When I was building my first company, I was thrilled by the daily learning opportunities. I absorbed knowledge like a sponge, eager to understand best practices and how others achieved success.

I became a business book enthusiast, reading up to four books a week at the height of my addiction for a better, faster, and easier way to grow a business. I was reading book by thought leaders such as Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Verne Harnish, Michael Porter, Robert Bloom, and Jeffrey Moore. You get the picture. We were facing many challenges and I did not want to guess a way forward. I wanted to approach the fundamental challenge of building a business with some direction.

In building a team – one of the core values of myself and my team members was – “Humble enough to want to learn every day”. I wanted to ensure we were hiring these people. I had a huge thirst for more information and I wanted to surround myself with people who wanted to learn too.

Here are the steps we took to foster continuous learning within our team:

1. Regular Daily Meetings: We provided feedback on what we were learning about markets, team members, customers, and more.
2. Monthly 'Book Club': As a leadership team, we selected books to address a challenge we were facing and would then discuss the facts and what we could implement.
3. Professional Development Forecast: Our 36-month forecast included a budget for professional development for every team member.
4. Performance Reviews: We used individual One Page Plans to identify our personal priorities for company growth, ensuring alignment with our corporate goals. Additionally, we outlined what we needed to achieve for our personal development over the next 90 days. Our performance reviews included progress of the company, as well as ourselves. Very powerful!
5. Open Lunch and Learns: Team members could suggest topics or lead sessions, fostering peer-to-peer learning.
6. Offsite Professional Development: Annually, I attended three professional development conferences featuring world-renowned business thought leaders:
   • Fortune Growth Summit (October)
   • ACETECH Summit Whistler (April)
   • Fortune Leadership Summit (May)

“Humble enough to learn every day” remains one of my core values. I am fortunate to work with growing companies and leadership teams that share this value. Implementing these steps is not difficult; the key is prioritizing them. Making time to learn daily and sharing knowledge with peers is essential. The most successful companies, big and small, have a prioritized plan for learning. Do you? Investing in your team’s continuous learning will be one of your best decisions ever.