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Hey, this is Chris with Hacking Your Leadership. On today's
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discussion on employee engagement. We're continuing this conversation that we
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started about three weeks ago on insidious or maybe lesser
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known causes of a decline in employee engagement that if
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you're a leader of people and you're trying to solve
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on your team, there might be places you can look
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if the employee experience and the benefits and the time,
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if those things have all been taken care of, these
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might be the place where the low employee engagement is lying.
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On this episode, the fourth item on this list that
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we're talking about is a shortage of growth opportunities. You know,
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and this is a really big one because if you
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look at employee engagement surveys and exit interviews from a
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lot of organizations, one of the largest causes of low
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employee engagement and one of the most given reasons for
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why a person is leaving an organization is that they
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don't feel like there are opportunities for advancement. And you know,
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I think in a lot of organizations, they a lot
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of organizations kind of handcuff themselves in this because they think, well,
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the organization isn't giving me the positions open, or I
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have a lot of people with a lot of tenure
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who are in their role for a long time and
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they're not going away or getting promoted, So how do
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I move my people up? They they kind of pigeonhole
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themselves into this thing of like, well, if I can't
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get my person promoted, then I can't give them a
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growth opportunity. And I think that's where a lot of
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leadership fails in this and where the employee engagement decline happens.
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Because you can give your employees' growth opportunities that don't
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involve permanently promoting them into the next role. But a
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lot of leaders I don't think take advantage of that
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or even know how to do it.
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I think it's such a truth thing I've been I've
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been assigning Simon sinek Infinite Game to a lot of
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people from a reading standpoint, just because of this exact
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concept that in this conversation I want to have with them,
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which is like growth is an ongoing journey forever, and
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the next job is a mile marker on a journey
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of the work that you're doing. I think you have
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to you have to you have to see the You
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have to see things that way if you're going to
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be serious about growth outside of promotion. But I also
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will say at the same times of people, but I
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also understand like promotions matter, Like I had the same
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the same conversation I have with you is like, how
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do you how do you continue to build wealth or income?
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You know, putting forth the same amount of time. Maybe
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you know in a job, well, you get that by
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not just getting a couple percentage every year for a
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small raise. You do that by changing jobs and advancing
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your career. So both of them matter. You want to
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look at promotions and you want to look at opportunities
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as a means of taking on additional responsibility and continuing
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to level up your professional growth. But the idea of
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how you're learning and growing has to be a longer
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term view of what are you getting out of every
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job that you have, What are you learning? How are
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you gaining things? Because when ends up happening If you
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don't take the time to really consider growth in this way,
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you move too fast and you find yourself with a
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whole lot of responsibility that you're not prepared to take on,
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and that leads us down a really tough path because
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then you're struggling to keep up with a job that
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you have, and that only goes one of two ways.
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Typically it either is with you leaving or you stepping
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back into another role because you simply did not have
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enough time to get what you need to get out
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of that role. So anyway, I share all of that
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because that, to me is the foundational conversation when you
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start to talk about how do you create growth when
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you don't have the open positions or the progress or
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their promotions. And then also then as a leader, how
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do you create those promotions in a positive, good way?
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You know, how do you make sure that you're conscious
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of creating space for your people that are growing and
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developing and have the ability to do more, And how
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are you making sure that people in roles and in
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jobs aren't in them for a long time just doing
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bare minimum of the expectation, because that just slows down
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all of the work that you want to do from
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building a culture of development, right for sure.
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So you know, there are definitely organizations I've been involved
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at where where there were leaders who were not bad people, right,
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Like I could see myself, you know, sitting at a
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bar and having a beer with them and having a
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great conversation. We had a lot in common. But were
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they great developers of people? No, And because of that,
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they probably shouldn't have been in a leadership role. However,
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because the way that organization scorecards or performance manages or
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gives annual reviews to those leaders, the things that are
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on those reviews are not how well do you develop
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and grow people? They're basically how well did you meet
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the expectations of the organization of whatever scorecards or metrics
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or things that we say important to us as a whole.
