Launch Point Summary for Smart Growth Leaders
As the lily pad grows, so grows your company. Leaders who commit to seeking smart growth by exploring potential and possibilities with their people will inspire and accelerate organizational growth. Just as the roots of one lily, no matter how small they start, can ultimately fill a multi-acre pond, so can one person’s growth revolutionize an industry, employ thousands, change societal attitudes, and uplift our world. Group progress hinges on this truth: the fundamental unit of growth in any organization is the individual.
The launch point of the S Curve feels slow. It’s not that growth isn’t happening; it’s that growth may not yet be apparent. There is an amalgam of emotions—excitement, terror, discouragement, impatience. Stress levels are typically high with so much to process; making decisions is cognitively taxing. Confidence toggles between under- and overconfidence (hence the impatience). Questions about identity emerge—Who am I if I am not who I was?
The hallmarks of the launch point are outlined in the following Goldilocks Table. Right now, the chair is not too small and it’s not just right. It’s too big, and it’s supposed to be. Once you know what it looks and feels like to be at the launch point, you can create an ecosystem where your people can successfully move through this phase of the growth cycle.
GOLDILOCKS TABLE
Plotting the Emotional Journey of Growth
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Dimensions |
Launch Point: Slow |
|---|---|
|
Confidence |
The feeling of confidence is seldom aligned to reality at the launch. Some personalities will feel no confidence in this new area and fight imposter syndrome and insecurities that drain their energy. Other personalities will feel more confident than their limited experience warrants, leading to costly and avoidable mistakes. |
|
Identity |
Difficult and deep questions emerge: • I’m not good at this. Do I have value? • Is doing something like this aligned with who I am … or even want to be? |
|
Familiarity |
Much about this area is brand new, like exploring a new country. Past experience in other areas can provide valuable orientation but should be treated cautiously so you don’t miss the important details and differences. |
|
Mental state |
Some personalities find this stressful, feeling overwhelmed by the volume of new information to process and things to learn. Other personalities find all the new stimuli exhilarating. Both need to keep these tendencies from pulling them off the path of deliberate growth. |
|
Value proposition |
Considerable untapped potential waits on the other side of the investment. Uncertainties remain, but the reward seems worth it. |
|
Successful mindset |
Success at this stage flows from leaning into the challenge: saying yes and experimenting with new approaches, ways of being, and relationships. |
|
Support network |
A supportive network may be available, but you generally don’t know who those people are or how to access them … and even if you did, you’re not sure you’d want to because you don’t want to look needy. |
|
Decision approach |
The tendency for most is to directly follow the procedure and guidance of authority figures. |
|
Knowledge base |
You are starting to learn important facts and the needed language … but not enough to be efficient or effective. You can think you know more than you do because you don’t know what you don’t know. |
|
Energy and output |
For most, this new challenge takes more energy than expected, and the progress is slower than expected. |
Grow Your People: Managing People at the Launch Point
What people on the launch point need from you, their manager, is support. What we are seeing in data is that individuals on the launch point are very aware that their work output is lower than their colleagues and that their capacity (for example, current skills and abilities) to complete their work is lower than that of their colleagues.
At the same time, a majority of the launch pointers are actively working to improve their situation. Make sure they have the tools, resources, and training they need to do their job; ensure they feel that what they are contributing is of value (which includes their inexperience and the “Why are we doing it this way?” question), that missteps are openly discussed (there will be many because the people on the launch point are exploring), and that there are learning opportunities. Collective output is essential but reinforce that their individual growth is a priority to you. (For more on how to create an environment where growth is possible, see Ecosystem, chapter 7.)
Below is a summary table of how to manage people at the launch point based on both the career stage of the individual and the type of organization in which they work.
HOW TO MANAGE PEOPLE AT THE LAUNCH POINT
Leading at Launch Theme: SUPPORT
|
TYPE OF ORGANIZATION |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Young and/or growing |
Advancing and/or midstage |
Historic and/or complex |
|
|
Early career |
Set expectations that there will be minimal structure and process, and what process there is will change because the company itself is in the exploration phase. Questions are welcome as people explore, but in order to excel, drive and personal initiative are imperative. Bring on people who are nimble: people who can do what needs to be done, whether showing up for a sales call or scheduling the call for someone else. |
For an organization in the sweet spot, it is easy to stop focusing on what is working well as you attend to what isn’t. You are no longer so small that collegiality is enough for people to acclimate. Ensure that you have a thoughtful structure in place for onboarding. Some companies do a great job for the first 45–90 days, forgetting that it takes up to six months for someone to understand their role well enough to move into the sweet spot. |
Established companies (i.e., operationally in the mastery phase) tend to have strong systems in place to support individuals on the launch point of the curve. Know, however, that your highly driven launch point individuals and teams need to be able to “color outside the lines” at times. The same process and structure that is helping them grow may also constrain them. Support them in their questioning. Reward them for doing exploratory work. |
|
Midcareer |
Help your midcareer employees understand that their skill set is highly valued. You are relying on expertise and intuition born of experience to guide the company through an exploratory phase. Create ample opportunities to hear from this cohort. |
Midcareer launch pointers can be the collective engine that helps your organization accelerate into the sweet spot. Ensure people are quickly activated with the resources they need. Consider pairing them with teams that identify as experts and are in the mastery phase. |
Midcareer professionals are accustomed to tapping into the tools and skills to be successful. They are on the launch point because they want a challenge. Too much structure and complexity can be demotivating. |
|
Expert career |
While an expert showing up on the launch point might be a surprise, don’t mistake their technical mastery for an understanding of your culture, your business, or your leadership style. Emphasize partnership, but don’t skip the introduction. This support will help you best leverage their talents. |
When you attract an expert-level career jumper or move a master into a completely different role, it is typically because they are in search of a new challenge. Do you understand what that is? Are you tracking your ability to deliver on the something different? Experts willing to do the exploratory work involved on the launch point can be rare. Satisfy their hunger for self-disruption. Track the number of masters moving to the launch point as a way to gauge your ability to retain top talent. |
This exhilarating jump to launch point gives experts an opportunity to explore what’s possible. They will need less direction than their early-career colleagues. Ensuring they have ample resources is often assumed and therefore overlooked. |
Additional Tips for Managers
- Once you move someone into a new role (or hire someone), don’t test them all over again. In getting their footing, they need to believe that you believe they can be successful. Watch what you are mirroring. Tell your employees why you hired them. This will not only signal confidence, but help them uncover their why or their purpose.
