My favorite ways to help team members advance their careers

Something strange and wonderful happened to me in a the last couple years. I discovered the joy of helping team members everywhere. Not just the joy of it. Nay, the thrill, the optimism, the hope, the gratitude, the admiration. More feels than a season of Friday Night Lights.

It's probably safe to say that for the first parts of my career, my laser was focused on achieving a straight line set of goals -- the goals of my business unit, my manager, my job. Sure, I helped people! I even upleveled careers. But if I'm honest, I was probably a LOT more helpful to folks rowing in the same little boat as I.

I don't think any one person or event came along to change my approach. But after dabbling a bit at first, I eventually got HOOKED. And the last couple years were pretty intense in the helping people department.

Going back a couple decades, I remember the first time I suggested a new job for someone else in my company. I was in our Six Sigma program and this woman I knew a little had immediately impressed me with her drive to improve business and with her maturity and common sense. I suggested she explore becoming a black belt in our program. She never took a black belt job; however, many other good things happened as a result of that process.

Then there was the first time I ever directly changed someone's job. There was a guy who worked for me and he was good at his job. But his eyes really lit up when he helped build our team culture. So we found some colleagues to help flesh out this new path, then created a position for him to do what he loved.

Over the years as a people manager, I took talent reviews and performance evaluations very seriously. I spent a lot of time studying and curating the skills of my teams. And I used the company's promotion and leveling criteria diligently. When it came time to advocate for promotions of people in our various groups, I always brought data and other strong evidence to the meeting.

When a woman on my team had her first child, I made sure to create a new structure that allowed her to work hourly and remotely when she was ready. And I advocated for her to other managers to engage with her on these jobs.

In the last couple years, my role had no direct reports. But I still saw it as my job to help develop the careers of those around me. I did one-on-ones with colleagues because I was interested in their career plans; and we discussed them and brainstormed. I worked with managers in other groups to devise stretch assignments and internship projects for people on their teams. I presented to groups of interns and I reached out to new hires about lots of topics. I even created opportunities for colleagues to get senior-level visibility for their work.

Somehow, I got lucky enough in this last position to connect with some super smart and positive early career professionals. Some of what we worked on together was technical or even mundane at times. But the positivity they brought to their work, the drive to deliver excellent quality, the appetite for experienced guidance combined with the ability to then surpass what even I had envisioned...

I absolutely loved every video call, every email exchange, every collaboration.

Nothing fuels writing like coffee! :-) I put this link here because I miss grabbing coffee with friends and colleagues -- even if we can't be doing coffee together, you'll know I'm thinking about you when I drink it!