CHAPTER 15
Develop Your People
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
After my keynote to his organization, the CEO of a large import-export company invited me to dinner. In discussing my late-night departure from the Florida venue, we swapped a few stories about the difficulty of getting information from airlines about flight delays. Immediately, his eyes widened, and his face reddened at the mention of one particular airline.
“I absolutely refuse to use that airline any longer for our shipments!” he said. “Their lying got to be ridiculous. I’d ask if my shipment was going to be put on a certain flight. The agent accepting the shipment would say yes. But then I’d get a call from my customer in Brazil, saying the shipment didn’t make it. . . . Sure enough, I’d check with the airline agent and discover the shipment never got on the flight.”
As I listened to him, remembering my own misrouted luggage, I felt his pain.
The CEO continued, “Finally, I found a platform agent I could trust. No matter what the check-in agent told me, I’d walk around to the dock and ask that specific agent directly if my shipment was really going to make it onto the plane. He’d give me an honest answer. If no, then I could call my client in Brazil and tell him the shipment wasn’t going to make it onto the plane. . . . I could always count on that employee to tell me the truth.”
I nodded again. “You need people like that.”
The CEO went on, “When they [that airline] laid off people about three years after that, I hired that agent. Didn’t even have a job for him then. But I want people like that on my staff—people who tell the truth. He’s bilingual, a quick learner. I knew I’d find a place for him and groom him. He’s made a great employee.”
Straight from the lips of a strategic thinker who understands the value of scouting for talent. I’ve never forgotten this conversation from early in my career. And I’ve heard many similar stories since from senior executives.
But according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey and a Korn Ferry Institute study by researcher Robert Eichinger, most managers lag far behind in developing themselves and their people. The “ability to grow talent” is ranked 67th out of 67 identified competencies for managers!7
So what happens when employees discover that personal development doesn’t show up on their supervisor’s priority list? They leave. According to a recent Harris Poll of more than 2,000 employees, roughly one-third (32 percent) of adult employees in the United States reported that they were currently planning to leave their job for lack of career development. And 55 percent of those working full-time and part-time expect their company to play an active role in their individual career options.8
But wait. Personal development doesn’t necessarily mean handholding and time off the job for training.
Old-school thinking meant one-size-fits-all training. Design training courses. Send your staff. Wait for them to come back equipped to do the job. Then that process evolved into segmenting “high-potentials” into a separate track for stretch assignments, special mentoring, and extra exposure to the executive movers and shakers to hear their thinking on strategic issues and challenges. Again, most of these drills involved one-way communication—as in, “Here’s what we think you need to know.”
Today’s employees, however, expect to be heard—they want personalized career development that fits their goals, dreams, plans, and lifestyle. They expect their leaders to show interest in their career (beyond simply getting their current job done) and either coach or advise them on how to reach their potential.9 In fact, more quickly than they leave a boring party, millennials drop an employer when they see no career-growth opportunities. And after 2020, according to researchers who study population shifts, millennials will comprise more than 51 percent of the US workforce.10
Study after study confirms that career development has become the cool calling card. It’s a powerful opening act to tease job seekers to join your organization or team.
Leaders know all this. They believe all this. They actually want these career-development opportunities for themselves.
So what’s the problem? In a fast-paced, understaffed, deadline-driven atmosphere, developing team members simply falls to the bottom of the leader’s to-do list. Supervisors say they’re so busy that they have no time to think about what they consider “extra” benefits and needs.
As a strategic thinker, though, you’ll keep bringing career conversations to the forefront with individual team members and coworkers. Let them know you’re interested in their development and in their long-term career advancement. The once-a-year performance appraisal session (if you still have those) does not do the topic justice—nor does it demonstrate the priority the topic deserves.
Here’s how to let colleagues and your own team members know you care about their career and their personal growth opportunities.
Reconfirm their interests for future assignments and career growth on an ongoing basis. Ask about changes in immediate and long-term goals. New skills gained? New stretch assignments they’d like to take on? Hobbies become career aspirations. Career aspirations fade to become only hobby interests. Income and savings goals evolve as the family situation changes. Health issues necessitate lifestyle and career changes. Simply asking to update yourself on current needs, desires, and priorities demonstrates interest.
Look for a mentoring moment. You may not have an hour to devote to your team member, but you can spare a minute or ten. When the occasion arises, call that interested team member to “join me on a conference call at two o’clock if you’re interested in learning what’s involved in X.” Or invite them to “step into my office for a minute. I just decided to sign a contract with Z Company. Let me tell you how I arrived at that decision, so in the future when these things come up, you’ll have some background here.” The individual will understand that you are investing time—no matter how brief—in their career development.
Suggest resources, and make team members accountable for their own development. The resources may be your own HR function, a local university, industry conferences, books, audios, subscription programs, webinars, or online training programs. Whatever they choose, make sure your team members understand that they own the responsibility for their development in the same way they own responsibility for their physical fitness. Simply point out the resource that you’ve discovered, and suggest that they may want to investigate its value further for their own purposes.
Then don’t forget to follow up. Later, ask if they found the resource helpful. What did they like or not like? Did they find another book, course, or app more useful?
Reinforce career growth every chance you get. At staff meetings, as part of your discussions from time to time, ask what team members need to learn. Bring in either internal or external experts to address these issues. Report to the group on new things you’re learning: concepts from articles, blog posts, and books you’ve read; ideas from conferences you’ve attended; insights you’ve picked up from mentors. Ask what new skills they’ve mastered and suggest they report these updates to HR for their employee file. When discussing individual action plans, be sure to ask about their career development specifics.
Make learning a topic of casual discussion. A couple of friends of mine who are master networkers routinely ask at parties, “So, what’s become clearer to you since the last time we talked?” That canned cocktail-party opening can easily be modified for mentoring purposes: “What new learning opportunities have you been able to take advantage of since we last talked about your career?” Allow time in staff meetings occasionally (and with prior notice) for a few to mention a learning resource (blog, book, podcast, course) they have found helpful and would recommend to their coworkers.
For example, several companies use my books for discussion in Lunch-N-Learn peer-to-peer personal development programs and for internal business book reading clubs. (You can download the free Discussion Guide we’ve provided for this purpose at www.CommunicateLikeALeaderBook.com.) Audience members at industry conferences often take notes and handouts back to team members to share at the next staff meeting.
All of these opportunities, if encouraged by a department leader, demonstrate interest in career development for the team and for individuals. Millennials particularly thrive on feedback and interest in their career growth.
Again, such casual discussions accomplish several purposes beyond demonstrating interest: they keep you up to date on changes in employee goals, reinforce that team members themselves own the responsibility for their personal development, and provide opportunity for a mentoring moment or two from you or more experienced group members. And you, as leader, have facilitated that learning.
Scouting talent and developing your team (or coworkers) doesn’t mean spending a massive chunk of time at the tail end of an already packed month. This strategic conversation can be brief but powerfully engaging. After all, who doesn’t like to talk about themselves and their future career opportunities?