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Development Conversations

Your Learning JourneyYour Learning Journey through the Development Centre is shown here. This guide will help you to focus on how to

effectively prepare for Development Conversations.

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Owning your own Development

Get comfortable being uncomfortable - be open to pushing out of your comfort zone, take on new challenges, try different things and embrace mistakes along the way as learning experiences

Know yourself well - consistently assess your values, talents, strengths and weaknesses, be honest with yourself and ask for feedback from others; determine gaps, using your Development Plan to re-evaluate your goals regularly

Establish, build and nurture long-lasting relationships - relationship building is a long-term process to be viewed as laying a foundation and planting seeds for future growth and success

Finally, commit to being a life-long learner!

Do you own your own development?The most qualified, equipped and motivated person to manage your development is you. You are the best person to determine your value-add and aspirations, and to work towards achieving them. It is up to each of us to be the lead in planning and managing our development. We should be empowering ourselves to own our development because while we cannot predict or control what happens around us, we can position ourselves to be ready and able to react to all situations we encounter.

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What is the purpose of a Development Conversation? Throughout the year, and following your Development Centre, you will have regular conversations with your Line Manager about your value driven behaviours, your ongoing skill development and progress you have made against achieving your career aspirations and personal objectives. You can also explore potential learning activities that will help you to be the best you can be. This will give you the opportunity to discuss your feedback including your strengths and areas for development.

It is your responsibility to take ownership of your own development and you should ensure that you fully prepare for this conversation by evaluating your personalised feedback from your one to one session with Penna along with your Development Centre Report.

Development Centre

Reflections

Psychometric Report (OPQ)

Development Centre Report

Career Aspirations

Technical Learning Needs

Value Driven Behaviours

Career Development

Your Line Manager is committed to supporting your development and during this conversation may follow the GROW model to conduct a meaningful conversation with you to:

• Support you to create and progress your Development Plan• Help you to explore any further learning and development in and outside your

team, including experiential on the job opportunities• Answer any questions about the Development Centre outcomes• Encourage you to identify your career aspirations and goals

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What is the GROW Model?

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GoalWhat do you want to achieve? Through your conversation, you and your manager should determine a clear purpose and objectives for the conversation.

RealityWhat is happening now? Your manager will want to discuss where you are at now vs. your goals and external benchmarks.

OptionsWhat could you do to achieve your goals? Brainstorm options, making them as broad as possible – don’t hold back.

What’s NextWhat will you do to achieve your goals? Agree who will do what and by when.

The GROW Model is a simple four-step coaching model that your manager may use to help structure your development conversations. GROW is an acronym that stands for:

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How to use the GROW Model in your Development Conversation?Following your feedback session with Penna, arrange a meeting with your manager and prepare to collaboratively discuss your strengths and potential skills to develop for your current or aspired role. See below some useful questions to help you to prepare for this discussion following the GROW Model.

What would I like to work on? What would my first steps / strategy / solution look like? What is my goal related to this issue? When am I aiming to achieve this? What are the benefits for me in achieving this goal? Who will benefit and in which way? What will it be like if I achieve it? How will I feel?

What action have I taken so far? How could I elevate myself in terms of value-driven behaviour? How could I use or leverage my strengths more? What is moving me toward my goal? How am I motivating myself? What is getting in the way? What challenges have I faced?

What options are available to me to achieve my goal? What else could I do? What other opportunities would be available to help me achieve my aspirations? How much of a stretch would these be for me? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each option?

Which options will I choose to act on? When am I going to start each action? How committed am I on a scale of 1-10, to taking each of these actions? If it is not a 10, what would make it a 10? What will I commit to doing?

Career research shows that most successful people drive strengths-based careers; they are clear on what they do best, and then focus their sights on the roles that enable them to spend 90% of their time using these strengths.

Goal

Reality

Options

What’s next?

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Development Conversations for Managers

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Managers JourneyAlong with checking in with your colleagues before and after they attend their Development Centre, it is so

important that you make time for them when they schedule their development conversation so that a meaningful and purposeful 2 way discussion can be held to support them to create their Development Plan.