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They're meeting those things just fine, and they're meeting it
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not because of them being a good leader. They're meeting
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it in spite of them not being a good leader,
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because maybe they have great people on their team, or
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you know, maybe people are trying hard for them because
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they like them as a person, but that doesn't mean
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they belong in a leadership role, and a person who
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takes that spot for a long period of time because
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their leader doesn't place a high enough importance on whether
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or not they are growing and developing people, and they
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just put the importance on the scorecard piece or you know,
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the revenue piece or whatever it is, that they are
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creating a disservice to all the people who want to
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move up, and that leads to a huge opportunity when
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it comes to solving this issue of a perceived shortage
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of growth opportunities, because if people perceive that happening, believe me,
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if all of their leaders are are doing great and
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they develop and growth people well, having a person in
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a role like that for several years isn't going to
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be looked at as a negati thing. But by definition,
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if you're in a role like that for several years,
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you're probably going to start getting promoted here and there.
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If a person's been in the same role for ten
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or fifteen years or more without getting promoted, I'm not
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saying they don't do the rest of their job well,
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but it's very unlikely that they are growing and developing
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people well if they've stagnated it in their own career.
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So I want to go over some of the things
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that you can do as a leader if you are
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committed to giving your people more growth opportunities, But maybe
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you don't have as much of an opportunity to fix
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the How many open positions are there, how many people
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can I promote, but I still want to show my
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commitment to growing and develop my people. What you can
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do to kind of solve that issue. Let's talk about that,
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but first let's give it up towards to one of
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our sponsors. All Right, if you're a leader of people
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and you're trying to give growth and development opportunities to
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your people in lieu of being able to promote them
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because the spots just aren't available, you have to keep
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in mind one really important thing, and that's that employees
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view whatever their job is, whatever the core responsibilities of
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their job, as reciprocal to whatever is on their paycheck.
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So they get money they do this job, and anything
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that they do above and beyond that is not considered reciprocal.
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It's considered something almost out of their own pocket that
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they're doing unless they get something in return for it.
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They don't get something in return out of a growth
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opportunity if that opportunity is something they cannot take with
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them elsewhere. So, if you are a leader of people
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and you're trying to stretch somebody or give them an
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assignment they can do, if the skill set required to
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do that assignment is not something they can take with
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them to other places, or even in the same organization
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that you're in now, but to a different position or
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a different role. That's not going to be viewed as
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a growth opportunity. It's going to be viewed as an
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opportunity to not do their day job right. They could
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do something else for a few minutes. And maybe that's fine,
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everyone's in a while too, But it's if it's truly
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about growth, it needs to be about teaching them a
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skill set that isn't just about how can I do
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my own job better? It's how can I get better
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as a person, as an employee, as a citizen of
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the workforce, whether it's in this organization or any organization.
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How can I expose myself to things that I can
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take with me in those promotions or even to the organizations.
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And a lot of leaders are hesitant to do that
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because it's almost like, you know, poking the bear. It's like,
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if I give you the skills to leave and then
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you do, now I've lost you. And my response to
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that is the cliche, well, if you don't give me
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the skills and I stay, is not even worse, Like
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what am I doing for you? If I'm just sitting
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here doing nothing. So so if you're a leader, people
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make sure that you think about that when it comes
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to giving growth opportunities. What skill set are you actually
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helping them learn that they can take with them, not
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just what can you delegate to them to do that
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you take off your own plate.
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Yeah, and I think communicate that skill set and how
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it ties to the work that they're doing. I talk
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about it all the time around, like how you better
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in yourself as a person, What are you building skill
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in for both personal and professional growth? And then like
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what do you take to your point? Like what are
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you taking with you? Like like if I can help
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people understand that what they're learning are skills that are
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not just like stuck in the space that they're in,
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but these are skills that can help them be applied
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to other parts of their life and other parts of
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their profession. And whether you maintain a career in the
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same organization, you can use those skills to better yourself
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here or you take those skills with you somewhere to
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be more successful. That's a win for me either way
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as a leader, you know, and I tell people like,
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but I'm selfish, I want all the best talent to
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stay with me. But also I want you to be
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successful and I want you, know, you to take whatever
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you're gaining here to be able to see that and
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to then apply that to be at the best of
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what you want to be wherever you want to be
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and whatever that might be. And I think that that
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focus on skill building and then connecting those dots for
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people to understand, I think is is absolutely critical. Yeah,
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there are some jobs in some industries where like the
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thing that you're learning how to do is only for
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that thing that that that that is a thing. But
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for most people in a lot of industries, you're learning
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skills that have to do with just larger elements of life,
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whether it's communication or or just how to work through conflict,
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how to problem solve, how to strategize, Like these are
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all things that are applicable in a lot of places
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in life, but can be very valuable once you understand
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what you are learning in the skills that you are getting,
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and then you have a leader that helps you to
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connect those dots. Like I said, that's that's to be
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super critical if you're if you're looking to say, hey,
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there's more to this than just the next job. That
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the next job is an important thing and promotions are important,
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and I understand that, but what are you doing in
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between that time? And how are you making sure that
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you're building the skill to make you the most you know,
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competitive candidate for when that job does open, or its
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skills that you're continuing to build that you can apply
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to other things in your life that will also take
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you down the path that you want to go down.
