This new edition of the bestselling employee development classic includes advice on engagement and retention in today's more flexible employment environment, a new chapter on remote and hybrid work, and a deeper discussion of career development in your organization.
Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. But most managers feel they just don't have time for it. This book offers a better way: frequent, short conversations with employees about themselves, their goals, and the business that can be integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business.
Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees' awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; and point out where their organization and their industry are headed. The authors provide new assessments, worksheets, and a discussion guide to help employees and managers pull all of that together to create forward momentum.
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Book Details
Overview
This new edition of the bestselling employee development classic includes advice on engagement and retention in today's more flexible employment environment, a new chapter on remote and hybrid work, and a deeper discussion of career development in your organization.
Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. But most managers feel they just don't have time for it. This book offers a better way: frequent, short conversations with employees about themselves, their goals, and the business that can be integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business.
Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees' awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; and point out where their organization and their industry are headed. The authors provide new assessments, worksheets, and a discussion guide to help employees and managers pull all of that together to create forward momentum.
About the Authors
Julie Winkle Giulioni (Author)
Julie Winkle Giulioni works with organizations worldwide to improve performance through leadership and learning through her company, DesignArounds. Named one of Inc. Magazine's top 100 leadership speakers, she consults, teaches, speaks, and writes about career development and a variety of workplace topics.
Beverly Kaye (Author)
Beverly Kaye is the founder and CEO of her own consulting company, BevKaye&Co. She was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Talent Development for her groundbreaking and continual contributions to workplace learning. She is the coauthor of several books, including six editions of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em.
Excerpt
1 Develop Me or I’m History!
— 1 — Develop Me or I’m HISTORY!
Spendingforty-sixty-eighty hours somewhere each week . . . I want it to mean something. I want to feel like I’m moving forward somehow. If I can’t grow here, I’ve gotta look elsewhere.
—An employee (perhaps yours)
The decision to assume a leadership role in today’s workplace comes with a front-row seat to some of the greatest business challenges of our time. Day in and day out, you must:
Do exponentially more with infinitely less. It’s become cliché, but this reality permeates life at work as the vise continues to tighten— including around talent in many sectors. You’ve likely become a master at elevating quality while at the same time finding ways to reduce costs, time, and other resources below levels you ever imagined were possible. And the reward? Do even more with even less.
Navigate extraordinary levels of change, uncertainty, and complexity. The unknowns outnumber the knowns today. Yet others look to you for clarity and direction in an increasingly unpredictable environment. But it’s not just business matters that are challenging. People matters are as well. Recent events have left many employees feeling uneasy and insecure. Add to that unprecedented levels of stress, anxiety, and burnout, and leaders are now in the complicated position of managing a mental health crisis.
Meet ever-expanding expectations. Every quarter, you’re asked to do a little (or a lot) more. Bigger sales. Greater numbers of service interactions. More projects. Higher scores. Beyond stakeholders and executives, employees are expressing greater expectations as well. Today’s employees are not shy about sharing their desire for a different relationship with work—one that offers more meaning, flexibility, balance, and learning. And they’re holding their employers to new standards around social responsibility, justice, and other matters formerly not the domain of the workplace.
Deliver the next big thing. Most organizations believe that if they’re not moving forward, they’re sliding backward. Innovation gets its picture on business magazine covers because it represents the promise of greater success. Disruption (especially in the form of digital transformation and AI) is the name of the game, altering the job landscape— eliminating some roles, adding others, and promising to change the complexion of work for most of us in the years to come.
Engage the most diverse workforce in history. Never have we had more richness at work. But with that richness has come challenges with inclusion, equity, and belonging. When you add “hybrid” and “remote” to the list of demographic factors that define (and too often divide) us, then leaders must also grapple with creating authentic connection among and with workers who no longer operate in shared space and time.
Future-proof the workforce. In the face of today’s accelerated change, the half-life of skills is quickly shrinking, threatening to render a significant portion of the workforce ill prepared (at best) or totally irrelevant (at worst) when it comes to meeting the challenges of future work. As a result, you’re charged with upskilling, reskilling, and preskilling employees at a pace and on a scale never imagined.
And, no matter how long, hard, or smart you work, you can’t do all of this alone. Success depends upon tapping the talents, strengths, and skills that everyone has to offer. (By everyone, remember, we’re not just talking about full-time employees—the workforce has dramatically grown to include gig workers, contingent support, contractors and consultants, interns, and even externs.) So today, your success rests upon finding ways to continually expand everyone’s capacity, engagement, and ability to contribute to the organization.
Our decades of experience working with hundreds of best-in-class leaders—those who consistently develop the most capable, flexible, and engaged teams able to drive exceptional business results—reveals that they all share one quality: they make career development a priority and a regular habit.
Career development is among the most frequently forgotten tool for driving business results . . .
yet
it’s completely within a leader’s sphere of influence.
A “HISTORY” LESSON
Even during challenging economic times, your best and brightest have options. Failing to help employees grow can lead them to resign and take their talents elsewhere. They become “history.” But what can be equally damaging as this talent drain are the employees who stay, quietly quitting and becoming increasingly disengaged. Their bodies show up for work every day, but their commitment has moved on.
So, if career development is a tool that can deliver what organizations need most—productivity gains, expense reduction, retention, quality improvements, innovation, and bottom-line results—why isn’t everyone using it?