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A Good Conversation – Coaching

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• Believing in their ability to come up with a solution - don’t shoot down their ideas

• Using powerful questions that allow them to identify their own action plan, along with your guidance (adopting an ask vs. tell approach)

• Focus on the person as opposed to the task, it is about their development

• Facilitate a learning process, it is not about “fixing” anyone• Setting up a clear accountability structure for actions and outcomes

to help keep them focused on achieving their goals and objectives• Using any opportunity to coach, not just these development

conversations

When holding development conversations with your team, it is important to adopt a coaching approach. A good coaching conversation involves helping your colleague to find solutions, and asking questions as opposed to telling. This will help to unlock capability and potential, and enable development, growth and learning which will ultimately boost performance.

You can do this by:

You may also need to: • Let go of your assumptions.• Slow down and take your time.• Study coaching techniques.

A helpful coaching model to use is the GROW Model (more details on

slide 11).

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Open and Closed Questions

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Closed Questions are those questions that have one correct answer or that give limited options to the respondent (i.e. a yes or no answer). Examples include:• Are you ready?• Have you spoken to them about it?These types of questions should be used sparingly during a development conversation as they tend to shut down the conversation.

Open Questions are those questions that do not have a perfect answer and require a person to come up with additional details and information. Perfect when encouraging a 2 way coaching discussion or development conversation. Examples of open questions you could ask are:

By understanding the difference between the two, you can learn to ask better questions and get better, more actionable answers.

• How did you find the development centre? • What are your reflections having seen your report?• What are your areas of strength? • How could you develop in this/these area(s)?• What do you understand by ‘X’ value and how do you think it related to the work that you do?• Have you identified anyone who may be able to support you/who do you think you could speak to about your

development? • Is there anything that I can do to support you in developing in these areas?

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What is the GROW Model?

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GoalWhat do they want to achieve? Establish trust, openness and equality for dialogue to take place. Determine a clear purpose and objectives for the conversation.

RealityWhat is happening now? Understand where they are vs. the goal and external benchmarks. Explore reasons for the current state in a non-judgemental manner.

OptionsWhat could they do? Focus on possible actions to achieve their goals. Brainstorm options, making them as broad as possible – don’t hold back.

What’s NextWhat will they do? Gauge level of commitment to act. Agree who will do what and by when.

The GROW Model is a simple four-step process that helps you structure coaching and mentoring sessions with team members. GROW is an acronym that stands for:

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The GROW Model in action

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• What would you like to work on?• What would your first step / strategy / solution look

like?• What is your goal related to this issue?• When are you aiming to achieve it?• What are the benefits for you in achieving this goal? • Who will benefit and in which way? • What will it be like if you achieve it? • How will you feel?

• What action have you taken so far?• How could you elevate yourself in terms of value-

driven behaviour?• How could you use or leverage your strengths more?• What is moving you toward your goal?• How are you motivating yourself?• What is getting in the way?• What challenges have you faced?

• What options are available to you to achieve your goal?

• What else could you do?• What other opportunities would be available to help

you achieve your aspirations?• How much of a stretch would these be for you?• What are the main advantages and disadvantages of

each option?

• Which options will you choose to act on?• When are you going to start each action?• How committed are you, on a scale of 1-10, to taking

each of these actions?• If it is not a 10, what would make it a 10?• What will you commit to doing? (Note: It is also an

option to do nothing and review at a later date)

Reality

OptionsWhat’s

Next?

Goal

The open questions below relate to each step in the GROW model – you could use these questions to structure a development conversation – your colleague may have prepared some ideas ahead of the conversation.

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Hints & Tips

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1. Begin by asking your team member their overall feelings about their development report

2. Focus on the positives first – there will be strengths evidenced and others you will have experienced

3. Explore what aspects of their report resonate with them particularly well, and those that don’t

4. Explore aspects of performance that were less strong – share your different or similar experience of them

5. Explore with the colleague what they would like to focus on as part of their development – add your own thoughts based on your experience of them, ensure there is a clear goal and what you’d expect to see from that development

6. Make sure it is your colleague who goes away with a clear plan of actions, not you

7. If you are challenged, try not to take it personally or react – try to delve deeper into why they are challenging the process

Look out for additional learning resources on

the L&OD intranet page!

Case Study:Watch Sir Dave

Brailsford discuss his experience of

using coaching and marginal gains to

lead Team GB Cycling to success here.