Challenges & Growth

Adapted from Williams' HR Insights of January 18, 2008

I'll begin this article on challenge and growth with a disclaimer: I do not believe that all employees desire challenge and growth. This fact is not necessarily bad for the organization so long as work is effectively being done. In any regard, for a variety of reasons there are employees who, at various times in their lives, are content to come to work, do their job and go home. Being challenged to grow is not seen as a positive to them as it requires effort and focus that these employees would rather not provide. But, I believe that this group of employees is usually in the minority, that they can change and that the learning organization, as it has been called by Peter Senge, is the desirable place for most employees.

Additionally, I believe there is a common view that growing means moving up and/or out in the organization. But in my view, while that would frequently be true, it seems to me possible that one can experience a lifetime of growth while remaining in the same position throughout the entire span of employment. A patrol officer in a police department, for example, can do the same job for 30 years and still find plenty of opportunity for personal and professional growth. I think we do individuals in the organization a disservice when we automatically conclude that someone who has been in their position for a long period of time is stuck. People do get stuck, but staying in the same position for a long period of time is not necessarily the measure of that fact and people can be stuck even when they move from position to position.

Similarly, if an individual is not doing well in a position, learning something new or acquiring new skills may not be the answer to the problem. The individual may be a poor fit for the position. If a position, for example, needs a gregarious person who meets new people easily and the organization has promoted an individual into the position whose personality is reclusive, it may not be wise to conclude that the person simply needs to "meet the challenge and grow."

Also, I do want to emphasize that this article is not about a performance improvement plan where an employee has been found wanting and is being directed to "grow." The issues and problems that surround informal and formal disciplinary acts have their own unique dynamics. That is not to say that growth which occurs through a performance improvement plan is not valuable, but rather to simply recognize that there are unique elements to corrective action that lay outside the scope of this short essay.

Having laid out the above points, I want to return to my hypothesis that meeting challenges, learning new skills and concepts – growing is invigorating. The following are four suggestions on how the organization can help create an environment where employees find plenty of opportunity to grow and where accepting new challenges becomes part of the enjoyment of work.

First, the social psychologist Anselm Strauss in his excellent book Mirrors and Masks discusses the two conditions that create growth and change in an adult. The first is the desire to change and the second involves receiving the type of feedback that will allow someone to know how or what to change. The bottom line of the first point is that when someone does not want to change you will receive resistance not growth. The solution to this problem is not to focus on the resistance but to focus on the absence of any desire to change. By looking for a method to help build desire, resistance should simply disappear.

As a person who has conducted a great many training programs, I have on many occasions encountered a situation where an individual in the session talks a great game but is identified to me as the chief violator of effectiveness protocols. This is where Strauss' second point fits in, I believe that individuals often see themselves as doing the right thing but need a coach to help them see where they are making mistakes.

A personal example I frequently use in presentations involves my experience on the golf course. Years of frustration at my inability to improve finally led me to a coach. His first comment to me was that "if you practice the wrong thing you will simply get better at being bad." Work with a video camera and his expert observations has substantially improved my golf game and enormously increased the enjoyment of playing golf.

Strauss' two points are clearly demonstrated here. I very much wanted to grow and I got the coaching I needed in order to know what I needed to change if I wanted to improve. As a side note, this is one of the reasons why I believe that a lot of corporate training is a waste of time. It does not help people to recognize where they specifically need to change. The one size fits all simply does not facilitate personal growth.

Second, psychologist Carl Rogers is famous for saying that "we all grow best in an environment of positive social regard." The difficulty many organizations have is that growth is often the byproduct of mistakes. Mistakes or incidents create what I have heard called the "teachable moment." These become wonderful opportunities for lessons to be learned but so often there is a tension and defensiveness to the environment that it makes growing in the positive sense extremely difficult. My experience has been that when there is a big boo-boo, there is not a lot of positive social regard running around.

It seems to me that there are two parts to dealing with this problem. First, the supervisor or person using the incident for learning purposes has to avoid finger-pointing behavior. The focus has to be on the lesson that is to be learned as opposed to the mistake that was made.

Second, I want to draw from my experience playing baseball (first golf then baseball, good grief). In baseball when you make an error all your teammates turn to you and say, "shake it off, shake it off." They all know that if the negative affect lingers in the players mind, the player is more likely to make another error. Similarly, for a situation to be turned into a positive learning experience, the person who has made the mistake in a corporate setting has to "shake off" the internal negative affect created by making the mistake. Unfortunately, supervisors are not necessarily skilled in using the shake it off, shake it off mantra.

Third, I am convinced that the most productive kind of learning comes from genuine dialog. Being talked to by your supervisor or going to a training program where you're talked at may have some value, but I do not believe it reaches the deeper levels for change and growth. That is not to deny that some supervisors are extremely good at engaging subordinates in meaningful interaction. Additionally, as a member of the National Speakers Association, I am aware that one measure of a truly effective speaker (trainer) is the ability to create a sense of dialogue between speaker and each individual member of an audience. Still, there is something truly unique about dialog. Perhaps most important it can create synergy around problems and solutions.

This is one of the reasons that I have worked with some of my colleagues to create what we call a dialog deck. Our dialogue decks looked like a regular playing cards on each of which is a question for discussion. Supervisors or trainers can use the deck to stimulate interaction – dialog. Typically the decks are written around touchy subjects that people often find difficult to discuss. My experience has been very good in being able to use the deck to create a non defensive dialogue around these topics.

Fourth and finally, I am a believer that learning energizes the individual. I am also a believer that daily routine can dull our mental capacities. I am sharply critical of many training programs that are offered by organizations. Some of this negativity will undoubtedly be explained in future e-zines for the purpose improving what is offered. Paradoxically I am a strong believer in a well designed facilitated learning experience. This is an opportunity for people to dialogue about important issues, to consider different points of view, to expand their knowledge on a subject, to be renewed and refreshed. One important measure of good training ought to be the amount of energy that is created by the program.

It is absolutely clear in my mind that dynamic learning makes work a better place to be.

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