the one thing that it is doing is it's making a very very clear statement about what the culture is in the organizations that he that he runs and and there will be people who will enjoy that actually there will be people who who can thrive in that for a period of time and they may feel like they're developing a very different path to how i would like to develop or develop people but you know lots of different strains to this i think that's a really important point is that how we think people should be developed might not be how everyone grows professionally that the environment is so important and we might find unexpectedly that some people thrive in environments that we would just like shrivel and die well listeners hello you've caught us in the middle of a conversation which uh we'll just give you a little bit of what we're talking about tim was bringing up a company that's recently been in the news a lot and in the front of mind where a lot of people have been chucked out very ruthlessly and we were wondering oh well no one's going to be growing in that company and actually tim was saying how yeah maybe there are people in that environment who thrive at least for a moment in that is it about do you think that some people might be thriving because it's such a high pressure environment um oh sorry i should have said listeners we're going to be talking here for about 20 minutes so you're very welcome to to join us just take a seat grab a coffee whatever you need uh so tim just going back to that do you think that i don't know in my mind i always think of an environment an organizational environment where people grow should be there should be room to explore um a very high tolerance for mistakes learning from mistakes but actually do you think that that there are people who will if they are in a high pressured environment um where actually mistakes are not that acceptable do you think that might help some kind of people thrive for a while at least yeah absolutely absolutely it's interesting that it's a very personal concept of what what does it mean to develop to grow as a person or as a worker or to get better the outcomes can be very different for people in terms of what would be a good outcome what do they want to get from that and as we've seen time and time again that there's a loud dedicated cohort of people that would put themselves through all sorts of uh of what i would view as pain if for them it gets them uh closer to someone who's making more money or becoming very powerful or uh or achieving you know greatness in some measure that's a good outcome for them you know they're happy to make that sacrifice and i guess the other point being that for a long time that was a very dominant narrative in the workplace uh and it's still pretty noisy but i do think that there's now a lot more uh range for a diverse idea of what development and growth and good outcomes can look like what do you think as you were talking i was thinking i used to work with someone who basically she thrived on stress so sometimes i don't even notice what she was doing which was even in situations when there wasn't stress she would create something some kind of conflict or something i think yeah and i'm thinking back now maybe yeah maybe that's it that some people to really find that place where they perform are that best or where they can just move on to a next bit of performance whatever there's something um that stress really helps them to get there and of course i'm thinking that now yeah and i'm the opposite i'm gonna say those people i love those people love them from a distance like there are just incredible people to have around when uh when there are problems you know the capabilities of uh of rising to the challenge and fighting through and uh i used to work with someone and i would joke like if i ever went missing uh she's the person i want people to tell because i knew she would never stop until she found me like just incredibly uh strong and dedicated person but if things weren't breaking you know uh then she's just she's worried i was worried about it because she's gonna start breaking stuff yes wow that's fascinating because always i mean when the topic of our conversation came up of developing people i always think of like a very structured approach to professional growth and i think that's what i see and hear happens in organizations but i very rarely hear of rather than initiatives or things we can do is environments we can create for that and this appreciation that different people will thrive in different environments and sometimes we can't understand like you understood with this person but sometimes people don't understand that actually what that person that person doesn't need a course that person needs just a little bit of drama in their position so they can feel a little bit more stimulated but don't put them in another course but give them i don't know and that's where it gets difficult i think i should point out that that was a that was an understanding that came to me after a very long time and lots of people explain it to me without me without me yes eventually yeah there's a couple of things that tend to mind as you're talking about and one of them is at some point i started to think about work as uh as like a training ground oh yeah and i think often particularly development there is this idea that it's very structured that's only related to the goals of the company or you know like you're progressing up higher and whatever else and uh i remember you know i felt like my personal growth journey was quite linked to to my work in that you know as a founder i've been pushing management roles and being pushed up whether or not i deserved it uh and so there was a lot of growth opportunities there which were quite painful but very rewarding if and when they worked out and i started to think about it as work is a great place for me to practice some of this growth you know if i wanted to get better have i talked about this before you've told me about the overarching idea of uh work or a company as a as a place for growth for but not you're not this specific work is a video game no that one no no no okay okay so you must be the only person i haven't but let's say for example uh you know historically bad listener i'm a bad listener i would always be waiting to talk not listening to someone just waiting for my chance to talk you know that affected me in a lot of different areas particularly um at home you know it's a bad characteristic at home practicing uh new techniques