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Yeah, I think you're spot on with that. I love
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that you talked about connecting the dots because you know,
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we've all seen the Karate Kid, and we've all seen
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the you know, mister Miyagi tells Daniel to paint the
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fence and wax the car, and and the and the Indians.
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What happens? What happens? He gets frustrated, right, he gets
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frustrated because after weeks of essentially fixing this guy's house
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and having no idea what he's doing it for, then
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all of a sudden, there's that light bulb moment where
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it's like, oh, the same motions to do these things
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are also the blocks for the the karate moves, And
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it's like, yeah, that works great in a movie. It
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doesn't work great. In real life, and in real life
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you have to connect the dots going forward, not just
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looking backward. There. There isn't gonna be this aha moment
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of Oh, all these things that I was telling you
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to do, now you're seeing what I was doing here.
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That's that's ridiculous and it's not good leadership. Good leadership
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is to say, this is what I'm going to try
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to teach you, and this is how we're going to
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do it. And I want you to be bought into
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this process because you're gonna get better. And if you're
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not bought in or if you're having issues with it,
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we're gonna talk about this. We're going to continue talking
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about it because my goal is to grow and develop you,
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not to get credit for growing and developing you. And
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that's a very different mindset going forward with us. Thank
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you all for joining us in this discussion on employee engagement.
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We'll see you next Thursday as we continue the conversation
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on you know, insidious ways that employee engagement can drop.
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You have a great day,
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Hey, this is Chris with Hacking Your Leadership. On today's
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discussion on employee engagement. We're continuing this conversation that we
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started about three weeks ago on insidious or maybe lesser
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known causes of a decline in employee engagement that if
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you're a leader of people and you're trying to solve
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on your team, there might be places you can look
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if the employee experience and the benefits and the time,
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if those things have all been taken care of, these
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might be the place where the low employee engagement is lying.
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On this episode, the fourth item on this list that
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we're talking about is a shortage of growth opportunities. You know,
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and this is a really big one because if you
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look at employee engagement surveys and exit interviews from a
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lot of organizations, one of the largest causes of low
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employee engagement and one of the most given reasons for
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why a person is leaving an organization is that they
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don't feel like there are opportunities for advancement. And you know,
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I think in a lot of organizations, they a lot
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of organizations kind of handcuff themselves in this because they think, well,
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the organization isn't giving me the positions open, or I
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have a lot of people with a lot of tenure
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who are in their role for a long time and
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they're not going away or getting promoted, So how do
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I move my people up? They they kind of pigeonhole
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themselves into this thing of like, well, if I can't
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get my person promoted, then I can't give them a
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growth opportunity. And I think that's where a lot of
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leadership fails in this and where the employee engagement decline happens.
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Because you can give your employees' growth opportunities that don't
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involve permanently promoting them into the next role. But a
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lot of leaders I don't think take advantage of that
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or even know how to do it.
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I think it's such a truth thing I've been I've
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been assigning Simon sinek Infinite Game to a lot of
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people from a reading standpoint, just because of this exact
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concept that in this conversation I want to have with them,
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which is like growth is an ongoing journey forever, and
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the next job is a mile marker on a journey
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of the work that you're doing. I think you have
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to you have to you have to see the You
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have to see things that way if you're going to
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be serious about growth outside of promotion. But I also
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will say at the same times of people, but I
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also understand like promotions matter, Like I had the same
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the same conversation I have with you is like, how
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do you how do you continue to build wealth or income?
