DEVELOPING PEOPLE

By Isabel Rimanoczy

Have you seen the Individual Development Plan for each of your DRs? 

Once you have answered these questions, you will have a good assessment of how well you are doing in terms of understanding how well or little you are in touch with developing your direct reports.

You probably noticed that the questions don't even ask what developmental actions are being taken by your department or those in which ones your direct reports are currently involved. Why is this not important?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, to "develop" means to "unroll, unfold". If we want to connect our ideas for developing people to this meaning, we could think of helping others to uncover, or expand their capabilities and skills. It has both a reference to something that is already there, waiting to be tapped into, and something that could become much larger, more important or profound. While courses can often serve this purpose, the key is whether the course or workshop is anchored in a passion, an interest or an area an employee is keen to explore.

Now look back at your own training or developmental experiences, and count how many have met that basic criterion for you. You should not be surprised that the most interesting, intriguing, transformational, and meaningful ones were those that you felt passionate about... What a coincidence!

(Certainly you may recall memorable development experiences that were meaningful because of your exchanges with others, because of your interactions with people you met, not necessarily because of the content. We are not referring to those here).

This brings us back to the point made above, that it is less important to see if people are enrolled in developmental activities, and which ones, and far more important to pay attention to the areas each individual is interested in developing.

This may sound counterintuitive: Does it mean you should let everyone do whatever he/she wants? Does it mean there should be no recommendation, no professional or performance related requirements, no "areas of improvement" listed in the performance review? No, of course not. We're suggesting that the emphasis be on understanding and identifying interests before selecting any solution.

May be it is not counter-intuitive, but counter-cultural. We are brought up in a culture that has mapped out from an early age what we need to learn, how it should be taught and when. Yet, our successes mostly relate to what we are good at, what we are enthusiastic about, to our strengths and those areas of natural interest that we decided to pursue. Our intuition is wise: it points out what we need to do. This is not always what we are told to do.

This approach is not new: David Cooperrider, from Case Western University, has identified the importance of going with what works best, rather than trying to focus on what is going wrong. He calls it "Appreciative Inquiry". This perspective has further been researched by the Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) developed at the University of Michigan, focusing on the positive dynamics (such as strength, resilience, vitality, trust, and so on) that lead to positive effects in productivity and performance in individuals and organizations.[1]