Developing your team members equally is not only a matter of fairness, but also a way to boost their performance, engagement, and diversity. However, it can be challenging to balance the needs, preferences, and goals of different individuals, especially in a remote or hybrid work environment. Here are some tips to help you create a more equitable and inclusive team development strategy.
Before you can design a development plan for your team, you need to understand their current skills, strengths, weaknesses, interests, and aspirations. You can use various tools and methods to assess your team, such as self-evaluations, feedback surveys, 360-degree reviews, skill tests, or personality profiles. The key is to gather objective and reliable data that can help you identify the gaps, opportunities, and potential of each team member.
In my experience, career aspirations are critical to this, especially if they’re not yet realized. So many are chasing others’ dreams that their dreams are left unknown or unfulfilled.
I love this! Yes, you have to know your team. Their skills and their opportunities will lead you to success or, if you’re not careful, failure. Furthermore, understanding their worldviews and how they make decisions is equally as important. As leaders, we have to know how our people need to be communicated with and what their passionate about. If we can really get to know our people well, we bring a diverse, powerhouse of a team to a market that desperately needs that.
I believe that before drafting a development plan for the team, it's essential to grasp their skills, strengths, and areas for growth. I like using diverse tools like self-assessments, feedback surveys, and even skill tests. It's about gathering reliable insights to map individual potential, which ultimately guides our strategy.
Testing The key is to gather objective and reliable data that can help you identify the gaps, opportunities, and potential of each team membe
The initial question is a concern. How do we develop team members equally? Unless they are "equal" it is not that approach needed. In my experience you can do all the profiles you wish, and all the reviews, but there will always be individual differences. In my view you develop individual areas of need. Offe the same opportunities to individual team members but based up on their personal strengths and weaknesses. If we improve development of the individuals, the team will improve.
Once you have a clear picture of your team's current state, you can work with them to set clear and SMART goals for their development. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. By using this framework, you can ensure that your team members have a clear direction, a way to track their progress, and a realistic expectation of what they can achieve. You should also align their goals with the team's and the organization's objectives, so that they can see how their development contributes to the bigger picture.
Goals for development should be very specific. I believe that the time bound part of this issue is most important. How quickly can the individual(s) develop, and what is the end goal. It would make absolutely no sense to develop in a fashion not aligned with the organizational goals and objectives. Doing so, assures individual development improves organizational performance.
Lately I've been working with teams who are implementing a GROW model (Goal Reality Options Will do) as an honest approach to review goals. No one likes those uncomfortable conversations and it is important to balance regular feedback with celebrating small wins and an open environment.
The Alignment of Objectives of the Organization and Team is very Important then only every Effort of the team will be in the Direction to achieve the organisation's objective with their individual Objectives
SMART goals are definitely a good approach. People need to know what us expected from them. Also you need to bound with a time since if you're in a business environment you don't have all time.
Different team members may have different learning styles, preferences, and needs when it comes to their development. Some may prefer online courses, others may benefit from mentoring or coaching, and others may need more hands-on or experiential learning. You should provide personalized and flexible support to each team member, based on their goals, strengths, and challenges. You should also consider their availability, workload, and motivation, and adjust your support accordingly. For example, you can offer them a variety of learning resources, options, and formats, and let them choose what works best for them.
It is so important to give equitable support to the entire team. A leader must seek ways to help team member and provide the support necessary. In my experience, this was only possible once an authentic relationship was established. This allowed us to openly discuss growth opportunities.
It also is the case that individual team members may be motivated to grow and develop capabilities in areas related to different domains: individual capability growth; unit/team capability and outcome growth; organizational capability and outcome growth; and career-oriented capabilities and growth. As you work with team members on collaborative growth and development planning, understand and discuss which one (or more) of these domains the growth or development is intended to impact: the individual team member, the team, the organization, or the career trajectory of the team member.
If we truly seek to improve individuals, we must recognize that people learn differently. That should become clear when assessing individual strengths and weaknesses. Use the tools necessary to improve these people, and the organization wins.
The worker today has more power than ever (though not enough by some standards). The way technology can bring us together and the corporate park budget is being replaced is truly enabling. Employees are recognizing that they can ask to work where they want, how they want. I have seen a trend of the bigger support from general workers rights advancing that of marginalized communities and the disabled - amazing what we can do when we organize en masse. However, for sales people and those customer-facing, it can be challenging to have your needs met as your hours may have to overlap with people who have different schedules, time zones, holidays or expectations.
Key word here is personalized. Can't emphasis this enough. Again there's no vanilla formula everyone is different. Some like to hovered above some prefer distance. Some wants to update you all the time some not. The point is tailor it to that employee don't use one method for all of them.
Developing your team members equally does not mean that you have to do it all by yourself. You can also leverage the power of collaboration and feedback to create a more supportive and inclusive learning environment. You can encourage your team members to share their knowledge, skills, and experiences with each other, and to learn from each other's perspectives and insights. You can also create opportunities for peer feedback, recognition, and appreciation, and foster a culture of trust and openness. By doing so, you can help your team members grow together, as well as individually.
A leader needs to know when they may not be in a position to provide the critical support. This is where knowing your network of resources comes in because you may be able to engage other leaders to help a team member. This has been my experience.
In my view, I am not certain the term equal is what we are seeking here. Individuals are different. Our goal is to develop them to maximize their full potential. Individual leaders can't do it all and must use available resources to help them achieve the needed level of performance. Some may need more applied learning, while other need deeper theory. At some point in the leadership journey in the organization, the senior leadership has developed others that can take on some of the load of development.
The collaboration between team members will easy to break the ice between their colleagues and peers. Feedback also help them to work better within team and with it's members
Another great point. Let the people tell how to manage them, sounds weird right? But just like in any relationship it's a two way street. Treat it the same. Of course you're in charge but be open to make changes.
Finally, you need to monitor and evaluate the results of your team development strategy, and make sure that it is delivering the desired outcomes. You can use various metrics and indicators to measure the impact of your development efforts, such as skill improvement, performance improvement, engagement level, retention rate, or diversity score. You should also collect feedback from your team members, and ask them about their satisfaction, challenges, and suggestions. Based on the data and feedback, you can adjust your strategy as needed, and celebrate the achievements and successes of your team members.
Peter Drucker reminds us that if you can't measure it, you can't improve it! You may reach a point in the process where you feel necessary improvement has been achieved, but until you measure it you won't know. Building assessment is key to success. Sometimes it is difficult, but small steps help individuals get to the level expected. Celebrate and recognize their progress.
Now, Monitor their growth and evaluate their progress and motivate them financially or emotionally to work hard and get perfect in that skill
Remember, too, that growth and development has short-term and long-term impacts. The net benefit or impact to the team member, to the team, or to the organization may not be visible right away, even if learning and growth are taking place, and steps are being made toward positive outcomes and capability development.
Lastly make sure you see if it works. You first try might be an educated guess at best. Sometimes it took me a few times to get it right
In my opinion, developing team members equally requires two things — strategy and empathy. Just like nurturing a garden, each member needs tailored care. Here are some strategies that I used as a leader: 1. Understanding the strengths, aspirations, and areas for growth of each team member. 2. Communicating openly, setting clear expectations and providing feedback. 3. Investing in skill-building opportunities, but also encouraging learning from peers. 4. Celebrating wins together and acknowledging their distinctive contributions.
personalization is the answer, people is different, I had a Trainning course for my team and during the course, each person of the group learn in differently times, one more fast than other, other had best understanding seeing graphics and other needed examples. So I tried to align knowledge and understanding of the managers to ensure at list my first line of leaders are in the same business understanding plan.