Shadow Dancing: Phantom Development Practices Abound
Have you been fascinated with having special powers? As a kid comic book enthusiast, I would spend hours reading the adventures of various superheroes. When those stories came to life on the small or big screen, I was front and center (still am, truth be told). Steve Austin, The Six Million Dollar Man , was a stud. He was the world’s first bionic man. For those of a certain age, do you remember this mid-1970’s TV Show intro? “Steve Austin. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man…Steve Austin will be that man. We can make him better than he was before. Better…Stronger…Faster.” YES! I was hooked. He was built to be the best.
We may have fallen into a misdirected expectation of such a build for our employees. Obviously, there is no $6,000,000 budget per employee for such development (wouldn’t that be nice?). However, do we expect our employees to behave and produce as if that level of budget has been invested? Now before you shake your head no, think about it. How many times have you thought or said, “Why does {this person} act like this?” or more likely, “What is wrong with {this person}?” Admit it; you have.
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What if the truth is that the person is operating at the level of awareness and education given? Our expectation of someone without confirmation of investment to that learning level or self-awareness factor is our fault, not theirs, right? Let’s pretend that I yelled at one of my children (imagine it…never happened…fingers crossed) for doing something that, in my opinion, they should have known not to do. Those big, beautiful eyes would look up at me in confusion. And that child would be right if I had not shared previously why to avoid or to act upon something. The knowledge would have been helpful. It may not have kept them from doing the opposite anyway (ah, kids), but that would be a different conversation.
Advancing People by Building Meaningful Employment Environments
2 个月Right on John. With workforce aging and competition for talent increasing, having paths for each team member to grow will become a differentiator for companies.