy the dividends or so it seems?
”We must all be willing to learn new things everyday if we truly want to be real professionals in our respective fields. Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence..”
She added that for one to to achieve anything meaningful in one’s professional journey, he or she must promote the intrinsic push, adding that anything outside this was a distraction.
Edosomwan further listed some of the key components of professional development as skills, attitude, knowledge and self awareness, which according to her, often times were over looked.
According to her, personal development was the belief, ” one is worth the effort, time, and energy needed to develop oneself.
“Therefore, talking about professional development, there are things we must consider from the key components, as if you cant fly, then run, if you cannot run, then walk and if you cannot walk, then crawl.
“By all means, keep moving. It is a systematic process that strengthens how professionals obtain and retain knowledge, skills and attitude.
“When we talk about Knowledge, it means information at your disposal, while skills is how the knowledge is applied to solve a problem.
”Attitude on the other hand is the way and manner in which the skills are used.
“Attitude is usually relegated to the back but it is even more important,” she said.
The IT expert also said that one of the challenges facing self leadership was lack of self management.
She added, ” self leadership is the ability to consciously influence one’s own thoughts, feelings and behavior in order to achieve personal goals or an organisation’s objectives.
”Who you are, what you want and why.”
According to her, one’s profession was only as noble as his or her attitude and intent towards it.
She listed self awareness, self acceptance, motivation, discipline and efficacy as some of the characteristics of self leadership, adding that all human beings are self-leaders.
Edosomwan however noted that not all self-leaders are effective at self-leading.
“Self improvement, ardent learning, being open minded, positive discontent, self monitoring, accountability, adaptability, internal feedback, self care, retreats, re-strategy and healthy balance, are some of the key pointers to effective self leadership,.
“We should also strive to set goals for ourselves by finding out the building block. Through the building block, we set our goals.
“We must not just be a goal-getter, but a goal setter, an adrenaline push and then embrace time management,” she stated.
On his part, Mr Christian Ufot, Chairman of the Apapa Branch of the NSE, described the lecture as apt and a game changer.
He added, ”the take home message boiled down to the need for constant learning as well as as looking out for new opportunities for self improvement and flowing with the trend.
“I will say that this lecture has exposed a lot of lapse that we have been living with as professionals.
”I must commend her for adding do much value to members.
“We must strive to be consciously and intentionally focused to develop ourselves. All human beings are leaders, but not all are effective.
”That is one of the most important take homes for me. I want to believe too that the lecture will impact on members and will inturn set a new tone on ways of doing things.’
An ex-Chairman of the branch, Mr Ombugad Garba, also a Fellow, described the lecture as ”an eye opener.”
He said, ”personal and professional developments were two separate things and must be treated as such.
”Continuous learning translates to self development. This is coupled with professional development, would bring about the much needed national development”.(NAN)
KN
Tags: Christian Ufot NSE Uchechi Edosomwan
