Strengthen Your Team By Seeking People Who Believe that They Can Grow
Filed under: Leadership, Leading Change, Professional Growth
In this must-read article: “If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow,” by Janet Rae-Dupree, Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck summarizes decades of research into how people think about intelligence and talent with the following:
“Those who believe that they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’re every going to have approach life with a fixed mind-set. Those who believe that their own abilities can expand over time, however, live with a growth mind-set.”
Dweck goes on to indicate: “People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they’re so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them.”
The article continues with some great examples and worthwhile advice for any leader or recruiter charged with building or strengthening a team.
Rethink How and Where You Look for Talent:
The greatest personal/professional successes that I’ve witnessed over my career have come from individuals with an unyielding thirst for knowledge and personal development. While many of these individuals were gifted with natural abilities, their innate sense of adventure and experimentation and their attitude that failure puts you one step closer to success, combined to help these individuals create great careers.
Interestingly, many of the successes that I recall were with individuals working in lower-level jobs due to lack of formal credentials. The secretary that developed into a remarkable marketing professional; the customer service rep that became a consistent top-seller and ultimately a successful sales executive and the technician that developed into a great product manager, are just a few of the examples of people that were driven by a growth mind-set. Of course, it didn’t hurt that these professionals benefitted from a supervisor or manager along the way that took the time to get to know them and recognize their potential for growth. It took an enlightened observer to see the talent and the hunger in these individuals
Don’t Let the Pedigree Be the Only Determinant:
I can think of numerous examples of situations where clearly brilliant individuals failed miserably because they were afraid that if they slipped up, the world might question their brilliance. Instead of helping the business, these individuals spent most of their time making certain that everyone around them understood how smart they were. And while the academic credentials were visible, if you looked beneath the ivy, there was no innate drive to succeed; no focus on innovating and no interest even to learn by trying and failing.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Look back on your own recent string of hires and promotions, and if your batting average is lower than you would like it to be, consider Ms. Dweck’s advice: “look for both talent and a growth mind-set in prospective hires—people with a passion for learning who thrive on challenge and change. And remember to open your eyes and look around you for talent in unexpected places. Your greatest future success stories might be closer than they appear.
Teaching a Senior Team To Dance With Leadership Development
I am encouraged by the number and the quality of the discussions that I am having with top executives about “how” to create a more effective leadership development culture. Moving beyond the “why” to the “how” is definitely progress in the right direction.
There are a number of common themes and pain points that I hear and observe in organizations seeking to improve in this area:
- A recognition on the part of top management that realizing sustained growth over a period of time will require a consistent infusion of new talent, especially in leadership.
- The recognition that current ad hoc and silo approaches to leadership development have not worked, and in some cases have resulted in misfires, misplacements and damage to the business.
- Frustration on the part of the CEO over the lack of results on this topic from his or her senior leadership team. (Note: this is often representative of a bigger communication, collaboration, team, trust issue than just leadership development.)
- Lack of clarity on how to get started on improving leadership development effectiveness.
My Suggestions: The First Eight Steps to Mastering the Leadership Development Dance:
1. Moving from poor to good or great at leadership development will take time and attention. Be realistic in setting your expectations, as this is an evolutionary process. If necessary, consider qualified outside counsel to help you structure your program and to help keep the team on track.
2. Leadership development is the CEO’s priority…but everyone’s job. Identify leadership development as a strategic priority with your leadership team and develop your collective thoughts on this topic just as you would a potential new product development or a prospective acquisition. It is imperative that the senior leadership team view this effort not as a task to be completed, but as an on-going process for all leaders at all levels.
3. Ensure that accountability for leadership development is spread across the leadership team…not just deposited in HR’s lap. (Ram Charan, writing in Leaders at All Levels, suggests making HR the Trustee of leadership development, not the sole responsible party. I like Ram’s approach and his book is filled with great ideas for any leadership team moving down this path.) Accountability means ensuring that your senior leaders are aligned around leadership development objectives with clear performance metrics and compensation incentives.
4. Establish a baseline for current practices. A good adviser will be able to help you identify and evaluate your current performance against key best practices. The best practices are intuitive and focus on evaluating the existence and maturity of activities for identifying talent, providing developmental opportunities, evaluating progress and performance, delivering timely, candid feedback etc. This baseline will help you monitor and reevaluate your organization’s progress over time.
5. Establish your collective (not silo or functional) criteria for the type of leaders and the type of talent you expect to need in the future. Easy to write…but a thought-provoking and challenging assignment. Note: you will need to re-evaluate your criteria over time based on changing forces and strategies.
6. Based on your criteria, the leadership team will need to parse through all available talent to assess needs, gaps and the depth and breadth of the current talent pool. Again, easy to describe, but a challenging task to complete.
7. Create developmental assignments for existing high-potential talent and begin the process of filling gaps through external recruiting. Ensure that the senior leaders understand and act on their role as mentors, coaches and shepherds of the talent development process.
8. Constantly evaluate progress and performance and constantly reassess the performance of your high potential individuals. You will need to redefine your criteria for evaluating progress based on how individuals perform in various roles, and you should definitely re-evaluate your talent pool based on the results. A high potential at one level may struggle at another, and vice versa.
The Bottom-line for Now
With the intent of being redundant the steps above are easy to write and very challenging to implement. There is no silver bullet for creating an effective leadership culture, but there is a straightforward formula: focus, time and discipline. And of course, practice, practice and more practice. How well does your senior team dance when it comes to leadership development?
A Friday Walk on The Lighter Side: Growth is Not a Four Letter Word
(The following is a figment of my imagination only and any resemblance to anyone living, dead or otherwise is purely accidental.
I had a horrible consultant’s dream the other night, where I found myself shouted down in a planning session when I had the temerity to suggest that the “g” word was suspiciously absent from the prioritized corporate action-list.
“Growth is an outcome!” one person shouted. “We need to fix the
plumbing and growth will come our way!” shouted another. “Growth is
not our issue,” hollered a third person who I had observed arriving
just after the financial review showcased what can only be described as
reverse growth. “Death to the growth zealot,” shouted a fourth baring
his teeth.” I remember looking at the door and mentally calculating
whether I would win the footrace to the exit should that be
necessary. Fortunately, my alarm clock went off and I breathed easier
until I remembered that I was facilitating a discussion about growth in
two hours. I immediately broke out in a sweat. Fortunately for me,
the group was much less “Lord of the Flies-like” than the team in my
dream. I did however maintain an unobstructed view to the door at all
times.
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