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You know, putting forth the same amount of time. Maybe
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you know in a job, well, you get that by
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not just getting a couple percentage every year for a
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small raise. You do that by changing jobs and advancing
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your career. So both of them matter. You want to
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look at promotions and you want to look at opportunities
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as a means of taking on additional responsibility and continuing
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to level up your professional growth. But the idea of
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how you're learning and growing has to be a longer
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term view of what are you getting out of every
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job that you have, What are you learning? How are
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you gaining things? Because when ends up happening If you
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don't take the time to really consider growth in this way,
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you move too fast and you find yourself with a
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whole lot of responsibility that you're not prepared to take on,
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and that leads us down a really tough path because
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then you're struggling to keep up with a job that
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you have, and that only goes one of two ways.
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Typically it either is with you leaving or you stepping
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back into another role because you simply did not have
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enough time to get what you need to get out
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of that role. So anyway, I share all of that
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because that, to me is the foundational conversation when you
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start to talk about how do you create growth when
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you don't have the open positions or the progress or
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their promotions. And then also then as a leader, how
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do you create those promotions in a positive, good way?
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You know, how do you make sure that you're conscious
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of creating space for your people that are growing and
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developing and have the ability to do more, And how
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are you making sure that people in roles and in
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jobs aren't in them for a long time just doing
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bare minimum of the expectation, because that just slows down
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all of the work that you want to do from
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building a culture of development, right for sure.
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So you know, there are definitely organizations I've been involved
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at where where there were leaders who were not bad people, right,
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Like I could see myself, you know, sitting at a
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bar and having a beer with them and having a
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great conversation. We had a lot in common. But were
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they great developers of people? No, And because of that,
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they probably shouldn't have been in a leadership role. However,
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because the way that organization scorecards or performance manages or
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gives annual reviews to those leaders, the things that are
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on those reviews are not how well do you develop
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and grow people? They're basically how well did you meet
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the expectations of the organization of whatever scorecards or metrics
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or things that we say important to us as a whole.
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They're meeting those things just fine, and they're meeting it
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not because of them being a good leader. They're meeting
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it in spite of them not being a good leader,
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because maybe they have great people on their team, or
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you know, maybe people are trying hard for them because
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they like them as a person, but that doesn't mean
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they belong in a leadership role, and a person who
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takes that spot for a long period of time because
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their leader doesn't place a high enough importance on whether
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or not they are growing and developing people, and they
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just put the importance on the scorecard piece or you know,
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the revenue piece or whatever it is, that they are
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creating a disservice to all the people who want to
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move up, and that leads to a huge opportunity when
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it comes to solving this issue of a perceived shortage
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of growth opportunities, because if people perceive that happening, believe me,
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if all of their leaders are are doing great and
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they develop and growth people well, having a person in
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a role like that for several years isn't going to
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be looked at as a negati thing. But by definition,
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if you're in a role like that for several years,
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you're probably going to start getting promoted here and there.
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If a person's been in the same role for ten
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or fifteen years or more without getting promoted, I'm not
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saying they don't do the rest of their job well,
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but it's very unlikely that they are growing and developing
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people well if they've stagnated it in their own career.
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So I want to go over some of the things
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that you can do as a leader if you are
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committed to giving your people more growth opportunities, But maybe
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you don't have as much of an opportunity to fix
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the How many open positions are there, how many people
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can I promote, but I still want to show my
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commitment to growing and develop my people. What you can
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do to kind of solve that issue. Let's talk about that,
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but first let's give it up towards to one of
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our sponsors. All Right, if you're a leader of people
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and you're trying to give growth and development opportunities to
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your people in lieu of being able to promote them
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because the spots just aren't available, you have to keep
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in mind one really important thing, and that's that employees
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view whatever their job is, whatever the core responsibilities of
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their job, as reciprocal to whatever is on their paycheck.
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So they get money they do this job, and anything
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that they do above and beyond that is not considered reciprocal.
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It's considered something almost out of their own pocket that
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they're doing unless they get something in return for it.
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They don't get something in return out of a growth
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opportunity if that opportunity is something they cannot take with
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them elsewhere. So, if you are a leader of people
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and you're trying to stretch somebody or give them an
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assignment they can do, if the skill set required to
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do that assignment is not something they can take with
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them to other places, or even in the same organization
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that you're in now, but to a different position or
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a different role. That's not going to be viewed as
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a growth opportunity. It's going to be viewed as an
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opportunity to not do their day job right. They could
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do something else for a few minutes. And maybe that's fine,
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everyone's in a while too, But it's if it's truly
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about growth, it needs to be about teaching them a
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skill set that isn't just about how can I do
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my own job better? It's how can I get better
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as a person, as an employee, as a citizen of
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the workforce, whether it's in this organization or any organization.
