Ronaldo's training habits have been described publicly by teammates and coaches across four clubs and two decades. Whatever the embellishments, the pattern is consistent enough to be treated as documented: he trained beyond what was scheduled for him.
Most companies would love that behaviour and have built systems that quietly discourage it.
The people question this raises
Self-directed development cannot be mandated. It can only be made possible or impossible. If growth in your organisation means waiting for the L&D calendar, you have chosen impossible without noticing.
Where this shows up at work
- Utilisation targets leave no hours for practice, so learning happens on personal time or not at all.
- Training budgets require three approvals and expire unspent.
- Nobody who improved a skill on their own initiative was ever recognised for it in a review.
Conditions that produce ownership
- 1Protected timeA recurring, defended block — even two hours a week — beats an annual workshop.
- 2A visible skill mapPeople cannot self-direct toward a standard they have never seen written down.
- 3Access without gatekeepingA small pre-approved budget people can spend without a business case.
- 4Recognition for initiativeMake self-driven growth an explicit review input, or it will stay invisible.
Elite individual standards can shade into unhealthy expectations when applied across a whole workforce. Ownership is voluntary; if it is compulsory, it is just unpaid overtime.
Interpretation, not fact: the leap from an athlete's training regime to office L&D is mine. The professions are not equivalent — one is a body of work measured weekly in public.
Over to you
If someone on your team wanted to build a new skill next month, what exactly would stop them?