Helping employees develop at work is such an important part of being a manager—and the first thing to get lost in the day-to-day shuffle. So I interviewed Whitney Johnson, author of Build an A Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve to get her thoughts on how you can maximize your team’s growth to maximize your company’s potential.
It Starts With the S-curve
We started by breaking down the learning curve she describes in her book. Picture it as an “S”: time goes from left to right, expertise is from top to bottom. When you start a new job, you’re not an expert and progress takes time. Eventually you start to accelerate and move up the steep back of the S. That’s the sweet spot where you’re engaged, feeling competent and confident. But then things get easy. And when things are easy, you’re bored. And that’s when people need to move on to a new curve.
Managing on a Curve
Depending on where an employee is on S-curve, you can manage and measure their growth in different ways. (You can use Johnson’s diagnostic S-Curve Locator to see where you and team members fit.)
For people on the low-end of the curve, Johnson says, “The more feedback they get, the more quickly they’re going to develop. Give them really short-term projects and tight deadlines, so they can iterate very, very quickly.”
For people in the sweet spot, she advises, “Give them friction. Give them stretch assignments.” They need the challenge to really thrive. You want it to be hard, but not too hard, because challenges are what make work exciting.
And for people on the highest part of the curve, she recommends encouraging them to, “Facilitate collaboration amongst the low-enders and the middle before you, their boss, make it possible for them to jump to a new learning curve.”
Learn, Leap, Repeat
When I asked Whitney about the one thing she would like people to take from her book, she stressed the importance of, “Learn, leap, repeat. When you allow people on your team to do that, to learn, leap and repeat, to periodically disrupt themselves, you as an organization will not only be able to ship more product, you will be more innovative and in the process, you will become a talent magnet.”
Listen to the full episode