Synopses & Reviews
Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. Nevertheless, it’s frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don’t have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops.
But there’s a better way. And it’s surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Beverly Kaye, coauthor of the bestselling Love ’Em or Lose ’Em, and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees’ awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up-to-the-minute, personalized career plans.
Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions.
Review
“This pragmatic book is chock-full of easy-to-follow steps on how to have critical career conversations—conversations that are uncomfortable for many managers and too often are avoided. I love that Kaye and Giulioni demystify the process and motivate us ‘to talk individual development’ with our employees. Our employees will love it too!”
—Patricia Crull, Group Vice President and Chief Learning Officer, Time Warner Cable
“Filled with great examples, questions, and real-world approaches that fit into the workflow, this book brings much-needed simplicity and personal touch back to career development.”
—David Rodriguez, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Marriott International
“Every manager will find this short book to be long on practical ways to make career development happen.”
—Jack Zenger, CEO, Zenger Folkman, and coauthor of the bestselling The Extraordinary Leader and The Extraordinary Coach
“Like eating your fruits and veggies, developing your employees should be done every day. Beverly Kaye and Julie Giulioni not only show how easy it can be but make the case that regular, short conversations can better develop people.”
—Charlene Li, founder, Altimeter Group, author of Open Leadership, and coauthor of Groundswell
“Life and business is all about where you pay attention. Pay attention to the growth of your people...and they will grow your business. The authors do a great job in spelling out the how-tos!”
—Chip Conley, founder, Joie de Vivre Hotels, and author of Emotional Equations
“Developing talent is essential for business success. This book provides a practical and easy-to-implement approach that can have a big impact on an organization.”
—Tamar Elkeles, Chief Learning Officer, Qualcomm
“One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to grow future leaders. The authors do a great job making development something that can happen during one’s everyday work life.”
—Gabriella Giglio, Executive Vice President for Global Human Resources, American Express
“Should be the career conversation bible for busy leaders!”
—Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times bestsellers Mojo and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
Synopsis
Career development is a responsibility that managers know they should do—and frequently even want to do. Despite that, it’s always getting back-burnered. There are lots of reasons. But the #1 reason managers give is that they don’t have time. Don’t have time for the meetings. The forms. The moving people around like chess pieces. But news flash: employees will leave if they aren’t developed.
In this book Bev Kaye and Julie Guilioni invite managers to re-frame career development in such a way that responsibility rests squarely with the employee and their role is more about prompting, guiding, reflecting, exploring ideas, activating enthusiasm, and driving action rather than actually doing all the work.
This happens through the simple act of conversation. And career development conversations can be easily integrated into the normal course of business, not separated out as a special task. Kaye and Giulioni identify three types of career development conversations and provide questions, templates, tips and tactics for having them. Managers can stop worrying, avoiding, delaying or taking on too much responsibility for their employees’ career... and just start talking.
Synopsis
Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. Nevertheless, it’s frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don’t have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops.
But there’s a better way. And it’s surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Kaye and Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that have the power to motivate employees more deeply than any well-intentioned development event or process. These conversations will increase employees’ awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up-to-the-minute, personalized career paths.
Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions. Illuminated with stories, quotes, and the perspectives of real managers and employees, this book proves that careers are best developed one conversation at a time.
“Should be the career conversation bible for busy leaders!”
—Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times bestsellers Mojo and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
“This is the best, most comprehensive resource available. It’s perfectly relevant for new supervisors, senior executives, and leaders at any level.”
—Sharon Silverman, Vice President, Human Resources, Macy’s
“Every manager will find this short book to be long on practical ways to make career development happen.”
—Jack Zenger, CEO, Zenger Folkman, and coauthor of the bestselling The Extraordinary Leader and The Extraordinary Coach
Video
About the Author
Beverly Kaye, President of Beverly Kaye & Associates, Inc., is an organizational consultant with over 20 years of experience in career development, management training, and human resource planning. She is also the President of Career Systems International, a career development publishing company, the author of Up Is Not the Only Way, and the coauthor of Designing Career Development Systems. She is coauthor, with Sharon Jordan-Evans, of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay.
Julie WInkle Giulioni has been responsible for leading multi-disciplinary virtual teams that develop award- winning electronic and instructor-led learning solutions. Julie served as a former director of product development for AchieveGlobal, one of the largest learning and development organizations in the world and has also held training management positions in financial services and retail organizations, taught marketing at the secondary and post-secondary levels, and served as a department chair at Woodbury University in Southern California.
Table of Contents
1. Listen Up
2. Can We Talk?
3. Carpe Coachable Moments
4. Confront Your Assumptions
5. Forget the Form
6. PS... Aren’t You an Employee Too?