Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want

by Beverly Kaye, Julie Winkle Giulioni

Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. Nevertheless, it’s frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don’t have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops. But there’s a better way. And it’s surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Kaye and Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that have the power to motivate employees more deeply than any well�intentioned development event or process. These conversations will increase employees’ awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up�to�the�minute, personalized career paths. Filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions, this book proves that careers are best developed one conversation at a time.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Management, Nonfiction, Buisness, Historical Romance, Human Resources

1 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Founder and Chairwoman of Career Systems International, Dr. Beverly Kaye is an international bestselling author and a leading authority in the world of modern workplace performance. She has dedicated her life’s work to helping individuals and organizations grow in a workplace that fosters greater commitment, fulfillment, and humanity.

Beverly Kaye and the CSI team provide cutting-edge and award-winning talent development solutions primarily to Fortune 1000 companies. Her work and research are distinguished and widely recognized for helping others discover greater meaning in their work and gain greater control over their career destinies.

Dr. Kaye completed her graduate work at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and holds her doctorate from UCLA.

Reviews

[Ostap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Розмова про ріст де ти стоїш на твердому фундаменті минулого, бачиш майбутнє своєї галузі і себе.
“What kind of work do you want to be doing?”

[Samuel Kassing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very practical way to view employee development.

Easy read with lots of tangible application.

[Tõnu Vahtra · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Careers are developed one conversation at a time - over time.
*Talk is the most precious and result-driven commodity managers have to share.
*Quality career development boils down to qualtiy conversations.
*Career development is nothing more than helping others grow. And nothing less.
*Your employees' ability to take satisfying and productive steps towards career goals is directly proportionate to their self-awareness.
*Encoruraging employees to interact directly with the environment is just an interesting exercise until you debrief their experiences and encourage reflection.
*Onward and upward has been replaced by forward and toward (in non-linear career development). Sideways isn't sidelined. Managers have to help employees see that it's not down shifting. It's just changing lanes, sometimes avoiding the traffic, and seeing new scenery in the process.
*The challenge of growing in place involves stripping titles from our thinking and instead focusing on what the employee needs to experience, know, learn and be able to do. When you reframe development in terms of identifying and sourcing neccessary experiences, you widen the lens of possibilities and allow your people to grow right where they are.
*Experience can be scaled based upon your sphere of influence, the needs of the organization, and what employees are looking to achieve.
*90% of career-advancing deas go to nowhere (continuous iteration is a must). A few minutes of conversation can help others slow down enough to reflect, bring deep insights to the surface, verbalize important messages, and consider how to leverage their expanding skills and knowledgebase.

This book claims that most managers are afraid of employee performance conversations due overthinking it's complexity and assuming that manager is somehow responsible for employee development. Employee is actually responsible for developing himself/herself and manager can support this process mainly by discussing about it in a structured manner (even better if you do not have all the answers).

Principles for career development discussions:
*Just talk to people.
*Keep learning about employees.
*Encourage and enable hindsight and foresight (what people are good at, what they love and how they like to work needs to be filtered through foresight lens. Helping employees to develop the ability to scan the environment, anticipate trends, and spot opportunities).
*Leverage the insights that come from hindsight and foresight conversations (identifying where hindsight and foresight overlap, opportunities are where what employee wants to do can find expression in the real work situation).
*Paint a more expansive picture of career development and available growth opportunities (sometimes you need to move horizontally or slightly downwards in parallel before you can rise to the next level vertically).
*Help people focus on what they want to do VS what they want to be (title and role-based development is inheritly limited).
*Support others as they think through how to turn their career goals into action.
*Find ways to bring development to life day in and day out (infuse development conversations into workflow).
*Contribute to the culture (that supports authentic and sustainable development).

Hindsight conversations help others look backward and inward to determine who they are, where they've been, what they love and where they excel.
Foresight conversations are designed to keep employee looking forward and outward toward changes, trends and the ever-evolving big picture.
Insight is the sweet spot where hindsight (where you have been and what you want to be doing) converges with foresight (organizational needs and opportunities).

Feedback ABC (Abilities, Blind spots, Conditions)

[Joi Reece · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another great read. Every HR specialist and supervisor/manager/executive needs to know these simple steps that can be taken to enable their employees to develop a career path and become more fully engaged. This book can also serve as the foundation for understanding the organizational talent pipeline.

