Honestly,
Ah, the corporate retreat.
A magical day when adults who normally communicate exclusively through Teams are transported to a hotel conference room and asked to become vulnerable together before lunch.
There will be name tags.
There will be coffee served from an industrial stainless-steel dispenser.
There will be pastries that somehow manage to be both stale and damp.
Someone will say, “Let's go around the room and share one interesting fact about ourselves.”
Someone else will immediately regret telling everyone she raises chickens.
And somewhere, somehow, there will be an activity involving either a flip chart, a tower made out of spaghetti, or the phrase:
“There are no wrong answers.”
There are.
There absolutely are.
I actually like development days.
I like learning.
I like getting out of the normal rhythm of work long enough to think about something bigger than whatever happens to be blinking red in my inbox.
But here's what I've been thinking:
Why do we wait for someone else to plan them for us?
What if you created your own?
I'm serious.
With your manager's permission, you might be able to block a few hours—or even a full workday—for intentional professional development.
And depending on your employer and role, you might even get paid to do it.
Now, before everyone sends their boss a calendar invitation titled PERSONAL RETREAT — DO NOT DISTURB and tells them Colleen said it was fine:
I did not.
Ask first.
Please.
I have enough going on.
But if your organization supports professional development, come to your manager with an actual plan.
Not:
“I'd like Friday off to watch YouTube for my career.”
We're going to need a stronger pitch.
Pick something you genuinely want to get better at.
Leadership.
Communication.
AI.
Strategic thinking.
Public speaking.
Conflict.
Creativity.
Whatever makes sense for you and the work you're trying to grow into.
Then build yourself a curriculum.
And this is where AI makes the whole thing ridiculously easy.
Find a few TED Talks, articles, podcasts, interviews or other resources that interest you.
Give them to your AI tool.
Tell it what you're trying to learn.
Tell it how much time you have.
And then ask it to build you a development day.
Not just a playlist.
A day.
For example:
9:00 — Watch the first talk.
9:30 — Answer three reflection questions about what stood out.
10:00 — Compare the ideas to a real situation you've experienced at work.
10:30 — Take a break because apparently we are still human beings.
10:45 — Watch another talk that challenges the first one.
11:15 — Ask AI to help you identify where the speakers agree and disagree.
Lunch.
And no, you do not have to eat a boxed turkey sandwich while someone from Finance explains their Enneagram number.
You're running this retreat.
Get Thai food.
In the afternoon, go deeper.
Ask AI to interview you about what you learned.
Have it challenge your assumptions.
Give it a scenario and work through how you would handle it.
Ask it to turn the day's material into a case study.
Have it quiz you.
Ask:
“Based on everything I've studied today, what are three things I could actually change about the way I work?”
Now we've moved from consuming information to developing a skill.
That's the part that matters.
I've done versions of this myself.
I can take something like a talk or interview that makes me think, put it into AI, and turn passive watching into an actual conversation.
What did I agree with?
What bothered me?
Where have I seen this before?
How does this apply to the way I work?
What would I do differently?
What should I try next?
Suddenly one 20-minute video isn't just something interesting I watched while folding laundry.
It's development.
And here's another thing I'd add to your retreat:
Go somewhere.
If you can.
A library.
A coffee shop.
A park.
A museum.
A quiet corner somewhere that is not the exact place where you normally answer email.
There is something useful about physically changing your environment when you're trying to think differently.
You do not need matching company fleeces.
You do not need a facilitator.
You do not need a ropes course.
And under absolutely no circumstances does a coworker need to catch you while you fall backward to demonstrate that you trust Accounts Payable.
You need some protected time.
A question worth exploring.
A few good resources.
A way to interact with what you're learning instead of just consuming it.
And ideally, a manager who understands that development doesn't always arrive with a registration fee and a conference badge.
Then, when you're done, bring something back.
Tell your manager what you learned.
Share the three ideas you're going to try.
Send your team the TED Talk that completely changed your thinking.
Put one thing into practice.
Because a development day shouldn't end with:
“That was interesting.”
It should end with:
“I'm going to do something differently.”
And if somebody wants to provide a stale blueberry muffin for authenticity, I suppose that's optional.
Build Your Own Development Day
Copy and paste this into your AI tool:
I want you to design a personalized professional development day for me.
Start by asking me a short series of questions to understand:
- What I want to learn or get better at
- Why it matters to me professionally
- My current level of experience with the topic
- How much time I have: 2 hours, half day, or full day
- Whether I want the day to feel reflective, practical, challenging, creative, or a mix
- Whether there is a real work situation, goal, or problem I want to apply the learning to
Once you understand my goal, research and select the learning materials for me. I do not want to have to find them myself.
Find a small, high-quality mix of current and credible resources such as TED/TEDx Talks, expert interviews, articles, podcasts, research, case studies, or other useful material. Give me direct links to each resource and briefly explain why you selected it. Verify that every link works and leads to the specific resource you recommend.
Do not simply give me a list of things to watch or read.
Build those resources into a realistic development-day agenda with start and stop times, breaks, lunch if appropriate, reflection exercises, and opportunities to apply what I'm learning.
Throughout the day, act as my development partner.
After each major resource, give me 2–4 thoughtful reflection questions. Ask me to connect the material to my own experience. Challenge me when appropriate rather than automatically agreeing with me.
Include at least one activity where you present a realistic scenario and have me work through it.
Include at least one point where you compare or challenge ideas from two different resources rather than assuming every expert agrees.
Toward the end, help me identify:
- What I learned
- What surprised or challenged me
- What I want to do differently
- One action I can take within the next week
- One longer-term development goal
Finish by creating a concise Development Day Recap I could keep for myself or share with my manager, including the topic, resources completed, key insights, exercises completed, and specific actions I committed to.
Do not overwhelm me with preparation. Once I've answered your opening questions, do the research and build the day for me.
Don't assume more prompting is always better. Teach me when a simple request is sufficient and when additional context, examples, constraints or iteration materially improve the result.
And absolutely no trust falls.
Want a topic to try? Start with: “I want to learn more about AI and how prompting works.” Ask AI to build the day from beginner to genuinely capable, using current credible resources, hands-on prompt makeovers, iterative prompting, source-grounded exercises, assumption-challenging prompts, reusable prompt patterns, a final practical test, and a development-day recap.