A lot has been written about trends like, – ‘Quiet Quitting’ and ‘The Great Resignation’ and a job market full of opportunities. Many employees are describing disengagement, burn out, and other overwhelming career distractors with the pandemic having had an unprecedented effect on how and where we work. Transitioning back to the office hasn’t been easy, confusion and frustration exacerbating burnout. Many employees are feeling pressured to prove they are working and now having to commute to the office, often only to still spend their days in back-to-back virtual meetings.
Doubtless, managers have missed pre-pandemic visual cues from those ad hoc corridor conversations or chat over coffee, that gave clues into an employees’ career, state of mind -and opportunity to support their development. Today we see many employees questioning how their job and employee experience matches their expectations for satisfaction and successful career growth and aligns to their values. Opportunities for career growth may have also been hampered as many worked in isolation from home.
So there has never been a better time than now, to restoke career conversations – (complete and truly interested conversations), hone coaching skills and re-establish discussions with employees about their futures. When helped along their path, employees are more likely to stay and help an organisation on its journey. Conversations are a simple way to increase productivity, growth, and engagement.
Career conversations not to be confused with transactional conversations
Even in pre pandemic times, career conversations didn’t happen as much as they should. Instead, we tend to see transactional conversations that often focus on compliance, tasks, or processes (e.g., deadlines, volume of sales, activity, a crisis), and less about building capability. They have a place but don’t necessarily adapt to the maturity of the group or build individual capability.
Quality and meaningful career conversations on the other hand, engender trust and commitment, ‘lift the bonnet’ on career development, unearthing aspirations and shedding light on past and future careers. The more a leader knows about their direct reports, the more effectively they can motivate, coach, and help them grow. They don’t focus on operational performance. Career conversations help an employee review progress and build upon achievements and establish evolving tactics for success. They employ higher-value questions, helping individuals understand and connect the dots for what’s needed for them to move from the present to their desired future.
Curiosity and the coaching leader
Quality career conversations, take a certain panache, and talent. Asking the right questions can be challenging, but the power of those questions combined with active listening and dedicated one-on-one time will be genuinely appreciated. Career conversations run from a coaching mindset, drawing on coaching techniques and reflective questions, which can help individuals resolve challenges for themselves and be more autonomous. Good faith conversations like these, mean employees are likely to be further invested, productive and achieve growth. Holding career coaching conversations is no longer optional and an essential part of the leader’s toolkit. The essence of coaching lies in:
- unlocking potential and inspiring employees to adopt new habits.
- encouraging them to be vulnerable with you so you become not only their leader but also their career mentor and coach
- asking them to focus on building strengths and codify their achievements. An achievement mindset leads to accomplishments which is the better for the organisation.
As Nick Cave said, ‘A good faith conversation begins with curiosity. It looks for common ground while making room for disagreement. It should be primarily about exchange of thoughts and information rather than instruction, and it affords us, among other things, the great privilege of being wrong: we feel supported in our unknowing and, in the sincere spirit of inquiry, free to move around the sometimes-treacherous waters of ideas. A good faith conversation strengthens our better ideas and challenges, and hopefully corrects, our low-quality or unsound ideas.”
Career-oriented exchanges engender a growth mindset, shine a torch on a persons’ strengths, and achievements, help create opportunities for development, and ultimately dovetail the employees’ need with the organisations need. Curious questions invite conversation and can take on a life of their own. Foundational, strategic questions like the ones below, help employees find their own way, ponder mistakes, open genuine dialogue, and prompt reflection around the future.
- What are you working on and interested in learning more about at this point in your career?
- How well are your personal and professional interests connecting to the work you do?
- How well does your work relate to your core values and purpose?
- What words might you respected critic use to define you as a team contributor or leader?
It’s the employees’ journey – the leader’s role is to support them in finding their best path
Responsibility for careers is shared equally by an employee, their manager, with organisational support. Some of us manage our careers for ourselves effectively, but most find it easier to talk to someone. It’s not a leader’s role to develop someone else’s career for them, but to play a meaningful role helping individual’s work out what they want to do, what they need to get there, and guiding them to act. This builds commitment. After a quality career conversation, individuals are in the right frame of mind to share their aspirations and produce a focused development plan based on a realistic view of their abilities, potential and what’s possible. It equips autonomy to identify and evaluate opportunities, to explore strategies to raise their profile, and gain insight into the experience needed to make progress. It also opens discussions about resources available to help them learn, increasing confidence and motivation – an emotional impact which can last a long time.
Holding conversations like these can also catapult the leaders’ own career effectiveness and strengthen their ability to delegate more according to interests and talents. As Heather Stewart from GlobaLocal HR Solutions in Los Angeles highlights, “if you are truly serious about becoming a better coach and mentor, you’ll need to withhold more than you divulge. This is their journey, and your role is to support them in finding their best path.”
If you would like to find out more about our career conversation services, contact Diane Kane at deliberatepractice on 1300 deliberate (1300 335 423) or send us an email at info@deliberatepractice.com.au