Adam (00:07)

So let's outline how to have a developmental conversation that supports career growth. Before we can talk about where we are going, we need to understand where we are now. A crucial complement to growth and development Conversations are role, clarity, conversations. During this conversation, you may review your role in performance agreement or a job description.

You have, and go through this with the team member to really establish clear understanding of the expectations and make updates if you need to. It's important to remember that your team needs to understand where they are expected to be today so that it's clear about where they can go from that point. Begin the conversation by asking your direct reports about their career goals and aspirations. What do they see themselves doing in the future?

What do they hope to achieve in their career? This is going to help you understand their motivations and priorities. You can begin with a general prompts like Where do you see yourself in three years? However, some employees may not have an answer to that and may need a little bit more specific guidance.

In that case, it's your job as the manager to help them figure out how they want to develop by asking them more specific questions. What type of work energizes you? What work would you like to do more of? Is there anything you want to do less of?

Think outside the promotion. Not every career growth conversation needs to end in a promotion or termination, for that matter. Career development is incremental and growth can be supported within the current role. For example, maybe you have a team member that has aspirations to grow into a management role and there just isn't a management role open today without asking them to do the role of a manager.

What might they be able to do within the current scope of their role to practice the skills and behaviors they might need when they do have the opportunity to become a manager? Maybe they can lead a team meeting once a month or give them an opportunity to practice giving feedback to their peers. Another opportunity is to set career goals. Career development goals are different from business goals in that they speak to the way an individual wants to grow and develop in their role.

Where a business goal may be to close 25 sales deals, a development goal would be more along the lines of practicing making small talk with strangers. The assumption here is that getting better at small talk will ultimately help this individual do better at their job at building relationships. This type of goal that you set around individual performance, this is really great and can help them stretch a little bit beyond their current role without having to tie it to a specific business outcome. Whereas if the performance of the individual is not meeting the expectations, you might not need to stretch them as much.

You ask them to practice the skills that they need to catch up on. Once you have developmental goals that are set, don't set it and forget it. Make sure to bring these up in your one on one meetings and to check in on progress regularly asking the simple question How's it going? Using a tool like this team size to track growth plans is a great way to make sure it doesn't fall victim to being lost in the hustle of your every day.