CHAPTER 10

Craft a Development Plan

Skill training, job redesign, mentorship—your employee could take advantage of all of the development options available to them, but without a strategic plan, they still might not achieve their professional goals and aspirations. You must clearly identify a path that you both think will work best and outline the specific actions required to gain the skills they need to grow. In other words, you and your employee must define a development plan.

An individualized development plan includes specific growth objectives your employee will strive to meet over the long term, with a time line and clear steps for achieving them. Like the performance goals you developed in section 1, these targets should be challenging but achievable. After all, if the employee isn’t required to stretch or push themselves, they won’t grow.

Just as goals are best crafted in collaboration with an employee, so are individualized plans for development. The action steps that you identify should take into account your employee’s professional aims (which you explored in chapter 8) as well as organizational needs. You’ll also likely want to include some of the development tactics covered in the last chapter. In order to do so, though, you must first understand how your employee learns best. Then you can craft a plan—and implement it in a way that ensures they will follow through.

Understand Your Employee’s Learning Style

Not all development options work for everyone. An effective mode of learning for one person can fall flat for another. Personality type, education, and cultural background all influence the way individuals learn, and with five generations of people in the workplace, organizations need to match training and development tools to employees’ preferences. For example, digital-native Millennials may gravitate to online learning or other tech-based approaches, while employees of other generations may prefer on-the-job learning opportunities such as mentorship or stretch assignments.

In his HBR article “What Great Managers Do,” author and consultant Marcus Buckingham identifies three learning styles—analyzing, doing, and watching—that are worth considering when you’re planning which tactics to use for your employees’ development. These styles are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, some of your direct reports may rely on a combination of two or perhaps all three.

1. Analyzing. An analyzer craves information. They understand a task by taking it apart into components, examining each element, and reconstructing it. An analyzer prefers to fully prepare before doing, so assigned reading, classroom experience, and role-play are effective ways for them to learn new skills.
2. Doing. A doer learns more during a given activity than through preparation. Trial and error is an integral part of their learning process, as they tend to enhance their skills while grappling with tasks. For a doer, it’s best to pick a specific action that is simple but real, give them a brief overview of the results you want, and get out of their way. As they develop, gradually increase the degree of difficulty until they’ve mastered the role.
3. Watching. A watcher prefers to see a task or project from start to finish so they can understand what the total performance looks like. They want to see how everything fits together in a coherent whole. It’s best to avoid classroom learning and how-to manuals for this type of learner. Instead, consider shadowing opportunities in which they can observe someone in the act.

Work with your employee to define how they perform best, and ask questions to get to the heart of their learning style. Once you identify their preferences, don’t try to change them. Forcing your employee into a path that doesn’t fit just causes frustration. Accept the uniqueness of each individual, and develop a plan that takes into account how they think and what drives them.

Craft a Plan

Outlining your employee’s development plan requires time and collaborative discussion with your direct report. You may need to meet a few times before the plan is finalized to ensure agreement.

Ask your employee to draft an initial outline, and have them explain why they selected certain options. People are more engaged in plans they have some choice in creating, and allowing them to start the discussion will let them incorporate their own learning styles and preferences. If they need help pulling a plan together, ask questions like:

• Who can help and support you in learning how to become proficient at this task?
• How can I support you in figuring out how to do this on your own?
• How will we measure the success of this target?

Make suggestions if necessary, but allow your employee to choose which learning options they want to pursue.

Don’t limit your employee to just one avenue for growth. For example, the 70–20-10 rule, also known as the “experience, exposure, education” framework, suggests making at least 70% of the action items on-the-job learning through stretch assignments, 20% from mentoring, and 10% from formal training or educational programs. An employee’s plan might involve adding one or two challenging assignments, complemented with coaching and formal skill training. The right approach will be determined by the individual’s situation and what they think they can handle.

Next, figure out what resources are needed. Perhaps your direct report needs a private work space to participate in an online course, a subscription for new software they’re trying to master, or a conference registration fee paid from a corporate account. Maybe they need you to introduce them to potential mentors or sponsors. Consider the resources required for your direct report to successfully complete their development plan. If you can’t afford or provide the necessary resources, reassess the plan and discuss other alternatives.

Throughout your conversations, talk with your direct report about what, if anything, their development efforts mean for their pay and position. They may have questions about what job redesign or a stretch assignment will mean in the long term. Be clear about whether this is a new job or a change in responsibilities, a promotion, or a trial assignment. Development may or may not lead to an adjustment in salary or status, but your employee should understand from the start what’s in store.

Whatever options you and your direct report agree will spur their development—whether it’s a one-day seminar, an online course, or a task delegated from your own to-do list—agree on a time line for completion, or highlight specific milestones if the development is an ongoing relationship, as with mentoring. Without set deadlines, your employee won’t have a clear idea of the time commitment their development requires.

Document Your Decisions—and Follow Up

Get the final plan on paper. If your company has an individual development plan form, use that to make a record of your discussions. If not, create your own, using table 10-1 at the end of this chapter as a template.

As with other parts of performance management, your conversation with your employee isn’t the end of the process. Schedule specific times to discuss how their development is going. Choose a date a month or so away, or fold these conversations into your regular check-ins and feedback discussions.

Don’t get frustrated if your direct report isn’t growing as quickly as you’d hoped. Learning is a messy process, and development doesn’t always follow a straight line. As a manager, you’ll need to have the patience to allow people to make mistakes. Your employees need to feel safe to explore and experiment if they are to take risks in learning and mastering new skills.

Few individuals will risk stretching to meet an ambitious target if they’re not sure their manager has their back. Let your employees know you trust them to take on new challenges—and to recover from missteps. Ensure that they feel safe taking risks for growth as they do their jobs. Developing and maintaining a safe working environment requires ongoing discussion of needs and opportunities, tasks and obstacles—what is working and what is not.

Allowing your direct reports to learn and explore pays off: As individuals achieve small successes, their confidence grows, so they’re less daunted by bigger challenges. Step back to allow self-sufficiency, and let your employees own their results. Once you’ve delegated a task or decision, don’t try to take it back. Encourage each person to learn through their mistakes, and recognize and reward them when they succeed. If you do find that someone is struggling to the point of frustration or in a way that is detrimental to their performance, work with that person to make adjustments so that they can find the path that’s right for them.