☕ CoffeeChat Weekly

Opportunities & Insights from Across Our Community

Mar 27, 2023

Hi everyone, here’s what we have for you this week:

Are all of your leaders getting development opportunities? Last Friday, CoffeeChat’s founder Chris Suzdak caught up with co-founder Akua Nyame-Mensah. They discussed some of the realities that managers face in getting the support they need. Listen here.
Make sure to cover these five things with each of your team members on a monthly basis. Reserve time separate from the week-to-week rhythms to reflect and align with your team members. Read more here.
Learning & Development (L&D) professionals play a crucial role in facilitating a leadership language within an organization. Make sure managers understand the leadership competency framework, can access a shared vocabulary of performance expectations and believe the career growth roadmap is clear and achievable. Read more here.

Read on for more details…

Are all of your leaders getting development opportunities?

Last Friday, CoffeeChat’s founder Chris Suzdak caught up with co-founder Akua Nyame-Mensah. They discussed some of the realities that managers face in getting the support they need. Here’s one thing Chris emphasized:

...[I]f one in three [managers] are not feeling like there are enough opportunities and resources for their growth..that's a fairly big risk for a company...you need middle management to actually execute...

Listen here

As a manager, it's crucial to conduct regular check-ins with your team members to ensure their professional development is on track. Monthly professional development check-in calls are an effective way to keep track of progress, identify challenges, and offer support. To make the most of these calls, managers should be ready to ask a variety of questions. Here are some types of questions that can be useful during monthly professional development check-in calls:

Goal Progress

The primary focus of professional development check-ins is to track progress towards goals. Therefore, it's essential to ask about the progress made towards achieving specific goals. Managers can ask questions like "How far have you come in achieving your goals this month?" or "What progress have you made towards the targets we set for this quarter?" It’s better to keep this tied to longer-term goals or bigger-picture objectives, rather than get into the details of day-to-day progress reporting.

Skills Improvement

Professional development check-ins are also an opportunity to discuss skill development. Managers can ask team members what new skills they have learned or what progress they have made in improving existing skills. For example, "What opportunities arose to improve your writing skills this month?" or "What new skills have you learned that you could apply to your job?" Conducting a quick scan of their current skills development pursuits, such as whether they are currently participating in any short courses or communities, can also create space to make additional suggestions.

Challenges and Obstacles

It's essential to understand the challenges that team members are facing while working towards their professional development goals. Managers can ask about any challenges they faced while working towards their goals and how they overcame them. Questions like "What obstacles did you encounter while working towards your goals?" or "What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?" can help managers provide support to their team members.

Feedback

Feedback is an essential part of professional development. Managers should ask their team members for feedback on their progress, support, and coaching. Questions like "What feedback do you have for me regarding how I am supporting your professional development?" or "What support or feedback do you need from me to continue making progress?" can be useful.

Career Aspirations

Professional development check-ins are also an opportunity to discuss career aspirations. While this may have been covered during an initial job interview, people’s ambitions change regularly. The experiences and opportunities within your organization may also influence them, so you should try to stay on top on this to avoid surprises. Managers can ask their team members about their long-term career goals and how their current professional development goals fit into their career plans. Questions like "Where do you see yourself in five years, and how can I help you get there?" or "What new experiences or skills would you like to develop to achieve your career goals?" can help guide professional development. You can also ask “Which elements of your current and upcoming projects most highly align with your career interest areas?”

In summary, regular professional development check-in calls are essential for keeping track of progress, identifying challenges and offering support. Managers can ask a variety of questions during these calls to gain insight into their team member's progress, challenges, and aspirations. By asking the right questions, managers can provide support and coaching that will help their team members achieve their professional development goals.

In today's dynamic business environment, organizations need effective leadership to remain competitive and achieve their strategic objectives. That's why Learning & Development (L&D) professionals play a crucial role in facilitating a leadership language within an organization. By ensuring managers understand the leadership competency framework, can access a shared vocabulary of performance expectations, and believe the career growth roadmap is clear and achievable, L&D professionals can help create a culture of leadership excellence that drives business success.

Leadership Competency Framework

A leadership competency framework outlines the skills, behaviors, and attributes required for effective leadership within an organization. For example, an organization might have a competency framework that includes skills like communication, strategic thinking, and collaboration, and behaviors like accountability, adaptability, and empathy. To ensure that managers understand the leadership competency framework, L&D professionals can provide training on the framework, share case studies that demonstrate how the framework is applied in practice, and offer coaching and feedback to help managers develop the required skills and behaviors.

Shared Vocabulary of Performance Expectations

A shared vocabulary of performance expectations provides a common language for discussing performance and ensures that everyone in the organization is aligned around a shared set of expectations. For example, an organization might use terms like "strategic thinking" and "results orientation" to describe the behaviors that are expected of leaders. To develop a shared vocabulary of performance expectations, L&D professionals can work with managers to define key terms, create performance metrics that align with the organization's goals and objectives, and provide training on how to give and receive feedback effectively.

Clear and Achievable Career Growth Roadmap

A clear and achievable career growth roadmap provides managers with a clear understanding of the skills and behaviors required for success at each level of leadership within the organization. For example, an organization might have a career growth roadmap that outlines the skills and behaviors required for success as a team leader, a department head, and a C-level executive. To create a clear and achievable career growth roadmap, L&D professionals can work with managers to identify the skills and behaviors required for success at each level of leadership, provide training and coaching to help managers develop those skills and behaviors, and create opportunities for managers to practice and apply those skills in a real-world context.

In summary, providing a leadership language within an organization is crucial for developing a culture of leadership excellence that drives business success. By ensuring that managers understand the leadership competency framework, can access a shared vocabulary of performance expectations, and believe the career growth roadmap is clear and achievable, L&D professionals can help build the next generation of leaders and achieve strategic objectives.