Developing Your People — Why Now?
We’ve always known people are capable of change if they genuinely believe in its purpose. We’re seeing that in action now as people make drastic changes nearly overnight. Not only that, but they learn from the quick change and adapt and iterate to improve in their new context.
Use the change momentum to work with your people to create meaningful development plans.
The 5 Steps
We’ve been working with a team recently to create role clarity and more inspiring career paths. The team had developed over time with a clear task, but not with a clear and inspiring purpose. Blurred lines between responsibilities were starting to get in the way of productivity and engagement. And with so much overlap, it was hard for team members to see where they were going in their individual careers.
We started by helping the team move beyond their tasks and define their purpose in the broader organization. Then we moved through the following steps to help each individual articulate his/her priorities, passion and skills and align them to the team’s purpose.
1 – Listen.
Many of your people are likely thinking about what’s important to them. Make time to connect with them as a mentor or leader and help them capture those thoughts. What’s most important to them? What skills do they want to use more often? What ideas have they had?
2 – Connect.
After listening, explore connections with them between what you heard and what the team is pursuing. How and where do their priorities and skills align with the team or organization? How can their passion spark value?
3 – Discover.
Look for opportunities to put passion and skills to better use. This could mean freeing up time by improving processes. It could mean identifying areas for development in pursuit of individual passion and team purpose.
4 – Plan.
Whatever the opportunity is to put passion and skills to better use, create an individualized plan. Who can help? What resources might be needed? What’s the ideal timeline? What measures and accountabilities will help make it happen?
5 – Track.
Establish standing check-in meetings at whatever frequency is appropriate. Track progress and evaluate value against milestones and measures. Stay open to plan improvements and iterations. Are the opportunities maintaining relevance? Have more valuable paths emerged as a result of this work? Is performance in current work maintained while pursuing the plan?
You will likely find that in the course of generating these individual plans, the team also generates value through process improvement and clarity that removes unnecessary tasks.
Palmer OSG is here to help if you need it. Just reach out.