Understanding Developmental Needs

Help Your Team Reach Peak Performance

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We offer four different ways of assessing team members' development needs. These are Observation, Information Gathering, Talking Things Through, and Use of Skills Assessment Assignments.

Using the Tools:
Observation:

"My dear Watson, you see a lot but you observe very little."

Sherlock Holmes may not be remembered as a great coach, but he sure has a knack of putting the solutions in perspective. For, as Holmes obviously knew, observation helps a lot in understanding a person's strengths and areas of improvement, both at a personal and professional level.

Successful leaders never let go of an opportunity to observe the way that their team members work or behave during the normal course of their work. This observation itself is not an end in itself, but is an objective means of gathering information for evaluation.

Do remember the following while you are observing your team members:

• See your role as that of a faithful recorder of facts.
• Avoid "breathing down people's necks".
• Do not allow yourself to be judgmental until you feel you have a good picture of the way things work.
• Do not let stereotypes or hearsay affect your observations.

Information Gathering:

Providing you're sensitive, you can also gather a lot of information from others who work closely with the individual. Depending on culture and circumstance, these information sources may include internal or external clients, past bosses, or even peers and co-workers. You can also gather information from records of past reviews or 360-degree feedback forms.

Remember the following while involving alternative channels in information gathering:

• Make sure you don't undermine the person's dignity, and that you respect the context. For example, in some cultures it may be acceptable to talk to co-workers. In many others, this will have to be done with the greatest sensitivity, if at all.
• Be careful that your questioning does not arouse old grudges that would otherwise be forgotten.
• Avoid unfocused generalization: Ask people to back up their observations and comments with specific examples.

Observation and Information Gathering will help you form some of the picture, however they're unlikely to tell you what the individual is thinking.

Talking Things Through with the Individual:

This is where it's essential to talk things through with members of your team. Only by talking can you understand what they want and how they, as individuals, see the World. And only if you understand this can you best help team members develop their approach to work.

The most pleasant way of doing this is just to have an informal "chat" with individual team members. Unfortunately this often does little more than build trust – team members will quite naturally want to present a positive impression to you, and you will rarely do more than "scratch the surface" of any issues that need to be addressed.

This is where use of a tool like DIFSWOT can help you frame a more insightful discussion:

Skills Assessment Assignments:

Once you've started to come to a conclusion on where people's strengths lie, it can sometimes be useful to confirm your assessment by setting specific, time-bound assignments that give team members the opportunity to show their abilities.

Also, use assignments to test your conclusions about where the individual's areas of development lie. Avoid "setting people up for failure", and set flexible completion times, so that with enough time they can complete the task with hard work, even if they appear to have little natural talent.

Drawing Your Conclusions

By using these approaches, you should have a good idea of where your team members' abilities and areas of development lie. You should also have a good feel for how willing the individual is to accept coaching from you.