I have focused quite a bit on the financial and business benefits of providing professional development opportunities to your staff. Now I’d like to change that focus a little and examine what I will call the psychic benefits. When working with staff, we often can find that person who has been with our organization for a long time, but who has not progressed very rapidly. In fact, they may still be in the same position they started in 10 or more years ago. Oftentimes though, it is clear to see that that individual has (that dreaded word) potential far beyond their current role. So how do we approach this? Let me propose the following. It has been my experience that when first presented with the concept of doing work beyond (more challenging than) their current job responsibilities, many, if not most, people will push back. You will often hear things like “I am very comfortable doing what I am doing,” or “I’m good at my job so I don’t want to try anything else.” These are very natural, normal reactions to the proposed change. Just like economic markets, people at equilibrium are heavily resistant to change. Instead of pushing back with a hard sell though, I recommend first empathizing with the individual. “You’re right Joe, you are very good at your job. If the time comes that you’d like to take on some new challenges, let me know.” This leaves the door open for the employee to bring it up with you when the comfort level has improved. In the meantime, you can carefully and gently give the person additional tasks that are slightly beyond what they have been doing. They will likely be hesitant to accept them, and may even express concern that they cannot complete the work adequately.

Watching a youth football game, I was struck by the similarities between the skills and knowledge my son was learning and those I try and engender in staff every day. Having originally been trained as an economist, it is always intriguing to me to see how the concepts I learned in that discipline play out in real life. For example, one basic tenet of economics is that the specialization of resources is the most efficient manner of production and conducting business. This is ever-so-clear on the football field, where we see each of the players taking up a very specific role, with defined assignments. Not much different from an effective project team. … Continue readingWhat We Can Learn from Our Children