“Career development is as important as it’s ever been (maybe more). In today’s business environment, talent is the major differentiator. And developing that talent is one of the most significant drivers of employee engagement, which in turn is the key to the business outcomes you seek: revenue, profitability, innovation, productivity, customer loyalty, quality, and cycle time reduction. But the reality of career development is changing in response to the new business landscape. It’s not the wide-open playing field it once was. Boomers are waiting longer to retire. Repeated rounds of belt tightening have led to delayering and downsizing. More jobs are outsourced. All of this breeds a sense of scarcity and leaves the impression that there aren’t as many opportunities as there once were. This makes career development more—not less—important than in the past.”

The above statement couldn’t be more true in every type of business setting. That stated, as an HRD Specialist, I have observed that the problem is that very few managers and leaders feel they have the time to work on career development. Yet career development, in accordance with this book, is nothing more than helping people grow. This book does a wonderful job of explaining that it is not as hard as we usually make it out to be. “Quality career development boils down to quality conversations”—frequent, short conversations that occur within the natural flow of work. They suggest that we “reframe career development in such a way that responsibility rests squarely with the employee, and that our role is more about prompting, guiding, reflecting, exploring ideas, activating enthusiasm, and driving action.” There is even a framework included that organizing the 3 different types of conversations: hindsight conversations, foresight conversations, and insight conversations.

Developing internal talent is not difficult however; if supervisors/managers/executives fail to help employees grow they will take their talents elsewhere. Remember- People Quit Their Bosses, Not Their Job.

[Jeremy Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a lot here, but at the same time powerfully simple. Reading it as an employee but it is written to managers, the author hones in on employees career development being a great part of managing well. As a team lead in a non profit for a few years I had staff that I hand picked because I both knew their current skill was amazing and would get results but I also wanted to see how I could hone those skills, and bring out new skills as they grew in their work and future.
The best managers I have ever had were similar. And the worst managers I have ever had sucked skills out of me to death instead of instilling or stretching new ones into existence.
As an employee I am trying to figure out my next "what". What do I want to do with my life, After 10 years in one "career path" what is the next fun path that will use my skills and loves and guide me to even the next path and the next one.
This book was screen shotted a few times and I will return to the concepts of hindsight, foresight, honing, etc. But for now... I need water.

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great material, basic yet thorough without being full of filler material. I will be referring to it for my business.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

As some of you that read my reviews know, I joined a communication, confidence, and leadership growth group in January of 2016 called Toastmasters International. A gentleman there took a risk by affording me the opportunity to practice my leadership skills in a way that challenged me to be uncomfortable for awhile in supporting not only myself and my club, but he allowed me to serve the people of five clubs in an area of my city that I hadn't really explored much during the first roughly 40-years of my life.

I was first introduced to the gentleman in April 2017. This friend reads two to four books on leadership each year to keep current with new ideas that can help him in his career. Mindful and continuous improvement are cornerstones of the advice that I have received. This approach brought me to the book "Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want."

Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni co-wrote "Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go," a book that gets into a concept that Goodreads calls "surprisingly simple." The notion underpinning the book is that "frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business" will help keep employees growing, engaged, and happily productive within your organization.

The framework that Kaye and Winkle Giulioni voice clearly in Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go includes talks about understanding your own hindsight combining it with foresight into department, company, and industry trends, and then joining the two with context to gain insight.

Paraphrasing much of what the book indicates it will tell you and then did, chapters three and four get into the notion of hindsight to determine who you are, where you've been, what you love, and where you excel. Foresight in chapter five looks to have managers help employees look forward, outward, and toward trends, changes, and the big picture. Chapters six through eight focus on leveraging insight from the convergence of hindsight and foresight.

Career-oriented books about leadership and development are definitely not the material for everyone. Conversations about a Toastmasters career further are not the types of information that will excite folks. Taking concrete action to lead and grow through direct action within clubs, and then more passive reflection and thought to shape further action, is further not the thing folks want.

In combining the two and reviewing a book well at 4.0-starts out of 5.0 stars, know that I received insight that I wanted while getting to practice the techniques within.

[Lisa Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Average book

Fairly basic and not as much depth as I was expecting. I didn't find very many aha moments while reading this, but I wouldn't consider it a waste of time. Just average.

[Scott Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leading and developing a dynamic team is tough in any business field. Many people move from job to job and never gain critical depth. The organizational ladder used to reflect the “true path” towards career growth, but organizations are much flatter than they used to be. This means that career development needs to be rethought for new situations. In this book, Kaye and Winkle Giulioni try to help managers think about how to have these conversations, with the goal of retaining the base of their workers.