for that at home a bit risky because if uh if i get along you know it's quite an important situation that i uh don't care a lot about but at work there's so many opportunities where i can practice that and at work there are rules you know there's a there's a it's like a training ground or a video game you know it's it's a pretty stable environment that repeats and if uh if you don't make a trip it resets resets the next day you know you go to a meeting and and you try something different doesn't work the meeting comes again like the next day or the next week or whatever and so i really love this concept of treating it as a like as a training ground as a video game where i'm gonna i'm gonna experiment here i'm going to try things that might or might not have much to do with my job you know i want to get better at managing my time and showing up to things on time well if i think i'm gonna do that only when i go out to dinner every time i go to dinner it's a different place on a different day of the week different traffic blah blah it's chaos like i might or might not get it right but if i want to get better at managing my time and showing up to things on time i've got a meeting that starts at nine o'clock every wednesday yeah that's a good thing to practice on because it's the same same people same structure and i don't love the concept of people having sole responsibility for their own development i think it should be shared responsibility between the company and the individual but to your point before i think that creating an environment that encourages people to to develop to play to play with how they work to play with who they are at work uh experiment with it i think is really is really powerful that's such a the first time i've heard the concept of finding stuff so basically practicing skills that you feel need to be improved outside of work practicing that at work very deliberately i think that's that's really interesting and as well of course it brings us to typical we spend so much time at work wherever that is and however that is that there is a responsibility to well i always say to be as happy as possible and sometimes that involves growth in some kind of way and it involves finding better versions of ourselves or sustaining the best versions of ourselves and to to acknowledge that in organizations that and i think organizations are already doing this like you get it's mainly around courses or things that you can do which are not work related but that are it's accepted that they uh they have so much benefit for the person that even if it's not directly related to their job that's fine i think it's really interesting flip or thinking okay how can i use what i'm doing at work to be a better person in whatever way whatever that means yeah well you know it's part of this work-life integration you know the the other concept that i really like is is not the idea that you should bring your whole self to work because i think i think that's overstating it you know i don't bring my whole self anywhere yeah parts of my whole self that stay in my head and they should should only have it never for public consumption but what i do want is to recognize myself as myself in all of those you know as i navigate through all those different environments and i think often that the problem is that's a disconnect between who we are at work and who we are outside of work one of the benefits of that of that concept of this sort of uh you know can i use work as a way to become a better human in whatever form that means to me is that it has an intrinsic integration of that like i am the same human in these places and it also i think if you're a manager you're trying to engage your team you're trying to engage someone and you're worried they're gonna leave because you can't give them a promotion and you know the no big projects coming up and things are boring uh and you go well what am i going to do to help this do i do i get them to take a you know like you say some course in something that doesn't really apply to their job or them or most people i think are on a are on a path of growth through their life you know they're changing in different ways you know as we navigate through the different stages of our life you know different challenges come up and it's one of the great things about living and so if you can try and take that view of the person or incorporate that view of the person into what development might look like then it opens up a whole other realm i think in terms of how you can help them and that goes back to when you were saying about that it's not the sole responsibility of the person to to make sure that happens and it's that both parties both organization those around you and stuff i think everyone's responsible as a whole one is to create an environment where people can take charge of their own development but the other thing around that is that sometimes we don't know as individuals i would say we're not used to saying okay what do i need what do i want how could i because some of us we haven't been exposed to enough of a range of different ways of growing as people as professionals to know exactly what that means because if you've only ever been exposed to a traditional schooling system where basically everything is very structured the choice comes in very late and actually there's not that much choice really and you are exposed at least my experience growing up was i was luckily i had parents who made sure i was exposed to as many different things as possible and within that i found actually what i was good at but if i hadn't and if i'd only been exposed to what i was being exposed to at school i don't know what i would end up doing or what my life would have been like so i wanted them taking that idea of workplace as a place for people to be able to find their own way then there's a responsibility to offer as many different types of experiences of ways sorry different types of ways of experiencing the workplace i think that you're absolutely right it means i think you can sort of step back from the idea that you know you are a person who has a job your output of your job is this and my sole interest as a management cafe here my sole interest as a manager is is in how well you can perform this function direct function engage first of all the more holistic you view the person the better they can do that anyway because people thrive when they're uh you know when they're seen for who they really are and where they're viewed as more than just you know just