Own Your Development

A 5-Day Email Course for Strategic Professionals

Learn how to prepare for, lead, and follow through on development conversations that actually accelerate your career.

What You’ll Learn

Over 5 days, you’ll get one short email delivered each morning:

Day 1: The partnership mindset (your manager isn’t a teacher) Day 2: Know yourself first (two questions to answer alone) Day 3: The 2-hour preparation framework (SMARTER goals) Day 4: Three domains of development (skills, behaviors, business value) Day 5: Make your case and track progress

Each email takes 3 minutes to read and includes one actionable exercise.

Who This Is For

Professionals preparing for development conversations
Anyone tired of vague “what should I work on?” discussions
Leaders who want to architect their own growth path
People who’ve felt development talks are checkbox exercises

What You’ll Get

✓ The partnership mindset - Reframe your manager as a resource, not a teacher ✓ Self-awareness tools - Two critical questions about ambitions and gaps ✓ SMARTER framework - Write development goals that actually get support ✓ Three-element proposal - Make your case with organizational benefit ✓ Tracking system - Keep momentum through quarterly check-ins

By Day 5, you’ll have a complete development plan ready to present.

Join the Free Course

No spam. No upsells. Just the preparation framework I use before every development conversation.
Unsubscribe anytime.

✓ Free forever ✓ One email per day ✓ Starts tomorrow

How It Works

Enter your email above - The signup form is powered by Buttondown
Get Day 1 tomorrow - Welcome email arrives immediately, Day 1 the next day
One email per day for 5 days - Delivered each morning at 7 AM
Complete daily exercises - Build your development plan step by step
Present to your manager - With confidence and clear organizational benefit

This Course Is Free

No upsells. No hidden costs. No catch.

I believe professionals deserve better than vague development conversations. This is how I transform checkbox exercises into strategic career accelerators.

About the Instructor

I’m Esko Lehtme, Design Lead at SEB.

I reserve two hours for introspection before every development conversation. Not five minutes while walking to the meeting room. Not “I’ll wing it based on what they say.”

Two focused hours.

This preparation transformed my career:

When I wanted to upgrade from basic user research to advanced methods, I presented a well-prepared case with clear arguments and organizational benefits. I got full support for a week-long training in Amsterdam. That training transformed my practice and helped us win more design work.

When I pursued an MBA, I demonstrated how business management capabilities would help me build a customer-centric team that generated business value. The clarity made the case easy to make.

When I needed to address behavioral blind spots, caring, direct feedback helped me see I was overcompensating by taking on tasks I should have delegated. Once I recognized this pattern, I could focus on strategic work that actually required my expertise.

This approach works because it treats development talks as learning partnerships, not performance reviews.

I’ve used this framework for 15+ years. Now I’m sharing it with you.