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How can I expose myself to things that I can
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take with me in those promotions or even to the organizations.
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And a lot of leaders are hesitant to do that
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because it's almost like, you know, poking the bear. It's like,
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if I give you the skills to leave and then
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you do, now I've lost you. And my response to
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that is the cliche, well, if you don't give me
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the skills and I stay, is not even worse, Like
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what am I doing for you? If I'm just sitting
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here doing nothing. So so if you're a leader, people
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make sure that you think about that when it comes
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to giving growth opportunities. What skill set are you actually
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helping them learn that they can take with them, not
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just what can you delegate to them to do that
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you take off your own plate.
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Yeah, and I think communicate that skill set and how
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it ties to the work that they're doing. I talk
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about it all the time around, like how you better
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in yourself as a person, What are you building skill
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in for both personal and professional growth? And then like
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what do you take to your point? Like what are
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you taking with you? Like like if I can help
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people understand that what they're learning are skills that are
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not just like stuck in the space that they're in,
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but these are skills that can help them be applied
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to other parts of their life and other parts of
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their profession. And whether you maintain a career in the
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same organization, you can use those skills to better yourself
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here or you take those skills with you somewhere to
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be more successful. That's a win for me either way
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as a leader, you know, and I tell people like,
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but I'm selfish, I want all the best talent to
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stay with me. But also I want you to be
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successful and I want you, know, you to take whatever
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you're gaining here to be able to see that and
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to then apply that to be at the best of
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what you want to be wherever you want to be
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and whatever that might be. And I think that that
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focus on skill building and then connecting those dots for
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people to understand, I think is is absolutely critical. Yeah,
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there are some jobs in some industries where like the
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thing that you're learning how to do is only for
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that thing that that that that is a thing. But
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for most people in a lot of industries, you're learning
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skills that have to do with just larger elements of life,
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whether it's communication or or just how to work through conflict,
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how to problem solve, how to strategize, Like these are
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all things that are applicable in a lot of places
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in life, but can be very valuable once you understand
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what you are learning in the skills that you are getting,
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and then you have a leader that helps you to
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connect those dots. Like I said, that's that's to be
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super critical if you're if you're looking to say, hey,
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there's more to this than just the next job. That
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the next job is an important thing and promotions are important,
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and I understand that, but what are you doing in
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between that time? And how are you making sure that
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you're building the skill to make you the most you know,
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competitive candidate for when that job does open, or its
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skills that you're continuing to build that you can apply
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to other things in your life that will also take
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you down the path that you want to go down.
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Yeah, I think you're spot on with that. I love
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that you talked about connecting the dots because you know,
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we've all seen the Karate Kid, and we've all seen
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the you know, mister Miyagi tells Daniel to paint the
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fence and wax the car, and and the and the Indians.
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What happens? What happens? He gets frustrated, right, he gets
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frustrated because after weeks of essentially fixing this guy's house
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and having no idea what he's doing it for, then
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all of a sudden, there's that light bulb moment where
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it's like, oh, the same motions to do these things
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are also the blocks for the the karate moves, And
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it's like, yeah, that works great in a movie. It
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doesn't work great. In real life, and in real life
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you have to connect the dots going forward, not just
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looking backward. There. There isn't gonna be this aha moment
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of Oh, all these things that I was telling you
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to do, now you're seeing what I was doing here.
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That's that's ridiculous and it's not good leadership. Good leadership
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is to say, this is what I'm going to try
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to teach you, and this is how we're going to
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do it. And I want you to be bought into
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this process because you're gonna get better. And if you're
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not bought in or if you're having issues with it,
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we're gonna talk about this. We're going to continue talking
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about it because my goal is to grow and develop you,
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not to get credit for growing and developing you. And
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that's a very different mindset going forward with us. Thank
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you all for joining us in this discussion on employee engagement.
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We'll see you next Thursday as we continue the conversation
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on you know, insidious ways that employee engagement can drop.
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You have a great day,
