Boss to Coach Conversation 4 of 5
How to Create a Strong Development Priority


HOW TO USE THIS MODULE

This module can be used in two ways.

  • If you are preparing for a workshop or coaching session
    Work through the exercises below and bring your thinking with you.

  • If you are doing the online starter series
    Work through the exercises below, then apply one part of it with your team this week.

This module is about identifying one clear development priority and how you will work on it.

Limited for time?
If you only do one thing, focus on Step Six: understanding how you learn best.

Objectives

At the end of this module you will be able to:

  • Identify one clear development priority

  • Link that priority to your strengths

  • Describe how you learn best

Duration 60-minutes

Your Output

By the end of this module, you will have prepared:

  • Your completed What I Do Best exercise

  • Your Helps vs Hinders for your CliftonStrengths

  • A draft development priority

  • Your preferred learning style

Step One Why Development

There is always something to learn. A sense of progress and hope is one of our core needs. Having an activated development pathway increases engagement and reduces disengagement in your work.

The problem is the corporate ladder is broken.  Job titles and pay rises are too infrequent to satisfy our need to learn and grow. In addition, the workplace development conversation and documented plan often become a “tick the box” exercise, versus something we can leverage. 

The opportunity is that your development plan is one of the few work conversations where you get to focus on what you want, and align this with your current and future career roles.

An important factor is having a broad approach to what development looks like. American Psychologist, Carol Dweck has done a significant amount of work in the area of “growth” versus “fixed” mindset. A key factor that influences our success.

Having good inputs and awareness is the key to a strong development plan. Steps one to five are designed to create a starting point to identify a development priority.

Step Two Determine what you need

The first step is to understand what you need from your work. We have a number of core psychological needs. Depending on where you are in your role. This will influence where to focus your development.  

Identify which one of the following three statements sounds most like you:

  • Trust Am I OK?  Do you believe me? Especially important if new to a role where you are aiming to build credibility, prove reliability, and connect with your team. New to role.

  • Impact Does what I do matter? Are you getting results that are being noticed? Establishing the role as your own.

  • Progress Am I getting anywhere? A sense of hope, experience growth, there is something to aim for and look forward to. Where am I heading to next? Looking for additional responsibilities or a different role.

One of the biggest contributors to engagement is spending more time doing work that reflects what matters most to you.

Development isn't only about fixing weaknesses. Sometimes the greatest opportunity is creating more alignment between the work you do every day and the contribution you want to make.

The Aligned Decisions Tool creates your What Matters Most Poster.

If you've already completed the tool, use your What Matters Most Poster for this exercise. If you haven't completed it yet, download and complete the Aligned Decisions Tool before continuing.

  1. Take a blank sheet of paper and draw two columns.

    • Column 1 – What I get paid to do
      Write down the five most important responsibilities in your current role.

    • Column 2 – My Purpose
      Refer to your What Matters Most Poster and write down your top three Purpose statements.

  2. Now draw lines between the two columns wherever you see a connection.

  3. When you've finished, reflect on the following questions:

  • Which responsibilities allow me to live my purpose most often?

  • Which responsibilities have little or no connection to my purpose?

  • Where could I create greater alignment between my role and what matters most to me?

  • What does this suggest might be a meaningful development priority?

Bring your insights into the workshop. We'll use them alongside your CliftonStrengths profile, your role expectations and the organisation's priorities to identify a development priority that benefits both you and your organisation.

Step Three Determine how your role aligns with what matters most The WHAT

Step Four Identify potential development by understanding the impact of your strengths, how you do it The HOW

The more senior a role you hold, the more important the HOW’s (our behaviours) become. In turn the WHAT’s (the priorities), become less important as the people closest to the work know what to do. 

Strengths are the natural thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that can be productively applied, our how’s.  These are our filters. Read more.

Sometimes our strengths can aid our development. Sometimes they can hinder and be problematic for us and others. It is important to note, our strength themes don’t manage us, we manage them. Strength themes don’t make people bad or terrible. Each person must decide if they will be a theme poster child or a theme problem child. 

Review the help (a strength that is good for me and good for you) and hinder guide (when a strength theme can cause trouble for you and others) for your top 5 strengths and answer the questions

  • Does the use of a strength theme ever undermine your opportunity to thrive in your roles and relationships?  Have you ever received negative feedback related to one of your themes?

  • If you answered “yes” then think about how you might leverage or “dial up” one of your other strength themes to manage this better?

Step Five Identify a development area

Determine one area for development. Note priorities will change with time, and development is an ongoing conversation. This means the priority you choose for now does not mean it will be a priority forever.

To determine a priority:

  1. Take the above inputs from

    • Your core identified need Trust/Impact/Progress

    • From the What I Do Best Exercise, take the item with the least number of connections between “What I get paid to do” and “What I do best”

    • The highlights in your Strengths Report and Help and Hinder Guide.

  2. Craft a development objective answering the question “Is there a particular skill or area that you would like to learn?” OR “Is there an area where you know you already do well and want to amplify more?” 

  3. Share this with someone you know. Ask for feedback leveraging the questions (a) what’s working? (b) where am I getting stuck? (c) what could I do differently?

Review the Strengths Help and Hinder Guide

Download

Step Six Support your development objective by understanding how you best learn

We all learn in different ways.  How can we describe the best way someone can explain something to us? The VARK model of learning styles suggests there are four types of learners: visual, auditory, reflective (reading/writing), kinaesthetic (through doing).  

Knowing your learning style can be helpful.  If you know that visual learning appeals to you most, asking someone to draw a diagram, or drawing a diagram yourself might help you remember.  

Discover your preferred learning style

Download

Put this into practice

This week, identify one development priority and do three things:

  • Write it down clearly

  • Share it with one person

  • Take one small action to start

Keep it simple. Focus on progress, not perfection.

Next: Progress Review

Want to go deeper?