Most organizations have a yearly or semi-yearly performance review where managers attempt to provide a forum for employees to discuss professional aspirations. These conversations are often quickly forgotten as work continues. The authors want to reorient these discussions to be more common in everyday work so that adjustments and vision happen constantly, instead of once or twice a year. The hope is that employees will be better engaged in their work instead of growing disconnected and moving on to another job. For the organization, this can mean better retention rates, which promises lower costs and higher productivity.

The authors posit a new paradigm/framework for ongoing/continual career development. They want to explore hindsight (where they employee has been with her/his skills) with foresight (where the organization and market are going) and how these can combine into insight (what actions can be taken practically in the near term). They want these to be a part of everyday work conversations to steady workers while reaping benefits for the organization. In a dynamic business environment, a successful business’s culture must meet with an equally (if not better) dynamic response.

This book is extraordinarily short, even in a “revised and expanded” second edition. The unabridged audiobook spans just under 3 hours, and the print version is around 160 pages. The book is thus a very quick read – helpful for managers cramped for time. However, only so much material can be explored in such short confines. In a second edition, I’d like and expect a little more depth than is present – perhaps exploring how to have these conversations relationally without awkwardness.

This book is primarily geared towards managers whose responsibilities consist of leading their teams, but this topic can possibly be expanded to meet the needs of ambitious new employees. Many younger workers want to have an impact instead of merely running to the top of an org chart, and these authors could address their needs, too. That opportunity of expansion was a route not taken in this current edition, however. I see a lot of potential in the topic, but at such a short length, it’s hard to meet multiple potentials.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short and useful book full of practical questions to pose to your reports (or coworkers, or friends, or yourself) to help them in their career development. I really appreciate the emphasis that career development is the responsibility of the person, and the manager's role is only to guide and support. So the manager definitely does not have to have all the answers, and there is a lot of power in asking the right questions that help the employee figure out what they want and how to get there.

I found the questions immediately useful as I prepared for conducting annual performance reviews with my team. However, I also appreciate the point that these conversations can and should happen through-out the year in short segments, not just once a year during an annual review, and I fully intend to make a point of continuing the conversations in the months following their reviews. In fact, although I initially got the book from the library, I almost immediately decided to purchase a used copy so that I can have it available as a reference.

Additionally, I am going to sit down and run through the questions with myself, as I think they will be useful in helping me figure out my own career direction!

[K.S. Trenten · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sharp, incisive book filled with simple, striking language, suggesting a successful business and managerial strategy through regular conversations. Sometimes I almost felt this gave too sharp a punch in its word choices, but the impact was felt, the message clear, and its practical value applicable even to those not in managerial positions. I found myself taking copious notes, asking questions, and realizing that with a little thinking, not only could this advice be applied to a business, but to life in general. It was a revitalizing experience, just reading it, asking myself some of the questions it posed, and considering ways I could put its advice into practice. Thank you, Beverly and Julie, for giving us this welcome opportunity to truly think, refresh our minds, and re-evalute our lives with your insightful conversation you began with us, your readers. It was a refreshing example of putting your advice into practice, just by reading it.

[Rick Weidman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Problem solved! Trouble having "those conversations" with your employees? Weep or sweat no more! Pick up Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go and you will have in your hands, "THE GUIDE" to help you retain and grow your employees to reach their fullest potential. Great read, easy to follow and understand. Pick it up today, you won't be sorry....as a matter of fact, you just might be on your way to new found success in developing new leaders and enhancing the growth of existing leaders in your organization.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

By 2020 50% of the work force will be Millennials, and one of the biggest question they ask is about their career and next steps. Since my company is well ahead of that curve - with 60% today, this title grabbed my attention.

Lots of good ideas that I plan to incorporate first with my team and then perhaps to help people in general. Written from the Manager's point of view, but could also be used for individual contributors to examine how they want to develop.

I especially love their metaphor of a career being more like a climbing wall than a ladder.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just Meh. If you look enough there are a couple 💎💎.

What my 👂 heard ⤵️

day in day out you must do more with less
no matter how long hard or smart you work you can't do it alone
what if growth was simply talking with employees
driving action
I am comfortable entering a conversation not knowing how will turn out
do this well enough for long enough and soon enough you be....
what can i always count on you for?
do you work best working with others or flying solo?
find out where opportunities to improve exist
how do you keep your edge?
think global act local

[Nadya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good short read on how to help employees to develop their skills. The things that resonated with me the most are:
• In today’s world of flattened corporations, the development shifts from “up” and “on” to “forward” and “towards”
• Hindsight and foresight overlap to create insight
• Career development is an ongoing conversation rather than a procedural matter. Deliver insight in small bites when situation calls for it
• Three E’s of development: educate, enable expose through mentoring, experience
• Same seat, new view. Development may mean learning new skills, re-structuring existing processes, or lateral moves

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book covers basic fundamentals for fostering career growth by asking the right questions to identify growth goals/strategies, regularly discussing growth+engagement, and keeping an eye for opportunities for your team to grow within their roles.

