Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go

In today’s business environment, talent is the major differentiator. Developing and retaining that talent is one of the most significant drivers of employee engagement, which in turn is the key to critical business outcomes like revenue, profitability, innovation, productivity, customer loyalty, quality, and retention. Yet despite its importance, leaders too frequently ignore the development imperative. Every day, employees who believe that their careers are not getting the attention they deserve make the decision to leave. Some resign to pursue employment in organizations that offer greater opportunity, but the more dangerous group stays and withdraws its engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm for the work.

So, what’s a leader to do? Plenty—and it may be easier than you expect. Quality career development boils down to quality conversations. Improve the conversation and career development follows, along with retention and results. In this session, Julie demonstrates just how simple it can be and how to help managers build career development into everyday work life—where it belongs. You'll learn tactical tips, research-based recommendations, and verbal skills that make career development more doable and durable.

Outline

  • 00:00:00 - Introduction and Background on Julie Winkle Giulioni

Recognized as a champion for workplace growth and development, Julie is the co-author of "Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go." Her firm, Designarounds, tailors development experiences for Fortune 500 companies globally.

  • 00:05:00 - The Importance of Career Development

Julie stresses on career growth's vital role in improving employee engagement, job satisfaction, productivity, and retention. She presents statistics showing the rising desire for career development among employees and the increasing need for new skills.

  • 00:15:00 - Career Development Challenges and Obstacles

Leaders face numerous barriers in facilitating career development, including fear of losing talented employees, time constraints, and misconceptions about employees' true career aspirations. Julie also highlights outdated mental models of career development as a significant stumbling block.

  • 00:25:00 - Simplicity of Career Development

Giulioni speaks to the straightforward nature of career development. She encourages leaders to reflect on who helped them grow the most and replicate those actions for their team members. She underscores the power of conversation as a growth tool.

  • 00:35:00 - Introduction to Conversational Framework

Julie introduces a three-dimensional conversational framework: hindsight, foresight, and insight. Hindsight involves self-introspection of strengths, foresight calls for considering organizational and industry needs, and insight explores the intersection of these two for possibilities and opportunities.

  • 00:45:00 - Powerful Questions in Development Conversations

Giulioni emphasizes that leaders need not have all the answers but must know the right questions. She dismisses the typical question, "Where do you see yourself in 3 to 5 years?" as limiting and counters with empowering alternatives like, "What does success look like for you?" and "What kind of work do you wish to do?"

  • 00:55:00 - Emphasis on Dynamic Development Dialogues

Julie stresses the importance of enabling everyone to grow through meaningful conversations and evolving development dialogues. She concludes with a call-to-action for leaders to drive growth through new kinds of questioning.