What is it?

Focus on creating a environment that stimulates growth.

Why is it important?

Wanting to grow isn’t the same as actually growing. There are a lot of conditions that need to exist for healthy growth to happen, and those conditions don’t happen randomly

How do you do it?

Let people jump in

Learning is messy. If you don’t let people jump in until they are ready, then you’ll never let people jump in. If they never jump in, they’ll never learn. If they never learn, they’ll never be ready.

There is something to the “prove yourself” part of leadership that can’t be assessed until someone is in the position. 

In high school I struggled to hit curve balls as a batter. We were playing a team and we were tied going into extra innings. We had a runner on third with two outs. The pitcher on the mound was better than me, and had a great curveball. I couldn’t just put the ball in play to score the run, because I wasn’t fast enough to beat out a bunt or an infield hit. I needed a base hit.

If I weren’t actually in that situation, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how I handle pressure when the game is on the line. We could practice against good pitchers. We could practice against curveballs. But we couldn’t simulate the pressure of that situation  in practice. I had to actually be in that moment.

The same is true for the people on your team.

Challenge people to be better

• Set clear expectations for where you want people to be
• Ask them where they want to go - help prepare them for what they aspire to be

Let learning be messy

• Mistakes will happen
• Projects will fail
• Imperfect work will be produced
• Things could have been better

Make the mistakes productive

• Model what it looks like to own mistakes of your own.
• Center your conversations around the project and the mistake, not the person. Mistakes shouldn’t be personal.
• Talk about why mistakes happened.
• Ask questions that help them see the problem.
• When you help facilitate problem solving, you increase ownership of the solution itself, and you help others put some skin in the game. That is critical to actual, lasting change.

Questions I ask: 

• What happened?
• Do you know why this happened?
• Can you think of any ways to prevent this from happening in the future?
• How can I help you accomplish that?