Cultivating development and personal growth

Many leaders take more pride in seeing people they helped develop thrive in their careers than any of their other accomplishments.? The ability to develop talent and encourage people to reach their potential is an important competency of any leader.? To do it right it takes planning, time, and follow-thru.

People are the difference for success in any business.? Employee development is crucial for morale, handling difficult situations, and succession planning.? It is important for individuals to see the opportunities and an emphasis on personal growth.? It is also important that they learn new skills.?? When the company shows interest in employee development, the employee will have a greater interest in the company's success.? Leaders must resist the pressure of allowing the short-term issues to take precedent over employee development or become the excuse why development isn’t occurring.? Studies show that more than 70% of learning on the job occurs informally1, so even when formal methods may not be available, leaders can focus on informal approaches to provide developmental experiences for their people.

There are many methods of development such as classroom training, reading assignments, mentoring arrangements, new work techniques, etc. but most learning is done experientially.? Identifying situations or projects that will stretch the employee and to help expand his or her breadth of knowledge are the most beneficial.? Assigning someone an active role in strategic discussions or upfront planning for a major initiative are a couple of examples.? Leaders must consider themselves as coaches, continuing to encourage while pushing a person to go beyond their comfort zone to help them reach their potential.

Cori Hill, notes that creating the expectation of a culture of talent development is one of several key ingredients to be success in driving this throughout the team and the company.2? Blending her thoughts with mine, here are some key concepts about creating this culture:

Act as a role model

o?? Be transparent about your need to expand the breadth of your knowledge

o?? Share your development plans with your team

Reinforce the value of learning

o?? Prioritize personal development plan discussions with each team member

o?? Be active in providing advice to help ensure the plan is meaningful

o?? Celebrate successes when learning milestones are completed

Ensure development plans are in writing.? A meaningful plan should include:

o?? Specific goals that focus on leveraging strengths, overcoming performance issues or expanding knowledge in new areas

o?? Activities that maximize experiential learning and leverage key aspects of current job responsibilities

o?? Description of the desired skills or knowledge

o?? Timeframes, milestones, deadlines and periodic check-in points

Create learning opportunities and allow for failure

o?? Provide experiential learning opportunities:? Assign tasks, projects and roles that will directly help team members develop the desired skills through hands-on work.

o?? Look for coachable moments.? Real-time reinforcement, feedback and examples are more powerful than waiting for a scheduled meeting.? Emphasize the learning aspect of the results and behaviors rather than being critical and calling out mistakes.

o?? Provide opportunities that will stretch the person:? Put people in roles where success isn’t a certainty but provide a safety net, so they won’t fail When someone says, they have ten years’ experience, my first thought is do they have ten years’ experience, or do they have one years’ experience ten times?? If a leader is not intentional about developing their people and providing the right experiences, it will fall into the latter category.? People will do the same thing over and over again rather than developing new skills without the opportunity to do new things or to learn from others.

?Most of us remember a leader who made an extra effort to help nurture our own career.? The leader who was most focused on my development had me observe him in a specific leadership role and then allowed me to take on some of those responsibilities.? He let me learn from my mistakes and encouraged me when things went well.? It was obvious that he cared about me as a person and looked for opportunities to stretch me professionally, which made me try all the harder as I never wanted to let him down.? Bottom line is that he took pride in my development and truly cared.? I have been fortunate in my career that I worked for a number of leaders that cared about me and pushed me to get better.? One leader was an amazing role model in demonstrating his care for people and his tenacity in achieving results.? Another was ruthless in developing my self-confidence by being demanding on ensuring I had an effective plan and at the same time encouraging vulnerability.?

Take employee development personally and make it a priority to have the people you work with reach their full potential.? Your impact makes a difference in their lives beyond the workplace and in more ways than one.

??1 15 Surprising Employee Development Statistics You Don’t Know? (November 2016)? Retrieved from:? https://blob.clearcompany.com/5-surprising-employee-development-statisitics-you-dont-know

2 Kee, Kathryn.? Five Way to Grow Talent Where You Lead?? (June 2016)? Retrieved from:? Resultscoachingglobal.com/blog/page/9/

?“My main job was developing talent.? I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people.? Of course, I had to pull out some weeds too.”? ― Jack Welch

“Train people well enough so they can leave, motivate them so they want to stay.”? ― Richard Branson

?Leadership matters!

Ken