This would be great book for:

-newer managers
-folks interested in becoming a manager
-managers with teams that feel consistently stunted in their growth
-or individual contributors with a manager who doesn't seem to be invested in their growth. I think this could give them a better understanding of their managers role & help to structure feedback and suggest changes for their manager/IC relationship.

If you're a senior manager who has already developed a successful method of growing folks in your team, you probably won't learn anything new- but it's always good to be reminded of the importance of helping people grow & the steps you should be taking to help your team.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book that could benefit managers and followers alike. If managers could employ the hindsight/foresight/insight model in their daily workflow it would engage followers on a more direct level making them feel more a part of the team than the normal lip service tht occurs in many organizations today.

[Chad Horenfeldt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a simple, short read and accomplished so much! It really helped me think through strategies that I'm already doing but put them into a framework that makes it easy to do on a regular basis. There are also some trends that the book points out that I hadn't full realized (ladder vs wall). I highly recommend it!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great actionable book! The topic is pretty common sense but most managers don’t take the time to provide employees with the career conversations they need. This book provides some really great guidance and tools for managers to begin having those career conversations. The book is easy to read and will help you get started right away.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent short book on my "definitely recommend" list for managers. Especially the less experienced ones. Although I know some high fliers who could surely benefit from going over these basics again.

I found the lot of different questions asked in every chapter very helpful. Clipped a lot of these to re-remind myself every year or so. I am hoping to grow into a better leader by revisiting these periodically. To remind me of the way.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had finished this years ago when I started it. Practical and effective steps for meaningful career growth that busy supervisors and managers can easily implement within the framework of day to day work with their staff. I am so excited to weave this into our company this year and see the outcomes from it.

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible must have resource for all leaders. It is especially helpful for those leaders who struggle with how to develop their staff. This practical little book contains so many helps and tips for having those crucial conversations.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, quick read on how to put more emphasis and focus on employee growth and development.

The book contains some easy-t0-do steps to ensure the progression of employees is continual and meaningful. Worth a read to anyone who is currently leading a team or who aspires to do so.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quick read with some interesting tools

A quick read with some interesting tools, this book can help you rework conversations with employees (and yourself) to better think about professional development.

[Jasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must read for people managers. A straightforward, short, powerful book about the importance of career conversations. What I specifically liked was the absence of example stories which many similar books are typically full of and I which I personally find unnecessary.

[Dimitri]

Growth in people is about making Managers/Leaders accountable to create an environment for sustainable development

My Highlights: https://learning.oreilly.com/u/748020...

[Arun Narayanaswamy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book revolves around Hindsight, foresight and the convergence of the two being “insight”. Quite insightful overall. A good read if you are a manager or supervisor of a team and you want to excel at that job. It’s sort of a guidebook on how to manage people.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I most appreciated how the authors continued to ask “What about you?”

These kids of books so often focus on the leadership skills and forget that leaders are also employees and often need to advocate for themselves. It was nice to be acknowledged from both angles.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, very great read on the mechanics of being an effective leader of people.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Review of:

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go:
Career Conversations Employees Want
By Beverly Kaye & Julie Winkle Giulioni

I found Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go to be far more than just a helpful book. It is an amazing resource filled with inspiration, encouragement, ideas, conversation starters, and practical application exercises for those in management positions. It provides essential and sometimes overlooked tools for managers, ones necessary to motivate and guide employees on the path of career development.
Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is a necessary and essential handbook for anyone who manages or supervises other employees. It is also great for anyone involved in employee growth and development programs. The layout of the book is straightforward, simple, and rich with easy to follow applications. I must also add that the book is visually appealing, making it a reference to start right away, and one to return to often.
While Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is mainly written for use by those in management positions, it is also a very useful handbook for anyone wishing to further enhance their own career and personal growth.
This book provides tools to guide managers in positive communication with their employees. But, it is also an important guide to help employees effectively discuss their own future goals and objectives with their management team.
I very highly recommend Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go. It is inspiring and very practical. By learning these positive communication skills, both managers and employees can create a brighter future for themselves and their families.

*Disclaimer: I am thankful to have been able to read and review Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want. I received a copy from Weaving Influence in exchange for my honest review. The opinion stated is my own. I have not been compensated in any way.*