Welcome to The Learning Zone: Three People Development Skills for the Manager to Master
Can you honestly say you have mastered the ability to develop skills in other people? One of your key competencies as a manager is designing learning plans and implementing those learning plans through coaching, feedback, and mental models. This is a skill which is so obvious when I tell people that everyone agrees, yet managers who have truly mastered this skill are a rare find. In my experience, managers tell people what to learn, what to do, or how to do something and pretty much leave it at that, which is unfortunate because they miss out on some rich opportunities in contributing to the growth of others and in achieving some rewarding growth of their own.
To guide someone through the learning process, you want them to step into their Learning Zone. What is the Learning Zone? The Learning Zone is that place just beyond the Comfort Zone and before the Panic Zone. When activities are too easy, they do not require as much effort. People can grow bored and distracted, and learning is limited. When activities prove too challenging, they push people to the point where panic ensues. Aggressive behavior or pressure that is too high can arouse the fight or flight instincts, and learning is also limited. In that sweet spot the activities push the person just beyond their current ability and require full attention and near-maximal effort. This is where learning happens.
I was once coaching a manager who got frustrated with a more junior employee for not responding to a client issue in the way they had expected. They lashed out at the junior employee and the conversation grew heated and escalated. The manager wondered why the junior employee was not learning the “right” way. It took multiple conversations to help the manager understand they had more to learn. Their aggressive behavior elicited a defensive response, and no real learning was possible for the junior employee. Blaming the other person for not learning is the easy way out, but learning is stifled there. Developing the skill to be frustrated and still guide another person into their Learning Zone is key for the manager.
Is this easy to achieve? No, each person’s Learning Zone is unique and constantly shifting. The Learning Zone begins just beyond the current abilities of that individual at that point in time. As the current abilities improve, the Learning Zone moves farther out, so the Learning Zone is also a dynamic target. The learning activities must be continuously altered for the individual to develop mastery.
The manager must have an intimate awareness of the person’s abilities. They must establish a deep and frequent connection to the person they are coaching, which can be a challenge in practice. At the same time, the manager is developing their own ability to develop others. Developing their personal skills in feedback, learning plans, and learning activities will improve their ability to develop the skills of others.
Skill #1: Feedback – The Give and Take
Any coach must give feedback so people can adjust based on what they are doing that does and does not work. The feedback should be honest and respectful. If the feedback is laced with some kind of attack, aggression, sarcasm, etc., the person will more likely be distracted by the intention or delivery and miss out on the learning opportunity. The best approach is to come from a genuine place of wanting to support the person.
I have found that starting the feedback with “You want to…” and explaining what works helps the person absorb the message. I like following it up with “You don’t want to…” If they have not actually done the undesirable behavior, and I want to preempt it, I might say, “Some people do this, which doesn’t work because…” Clarifying the impact of the negative behavior helps. Then I restate the desirable action, and I might even model it. As much as possible, I try to find the things they did which work well and encourage them to take that farther and do more of it.
Taking feedback is a difficult skill every successful manager must master. This is more than just listening to feedback and not getting upset, though that is important. The true mastery of taking feedback is listening with an open mind without defending or disputing even if the other person is wrong or disrespectful. Treat feedback as a gift even when it is not delivered that way. A friend of mine was CEO of a non-profit and one of the board members began yelling at him and blaming him for a situation. My friend listened silently until the board member finished, and calmly thanked him for being open with him about thoughts that others were probably thinking but too afraid to voice. Then he could address the accusations point by point.
The goal of feedback is to stay connected to what others think and feel about you. By welcoming candid feedback, you improve your awareness and connection. As the manager, you also set the example that others will follow, whether you realize it or not. Once you achieve mastery in taking feedback, you are better positioned to guide others through the skill of taking feedback.
The alternative is an atmosphere where issues are not addressed and fester until they explode. Then later everyone wonders how the environment became so toxic. A culture where people can openly share candid feedback lays the foundation for healthy and productive group dynamics.
Not only do you need to welcome feedback, you also need to actively seek it out. This is one of the greatest dangers a manager faces. The higher up you are as a manager, the more you are at risk of being disconnected from what is really going on below the surface. Probing below the surface is a very specific skill. I recommend the manager regularly bring the team together and ask, “How are we working together as a team?” The tendency in some groups will be to play it safe and not speak openly about issues. The manager must break through this or risk being sidelined by team dysfunction.