- No matter how promising a person is, neither of you yet know if this is the right S Curve. Explorers have logs; Collectors collect and tag their specimens. Collect data: Where is a person on their current S Curve? Will this lead to achieving their long-term goals? Does the person have the necessary resources? Assess whether the current role or assignment is sufficiently novel that they have room to grow, but familiar enough, whether domain or relationship expertise, or both, that they can be successful. Continually evaluate momentum.
- Because of all the newness, to shore up a sense of identity, there can be a tendency to perform rather than to learn. Manage this by having your team set goals that are experiment-based (for example, what did you learn this week?) and process-oriented (for example, map out, meet, and serve your key stakeholders). Trust that behaviors, if practiced consistently, will lead to desired outcomes.
- Invest in frequent, honest communication: It is either time consuming or uncomfortable or both to give you feedback, so when I do, I am investing in you. As Jeff Lyman, former chief product officer at Weave, a communication platform for small and medium-sized businesses, said, his job is “vision and strategy, air cover, resourcing, and hard feedback.”1 Be concrete and specific, beginning with what is working. When someone knows exactly what is working, they can do more of it. Be clear about what isn’t working so that individuals can quickly course correct. The tension between what is and what isn’t working will allow people to make the quickest progress. While some people struggle with imposter syndrome and their perception of how well they are doing trails reality, for others, perception precedes reality. If you are invested in their development, you will give feedback. If you aren’t—whether the feedback is positive or negative—it may be an indication you aren’t invested.
- Watch for identity mismatch, overlap, and shadow values. If people are struggling in their role—consider to what extent it may be out of line with how they perceive themselves. Be willing to call out when people are collecting data about themselves that isn’t true. If you are struggling to allow them to flourish, it may be that their emerging self feels like an incursion into the territory of your identity. If you are not willing to allow people to explore, get curious about why.
- For team members who would prefer to be the expert, to perpetually remain in mastery, and not be learners, emphasize that while their learning is your priority, it needs to be theirs too. We sometimes believe that if we say or do the right thing, if we create a fertile ecosystem for growth, then our people will engage. It’s a both/and. You create conditions where growth is possible and your team members choose to grow.
- Encourage inner work. Technical skills are necessary but not sufficient for growth. To grow your company, your people need to grow their childlike skills of curiosity, wonder, and attention and become world-class Collectors of feedback.
- Practice gratitude. Publicly acknowledge and appreciate how the people on your team are growing. When you focus on and celebrate growth, you get more growth.
Grow Your Company: Launch Point Implications for Leaders
Following are specific, tactical ways to apply the S Curve of Learning model and the S Curve Insight Platform to grow your organization.2
- To orient your team for growth, the proportion of people on the launch point should be relatively small (that is, less than 20 percent) but significant enough to balance two factors: 1) ensure that the team can provide near-term efficient output; 2) counteract the tendency to have those on the launch point fit the mold of the existing team. Their newness can be a strength if you harness it properly, so help the whole team listen for how their fresh perspective can inform collective growth.
- Individuals on the launch point help provide the impetus to get your organization to the pinnacle of your S Curve. Their enthusiasm for the climb and their questioning helps you uncover opportunities for innovation—from products to process to people.
- One of the major benefits of bringing people in at the launch point is that they feel you’ve taken a chance on them. The reward and payoff can be loyalty, dedication, and hard work from those in whom you invest. There is an esprit de corps among teams that move up the Curve together successfully.
- Take stock of where your company is in its growth trajectory and what resources are available to support individuals on the launch point.
- Consider the impact of having a team heavily weighted at the launch point. If your organization has a disproportionate number of people at this point, the time and energy required to move people off the launch point is a worthy challenge, but it can deplete and exhaust leadership, as well as longer-tenured team members.
- If you don’t currently have team members on the launch point, take a step back to grow. Create practices to ensure that you are collectively questioning the status quo.