When your team wants to grow: 4 main questions to ask to build a long-term plan
Many of us grew up hearing that people don’t leave bad companies; they leave bad managers or some rendition of that. While a bit cliche, I think the part of the employee-manager contract that is most at stake today is centered around developing or growing someone’s career, i.e., their role, scope, influence, skills, and authority.
We have the short-term development plan in hand when we focus on setting goals, checking in on goals, measuring performance, and giving feedback. That is, we help people identify where they can improve or what they can continue doing to be successful and receive a good rating or even an outstanding one.
When it comes to long-term development plans – those that focus more on a person’s career aspirations – some managers find the conversation intimidating, outside of their comfort zone, or even threatening if they don’t want to lose good talent from their team.
We do ask people managers to wear a lot of hats. Managers may not be comfortable wearing the hat of a career coach but it isn’t that far from regular performance coaching. It is merely asking questions to produce a slightly different outcome.
If you’ve read my book, you know that I view careers as the alignment of 4 areas that only we can define for ourselves: our values, our strengths, what gives us energy, and what we feel confident in doing.
One of a manager’s main roles is to be a talent connector, not a talent hoarder. The people on your team are not “yours”; they are company talent, people who work for and represent the organization not just you or your department.
For managers to be this talent connector, they must don the career coaching hat and ask questions to get at the intersection of values, strengths, energy, and confidence. The questions are not difficult, and they can include the following:
Values
1. What do you value most?
2. What does a healthy work environment look like to you? How do people behave in it?
3. What does a toxic work environment look like to you? How do people behave in it?
Strengths
1. What are you good at? What do you excel at?
2. What have others said that you excel at?
3. What has someone paid you a compliment about?
4. What do you like doing?
5. What do you dislike doing?
Energy
1. What gives you energy?
2. What motivates you?
3. What makes you want to get out of bed?
4. What kind of work engages you?
5. What work drains you?
6. What kind of work do you avoid at all costs?
Confidence
1. What have people asked you about?
2. What have people approached you about for training or mentoring?
3. What do people rely on you for?
4. What kind of work makes you feel good about yourself?
5. What kind of work can you do with your eyes closed?
Getting solid answers to these questions can help reveal where that person should focus. The key then is to match these desires to types of work, projects, groups, or opportunities to fulfill those desires. And, sometimes, these opportunities may not be within your team. That’s okay because we are about connecting people to opportunities and retaining them with the organization.
Once you have a couple of matching possibilities, it is time to create a long-term development plan (a career development plan). This plan overlaps with the short-term plan with a slightly different focus. The sections include:
1. Current Role – High-level responsibilities and scope
2. Future Desired Role/Project/Group – Their desired role (or project or group) based on the career conversation
o Values – The must-have, can’t live without values they need, i.e., security, creativity, risk-taking, etc.
o Strengths – What they are good at and like to do
o Energy Boosters – What gives them energy; what drives them
o Confidence – What they have mastered and have confident about doing
3. Development Areas – Skills, knowledge, experiences identified to close the gap between current role and future role
4. Actions – Tactics to close the gaps, i.e., Shadow a sales manager for a day; sit in on the next client presentation; deliver part of the next client presentation; take a class on effective sales presentations, etc.
5. Deadlines – Deadlines for each action will motivate focus and progress
6. Resources Needed – People, content, courses, memberships, tools, etc. that will be needed to take the actions documented
7. Progress – How you will track and when you will discuss progress; put meeting times or cadence on the plan
This plan is more involved because it captures everything about the person today and tomorrow. The key is to take things in chunks, have an open and honest conversation with the right questions, and identify ways the person can close the gaps and become ready for their next role on your team or another team.