How To Guide Meaningful Talent Conversations

An uncomfortable truth is that very often talent, experience and great performance are often not recognized or rewarded appropriately or at all. Furthermore, most organizational cultures are traditionally hierarchical where power and authority is positionally based and behavioral expectations are more focused on compliance than they are on talent growth and development. Furthermore there is a paradox where there are so many meetings in organizations, looking busy is often valued and rewarded and there is never really enough time to spend on having meaningful conversations or giving or receiving meaningful feedback.

There are a number of very dominant narratives in corporate environments some of which include, leaders as experts, the myth and fallacy of performance management and having feedback and meaningful conversations. Many of these, often stem from deeply hidden narratives that are found deep in traditional hierarchies that focus on submission and compliance, and maintaining the dominant status quo. If you look close enough organizations are strewn with narrative artifacts that tell the true nature of culture. Very rarely does “meaningful” actually result in meaningful conversations for those we say it does. Reward is very rarely a function of actual performance or talent, and more about how much you comply to the existing behaviors, expectations, norms and rules of the current milieu. As leaders we need to be more intentional about being meaningful.

One of the biggest mistakes I observe is that everyone thinks and believes that they are having meaningful conversations. Yet what is often the case is conversations that are top down where “meaningful” is often defined as meaningful to the leader or the organization. Many conversations are more about compliance and following the prescribed cultural rules and very rarely about the human, their performance, their potential, and their career goals or career aspirations.

Spouting the same corporate drivel and dominant narratives we so often hear in corporate environments and social media is rarely meaningful to your employees. There is a place for slick marketing messages, however, performance, feedback and meaningful conversations is not that place.

Your employees want to be HEARD, UNDERSTOOD and RESPECTFED for their own strengths, talents, performance and experiences they bring. They want to contribute MEANINGFULLY to MEANINGFUL work.?If we want to get the best of people, we need to learn what is important to them, what makes them tick and also what leads to their disengagement. Very rarely does “meaningful” conversations truly define or align with what is meaningful to the person you are speaking with.

Meaningful conversations start with what specifically does your recipient find meaningful, not what you find meaningful. These are conversations about THEM, not YOU. ?When we start to consider meaningful conversations we are essentially starting to think about human motivation, human behavior, human communications and engagement and performance coaching.

There are 4 steps to having a meaningful conversation:

• Step 1: Get to know the people you are leading and working with. Know what is interesting, meaningful and motivating to them. The more you know and treat people as humans rather than employees, the easier and more natural it becomes to have meaningful conversations.
• Step 2: Prepare for meaningful conversations before having them. Unless you are naturally skilled at having meaningful conversations or feedback conversations (most aren’t) then it is essential to put some time and effort into planning for those conversations.
• Step 3: Practice and incorporate various best practices into your everyday conversations and watch how these become habits and first nature over time.
• Step 4: Put your ego, agenda, politics and opinions aside. Those are yours and yours alone. Stop judging others through your limited perspectives or experience.

The Cost of less meaningful conversations

The impact of conversations which are less meaningful are:

• Disengagement
• Disempowerment
• Diminished trust
• Poor cohesion and connection
• Increased relational conflict
• Reduced discretionary effort
• Increased talent dissatisfaction
• Reduce talent retention

Use this guide below to reflect and think about ways in which you can have meaningful conversations with those you work with, those you lead or even those who lead you.

Defining and Guiding Meaningful Conversations

Conversations are generally viewed as meaningful when:

• They align with their skills and strengths, or are about development and growth opportunities
• They align with their career aspirations. Help them to understand how making the expected changes will help achieve those goals
• They align with the role expectations
• It is balanced offering both positive and constructive feedback
• If it is constructive it should offer suggestions and supports on how to achieve the expectations
• It is objective and is based on reasonably expected performance outcomes and expectations
• You can offer concrete examples to support your feedback
• You ask what supports might be needed to make any changes
• You give them time to course correct
• It is timely and without delay
• It is ongoing and continuous and not one-and-done

None of the above is truly ground-breaking and yet daily we see leaders having conversations that are less than meaningful. Not only do leaders need to know ways in which they can guide their conversations in meaningful ways, they also need to know the contexts, situations and behaviors that make conversations less meaningful.

Defining Less Meaningful Conversations

Conversations can be viewed as less meaningful when:

• They are based on things outside of a person’s control
• Simply delivering feedback without helping them understand why it is important and what they stand to gain/lose from making those changes
• They are based on unrealistic expectations
• Feedback is unrelated to the work they are meant to perform
• You only offer positive or only offer constructive feedback in isolation
• It is overly critical or negative: (Remember constructive feedback is neither critical nor negative).
• It is based on opinion or personal preferences versus actual objective observation and facts
• When its based on a leaders tendency for micro-management and poor leadership skills
• Simply delivering feedback without providing the necessary context
• Telling someone what to do without offering the necessary supports
• When expecting immediate change (Immediate change expectations should only be in the case of significant risk)
• When there are significant gaps between what they did and your feedback
• When it only occurs at performance time one or twice a year time; or when it takes a one-and-done approach

When we think about meaningful conversations, we need to take a pause and reflect on who is this conversation meaningful to? If it serves a purpose other than the growth and development of those you lead, then reconsider the focus of those conversations. Meaningful conversations are about changing the culture of feedback and conversations from top down and one way direction to a more human focused and human centric approach. If there are two things you take away from this post let it be these these reflective questions: Whose agenda is being served here? and, Who is this meaningful to?