a narrow lens i think but also if you zoom out i'm picturing like your chessboard you know you're looking at the board you're looking at the table you're looking at the fact that it's a game you're looking at everything around that and if you start to think about that you know we're just here to work uh what is the role of work in our lives what else does it does it mean then you can come to a much more interesting understanding and often you know if we go back to this concept of how do you develop people and how do you develop them in a way that is meaningful to them it will be things that you might never have thought of you know things that don't fit into that structure of you know there's a next level of your organic qualification and a career plan yeah you've read um kim shot uh yes radical candor yeah or the other one i think she mentioned in that there's a guy she was working with russ larraway his name is and i was talking about three conversations that he would have with people for career development and uh three conversations were the one was he would ask people to tell him the story of them you know so phil what's your story to bring me up to speed to where you are now and maybe people would start at kindergarten or they start at school and start with their first job whatever and talk through like their life their career in the parts of meaningful to them and that's really interesting to hear how people frame it what's important to them particularly i found at the junctures you know why did you choose to study this not that why did you leave this job why did you move to that country whatever why they did it and particularly why they say they did it now what they feel they learned from that experience is really interesting insights yeah the third conversation i'm forgetting the middle one i have to look it up but the three the third conversation is oh sorry the same conversation is i think like their dreams for the future and often because when you say to somebody how do you want to develop and i'll say well i did 10 widgets yesterday i want to do 12 you know like it's all just directly adjacent to what they currently do and in this uh in this model that he used he would sort of say you know in five years in the future 10 years in the future you could like if you had a dream job what would the company look like you're trying to get people to really step outside their surroundings and then you start learning these fascinating things like oh i'd really love to run a hairdressing salon or you know i'd love to retire to a farm and grow weight or whatever it is and one of the points that he made was that you then have the opportunity to not just try to develop people to their direct job related goal but you can also say about this person i know your dreams i know what you what you think is your true calling and i can help you move towards that goal which is like super powerful and a really nice thing to be trying to do there's a story that comes to mind from many years ago when i was uh i was working with these guys who were doing what you could call productivity workshops it was mainly around the getting things done methodology but of course even that you need to really take a step back and look at it holistically and they found that there was this this woman was really really unhappy at her work and what they found that was making her unhappy was that actually she really wanted to write a novel but because of the way that work was structured because what was happening where she didn't have the time so all they did was work with her to help her find the time and the energy to be able to do that outside of work but i think it speaks to for me it speaks to what you're saying it speaks to what's happening so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the time so all the is that viewing that person holistically and within that is their past, their future, their current aspirations and everything then allows you to really find a way with them that will work. Not to what you or the company thinks a person should be, but actually who they want to be. And sometimes that might be, I imagine, helping them to move on. Which is part of developing people.
We didn't, we stick to the theme of this chat as developing people, not developing you at your work job. It makes sense. The people is the important thing here. Oh, exactly.
I was talking to a friend today and her husband just left the job to go to another job and his manager said to him, as your manager, I'm disappointed I don't want to lose you. You've done a really great job and I really wish I could keep you. As a person who cares about you, I think you made me a wonderful decision and I totally understand why you're doing it and I support you 100% and you're welcome back here anytime. We'd love to have you back.
She was telling me this and I was like, oh my God, that's the perfect thing. She's like, I know, I know. She did the perfect thing. He got all emotional about it.
He never had anyone, he was really worried about talking to the manager and how she'd react to it. And then he was like, oh, now I don't want to leave. Yeah. Maybe he wants to drink that.
No, but that's what it means to somebody, to your point, when they feel like you actually care about them, when they feel like you see the big picture for them and that you understand that that might be more important than the little stuff that we're doing here on a day-to-day basis, that life is a bigger thing and people are more important. It's beautiful. It's beautiful when it happens. Yeah, well, I think I'll take that.
I'll take that with me today and I'd love to hear what others have to say around this. I'd love anecdotes like this one if anyone has them and anecdotes that show the flip side of it as well because of course we don't all think in the same way. So we'd love other viewpoints around this or other examples that show that there are in fact lots of different points about what it means to develop people in the workplace. You can email us www.managementcafepodcast.gmail.com You can send us an audio message or you can send us some text.
So coffee's over for us. Now it's over to you. Thank you for joining us at the Management Cafe. Remember, you can subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use to make sure you get a weekly dose of reflection.
Our website is www.management.caf and on Twitter we are at Management Cafe. That's all for this episode from myself, Pilar Orti and our fellow co-host, Dave Burgess. Thank you for listening.