Have you experienced challenges in giving and receiving feedback? If so, what techniques have you found that work?
Skill #2: Learning Plans – Translating Feedback into Skills
Feedback serves little use unless it leads to positive adjustment. Each piece of feedback regarding what does not work reveals some underlying skill which requires development. If you are receiving feedback, you may have to take the initiative to translate your feedback into needed skills. If you are the manager giving the feedback, you will want to do this as the next step. I prefer not to use the terms behavior or bad habits because they can sound like unchangeable actions. Instead, I frame them as skills because they are interpreted as something which can be improved through practice.
Identifying the skills to be developed requires much more thought than just giving feedback in the moment. I find this happens best when I am alone and need to reflect deeply on the person now and in the future. Taking this step signifies to the person that you care enough about them to invest serious time thinking about and supporting their long-term success. It helps frame the most negative feedback in a collaborative light for a manager / employee, mentor / mentee, teacher / pupil, coach / athlete, or master / apprentice relationship.
This step also helps focus the feedback. I generally start with a list of the feedback that I want to share. The list starts as a stream of consciousness. If I spend no time preparing for the delivery of the feedback, it will come across as scattered and confusing, so I have to spend the time organizing the thoughts. Once I start identifying the skills that go with each piece of feedback, I end up grouping the feedback together based on the skill that will address the feedback. For example, I once had some feedback for someone who had been aggressive with others and said some offensive things. I categorized these together under the skill of communicating with respect. This helped me deliver the message in a more concise way, and it helped them understand and remember the message later.
Have you ever had somebody put together a learning plan for you? What were the best mentoring experiences you have had?
Skill #3: Learning Activities – Building the Skills
The final component of designing the Learning Program is the list of Learning Activities. This is where you take one skill at a time and identify an activity that will develop that skill. I like to come up with three activities for a skill, but some skills require more while others require fewer. You can use any format that works for you. I use a table with three columns. Column 1 is the Feedback. Column 2 identifies the Skill. Column 3 details the Learning Activities. Most practice is solitary practice, so try to come up with Learning Activities that the person can eventually practice on their own.
For example, one employee was very capable with the technical and verbal aspects of the job. However, his written communication was filled with grammatical errors. I progressively gave him more challenging activities to improve his grammar skills. First, I corrected his grammatical errors and explained them. Next, I began having him make the corrections that I gave him. Then I started having him find and make the corrections on his own. Finally, I started asking him how somebody could misinterpret his message and how he could improve the specificity of his language.
The person will have to repeat the activity many times to master it. I often prefer to introduce one Learning Activity at a time. This can feel a little daunting to the manager because getting through the Learning Activities can take a very long time. I once had an employee who had a single incident that translated into six areas of feedback, six skills needed, and 18 Learning Activities. Each Learning Activity would take a minimum of weeks of repetition to master. That meant the Learning Activities would take months or years to complete. This is a good thing. Development of skills is a long-term journey.
I usually only share about one Learning Activity at a time. The idea is to not overwhelm the person. Allow them to focus on mastering that activity before moving on to the next one. The feedback, the skills, and the Learning Activities should be delivered in short chunks of information instead of long speeches or long meetings. Rather than meeting for one hour once a week, five fifteen-minute meetings are more effective. This gives the person more of an opportunity to absorb the message more completely.
The manager must master the skills of designing Learning Plans and follow through to implement those plans. The disconnected managers of the world will just tell people what does not work or what results to get without providing the support to the team to develop those skills. The connected manager is more engaged and takes ownership of the development of their team.
When you are interviewing for a new job, I highly recommend asking the hiring manager what specific skills they have developed in their employees. You can follow up by asking how they developed those skills. Do they have a solid answer, or are they just searching for something to say? You can ask them what feedback they get from their employees. Do they take the follow-up steps to develop their own skills? Do they actively solicit feedback from their employees, so they can keep their finger on the pulse of their team, or do they blindly assume they are in touch with their team? Their answers to these questions will help you understand what to expect if you were to work for them.
What skills has your manager developed in you? If you are a manager, what specific skills have you developed in your team?
Photo by Mathias Jensen on Unsplash.
