How to design a development programme for growth
Growth is often closer than you think. One or two different questions, a slightly different focus or approach, and it could be there for the taking, writes Simon Merrell of Merrell People.
At the top of The Gallup Q12 engagement survey sit two questions: In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress? And, in the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?
Believe it or not we have a natural tendency towards growth. It is often a satisfying process and can leave us feeling ready and confident to achieve our goals.
For organisations the need to grow and learn comes with the need to adapt and deliver results.
On the face of it, this should bring about mutual benefit.
Some of the difficulty comes in choosing how to invest scarce resource.
Here is a useful starting guide.
Harness the mutual benefit
Two things typically happen when it comes to learning in organisations.
Organisations can deny the opportunity to learn. Sometimes for good reason, i.e. the job needs to be done. The second is that the organisation determines the development that needs to take place. Again often for good reason, e.g. you need the right qualification to climb that tree with a chain saw.
What would happen if we tapped into the individual’s motivation for growth and balanced the conversation more? Asking questions might help us understand things more fully.
What would you like to develop?
What do you need to learn to feel more confident in your role?
A programme can be anything
We typically default to a room, someone stood at the front, people sat listening/discussing - and this happening for anything between two hours and a week.
A good programme can take so many different forms, but should contain the following:
· a motivation to develop something that benefits the organisation and the individual/group.
· a clear sense of what this something is and why it will be beneficial.
· defined activity that will bring about this development.
· clear expectations of how the individual/group will be supported and challenged to achieve their goal.
Often omitting the word programme can be helpful! Tasking employees with designing their own development journey can help to foster a more progressive learning culture.
Be clear on your audience
Bringing people together to learn can bring about real advantages to the learner and the organisation. Getting clear on some of the factors above should flush out who would benefit from the opportunity.
Breaking free of horizontal layers of development can also redefine audiences, e.g. we would benefit more from learning as a project team.
Organisations have a tendency to confuse audiences too.
One of the biggest confusions is management and leadership training. The prestige of a leadership programme often means one of the most important audiences gets overooked.
To read more articles by Simon Merrell visit our Expert Insight channel here or search Simon Merrell or Merrell People via the top of this page.
Simon Merrell supports organisations, teams, groups and individuals to bring about change. He lives in Gloucestershire, works across the UK, is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the founder of Merrell People.
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