We, as managers, should find ways for our teammates to grow in their careers. It’s expected in our role and it can also be one of the most rewarding parts of our job. The question is, which areas should we encourage folks to grow?
Since we are kids, they ask us to do well in all the areas of the school curriculum. If you are doing exceptionally well in arts, but poorly in maths, you will be asked to pay more attention and dedicate more time to improve your math skills. In the business context, something similar happens. Your job has a set of expectations in different competencies, and you should be able to, at least, do average in all of them.
There is an opportunity cost when we mainly prioritize focusing on the competencies that our teammates are performing poorly and barely pay attention to the areas where our teammates are performing above expectations. There are some problems when managers take on this strategy to help people grow:
Firstly, there is a risk of decreasing motivation. When we just focus on the weaknesses of our teammates, it can trigger a feeling on the other side of not doing well enough. That feeling can develop into anxiety, which usually decreases motivation. And without motivation, the risks of attrition increase.
Secondly, we should optimize for increasing the performance of our teams. A team works best when the skills of their members can complement each other, and we should aim to have individuals that excel in competencies complementary to other folks in the team, rather than a team of individuals who are doing average in all the competencies.
Lastly, by focusing on the weaknesses, we might miss the opportunity to help grow a person into becoming exceptional in a specific competency. For example, if I have a teammate great at writing technical documentation but struggles at giving tech talks in public, it might tempt me to focus on encouraging that person in improving their oral communication skills, and completely ignore their ability to write great technical documentation. That person might end up doing average quality tech talks, but I might have missed the opportunity for them to grow to be the best tech writer in history.
In conclusion, I believe that as managers we should focus more on the strengths of the folks we are serving, rather than focusing on their weaknesses. This increases motivation and as a result the chance of folks becoming exceptionally good at something. Not only that, but it can also increase the overall performance of our team.
