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ATD Blog

Creating Development Abundance for Your Entire Team: Spread the Development

Friday, September 13, 2013
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The idea of leaders grooming only a select few “stars” in a company is pretty familiar. For the past few decades, the collective wisdom on talent development has been surprisingly (or perhaps not) exclusive.

Many organizations have focused on cherry-picking a handful of employees with the highest potential (the “stars”), and then doling out the best development opportunities, perks, and promotions to that select group. Companies that follow this path feel that they’re devoting precious resources to the most deserving group of employees, and getting the biggest bang for their buck. The problem is that this approach leaves the vast majority of the workforce sensing little investment, other than encouragement to reach for tools and get developed on their own. What a loss. These employees feel less engaged and are not stretched to take on more challenging work demands leading to bigger results. Forum’s research shows greater business success requires employees who are engaged and challenged.

But the tides are changing. Many have come to believe that giving special treatment only to their star employees is bad for business. They fear their talented workers are moving on to organizations where they will be more appreciated and receive the development they desire. Or worse yet, those ignored staffers will stay, knowing that they’re not among the chosen few, and their on-the-job effort will reflect that spirit.

Organizations can do much better by requiring their managers to “create development abundance” as an ongoing dimension of the workplace. Savvy companies equip managers to continually spread development opportunities across all employee levels and functions, improving the engagement and performance of their entire teams, not just the high potentials. Managers then become crucial because they encourage their employees to work with others, gain new skills, and immediately apply their development on the job—ideal approaches for development that sticks. This ongoing focus on everyone will improve business and contribute to an inclusive and optimal working climate.

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This series of blog articles will explore three practices that managers can adopt to create an environment that drives a healthy supply of development opportunities in the workplace for everyone. Explore how managers can

  • employ an “enough for all” mindset and actions
  • shift work to refresh development
  • look to other departments for team growth.

Is your company equipping managers to create an environment that provides a variety of development opportunities for their people? Please share your experiences in the comment section below.

About the Author

For three decades, as a corporate HR executive and external consultant, Wendy Axelrod has helped organizations substantially increase their development efforts, working directly with thousands of people. Her particular expertise is helping managers and mentors become exceptional at growing the talent of others. Her first book “Make Talent Your Business: How Exceptional Managers Develop People While Getting Results” identified 5 research-based practices that distinguish exceptional developmental managers who seamlessly weave development with performance. Expert reviewers of her second book, published by ATD, identified “10 Steps to Successful Mentoring” as the most complete and practical guide for succeeding with mentoring relationships.

Wendy's works have appeared in SmartBriefs on Leadership; AMA’s Moving Ahead, Leader to Leader, Leadership Excellence, and books such as ATD’s “Management Development Handbook”. Wendy speaks at conferences including the ATD, The Conference Board, Human Resource Planning Society, and HR Summit Asia, as well as corporate events.

Wendy’s clients include Fortune 100 companies and medium-sized firms in the US and globally. She is also affiliated with KornFerry, AchieveForum, The Institute for Management Studies, and AthenaOnline.

Passionate about development Wendy is the creator and moving force behind the renowned Philadelphia region’s Mentoring Program for HR Professionals begun in 2002; and has been dubbed as the region’s “Mentoring Guru.” She has formally mentored dozens of women and men. Wendy consults with companies to strengthen mentoring programs as a key component of their Talent Development strategies. Learn more about Wendy at www.WendyAxelrodPhD.com

Wendy has a Ph.D. in Organizational-Industrial Psychology and completed Columbia University’s Advance Program in HR Management. As a coach she is certified as a Conversational Intelligence® Enhanced Skill Practitioner, and is also certified in dozens of executive coaching and organization development tools.

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