DEFINING TERMS
Perhaps it’s frequently forgotten because the term career development strikes fear into many leaders’ hearts.
Whatever your answer, we’ll bet that ours is simpler. You see, many leaders are intimidated by or steer clear of career development because they have a mistaken, outdated, or overwhelming definition of the term. So try this definition on for size:
Career development is nothing more than helping others grow. And nothing less.
Helping others grow can take a nearly unlimited number of forms. On one end of the continuum, you help employees prepare for and move to new or expanded roles in obvious and visible ways. But far more frequently, growth shows up on the other end of the continuum, in small, subtle ways that quietly create greater challenge, interest, and satisfaction in a job.
The problem is that too often career development evokes images of forms, checklists, and deadlines. And let’s be honest—the organization needs you to comply with these processes and systems to support important human resources, manpower, and succession planning work. But administrative compliance with paperwork and processes is not career development. Unfortunately, these artifacts too frequently overshadow the true art of development.
Genuine, meaningful, and sustainable career development occurs through the human act of conversation.
Whether it’s a formal individual development planning (IDP) meeting or an on-the-fly connection, it’s the quality of the conversation that matters most to employees. That’s how they judge your performance and their development. And if they decide you’re not helping them grow, they’ll make the decision to go—physically, emotionally, or both.
AI VERSUS HI
Love it or hate it, artificial intelligence is here to stay—and changing the way work gets done in both subtle and profound ways. It’s a powerful tool that has the potential to further democratize and personalize the experience of learning and development for employees. Greater access to opportunities across the entire organization versus the narrow selection of what might be available within one’s department or silo. Targeted interventions that really deliver on the promise of “just-forme” and “just-in-time” versus generic “come one, come all” programming. On-demand coaching for addressing tough career development challenges versus waiting for the next scheduled conversation.
Future generations will look back on this period as a renaissance of growth. But this golden age is not the exclusive domain of technology. Leaders will continue to play a vital role because
AI (artificial intelligence) is no match for HI (human interaction).
The digital recommendations, options, and guidance that are currently available—and that will only become more sophisticated, nuanced, and helpful over time—are important but incomplete inputs to the process of growth. Human interaction is required for people to make the most of these rich resources and use them to develop and grow. After all, it’s humans rather than bots who are uniquely suited to help someone
► See themselves, their talents, and their potential as others see them
► Build contextual understanding so they can navigate the political and cultural landscape
► Feel safe enough to take risks and try something new
► Facilitate relationship building that will support success
► Enhance visibility through advocacy efforts
► Process experiences and translate them into learning
► Feel heard, seen, and genuinely valued by the leader and the organization
So take advantage of every digital tool available to support the growth of your employees. But know that genuine development is prompted less through AI queries and more though the HI that you, as a human, are uniquely suited to offer.
Careers are developed one conversation at a time . . .
over time.
IMMOBILIZING MYTHS
So, if it really is as simple as just talking to people, why isn’t career development a more common feature of the organizational landscape?
Over the years, leaders—by sharing oral history and spinning lore—have created and continue to propagate several myths. And these myths or beliefs keep them from having the very career conversations their employees want. Which are familiar to you?
Myth 1 —There isn’t enough time.
No one will argue that time is among the scarcest resources available to leaders today. But let’s get real. You’re having conversations already—probably all day long. What if you could redirect some of that time and redeploy some of those conversations to focus on careers and development?
Myth 2 —I can’t give them what they want.
This myth is based upon the assumption that everyone wants more, bigger, or better—things like promotions, raises, prestige, power. If you believe this, you likely view career development as a confounding no-win situation. Since these things you imagine others want are in woefully short supply, it’s understandable that many leaders might avoid a potentially disappointing and demoralizing conversation. But based on our research, the fundamental assumption behind this response is patently inaccurate. Today’s employees are looking for a different relationship with work—one that depends less upon the traditional trappings of career development and more on the experience of meaning, purpose, flexibility, challenge, balance, and more—all things a leader can help facilitate.
Myth 3 —Why rock the boat?
If I don’t talk about it, they may not think about it. Developing people increases the likelihood that they’ll leave and upset the balance of your well-running department, right? Wrong. Employees have growth on their minds—whether you address it or not. Withholding these conversations is a greater danger to the status quo than engaging in them.
Myth 4 —Employees are responsible for their careers.
Employees must own the development of their careers. Full stop. If they’re not in the driver’s seat, the vehicle isn’t going anywhere. But that doesn’t mean that leaders are off the hook. You have an essential role as navigational support, helping others steer their career development toward success. And that role plays out in large part through conversation.
Myth 5 —The learning and development professionals will take care of that.
Organization-sponsored training is a rich and valuable resource. And considering the urgent skills shortages facing many organizations, assigning an employee to a workshop or webinar could be an essential next step. But formal programs are just the tip of the iceberg. Informal opportunities and growth experiences within the workflow abound. Whether formal or informal, though, don’t be lulled into thinking that your obligation is satisfied once the activity is assigned. Your partnership throughout the process will help employees turn learning into actionable career development.
If you’re like most leaders, a few of these myths likely resonate with you. Dog-ear or bookmark this page and come back to it after you’ve completed the book. We predict that when you are introduced to a different way of looking at your role, you may also look at career development and these myths a little differently.
But, until then, remember this: growing the business means growing people. Forget that—and the rest is history.
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