I’ve been writing my internal blog for just over 5 years. Last week, I reached the 350 mark. And I’ve learnt a lot along the way. Blogging teaches me as much as it teaches you. So let me summarise how blogging has helped me.
At the time I started, I owned the Leadership and Professional Development catalog of courses, and was responsible for the training that would improve the way our supervisors manage our people. My original purpose for the blog was to reach more people, in their place of work, to help them to see people development as something that happens during every conversation, every interaction and every piece of work. And not only for them (you) to understand this concept, but also to change their (your) behaviour day-to-day.
1. Marketing skills
With 7246 people signed up to receive the blog in their inbox, and 1864 people following me through the daily digest today, I’m certainly reaching a lot of you. But it’s still just a drop in the ocean, considering the size of our organization…what is it now, 250,000 and counting? So I have learned some marketing skills along the way – how to increase followership. It hasn’t always worked, and that’s the reason I lean on my followers so heavily to pass the message on. Don’t keep all this goodness to yourselves! Pass it on and encourage others to sign up to receive the blogs in their inboxes. See what I did there? That’s another learning – ask for what you want people to do 🙂
2. Letting go
When I first started to blog, I edited everything as if it were a document. Go back to those first few posts (The Leaders Journey, Travellers take risks to learn and achieve, Travellers navigate using hard data and their own inner sense, Travellers need a passport, Travellers take others on the journey, etc) and you would see what I mean – they were much more formal than my writing style is now. These days, I type like I speak, and I hope that makes it more personable, rather than corporate.
3. Discovering my voice
I received some feedback in my Leadership survey shortly before I started blogging. The person suggested that I should be more outspoken about my Teachable Point of View. Sharing it with others. Little did they know what they had unleashed!! The blog has really given me a vehicle to get clarity on my point of view, and helped me to discover my voice – those things that are most important to me.
I’m sure it hasn’t passed you by that coaching is my passion (obsession?) – that’s where my voice is the strongest I think. But I’m discovering a new voice lately too, one that is all about Human Centered Design and employee experience. I’m wondering whether there might be enough interest for me to start a different blog, all about that. Let me know.
4. Discovering a new talent (besides marketing above)
It’s taken me 5 years to comprehend this, but I’ve also realised that I am a pretty good creative writer. (notice the discount there, “pretty” good – I’m not fully owning it yet, I see!). I never thought I’d ever say that about myself. I didn’t much like English at school; I was a foreign linguist, but English left me cold. I had lots of “can’t do that’s” going on in my head about writing. Well here I am, and I’ve now said it. I’m good at creative writing. (phew, that’s hard to write that).
I plan to write this blog as long as you all get benefit from it. I’ve loved it, and you can see that I get a lot out of it. I love reading everyone’s comments as they help me to learn even further too. My followers can be pretty challenging sometimes, with the questions that you ask – those questions keep me sharp, so keep ‘em coming. In the spirit of coaching, I’d also say that you have the answers yourselves too, so do give your perspective in the comments about what you would do.
