Start with Questions

“Just One More Thing…” is a short-form way that I share ideas, questions and guidance with more substance than a LinkedIn post and less academic rigor than my articles. I hope you find it valuable.

We do important, valuable work in HR, but it’s easy to confuse or overwhelm managers with our jargon and process terminology. Whether you’re dealing with experienced or new managers, start your discussions about talent by asking three basic questions about the work that we do.

Your goal should be to gain alignment (do you agree this is important?) and to promote understanding (do you understand how we plan to do this?) with team members.

Use these questions:

• If you’re new to a team and want to level-set with the other team members.
• If you need to convince a reluctant leader to execute talent practices.
• To gain sponsorship from a senior leader or executive

1. Do you want all your team members to perform at the highest possible levels (without burning them out, of course)? This is the start to a conversation about the importance of setting goals and having regular feedback and coaching conversations. At the end, mention that this is called performance management.
2. Does it make sense to have well-qualified back-up available for the most important positions on your team? Introduce the concept of accurately predicting potential to succeed in future roles. Talk about developing people by giving them big, challenging experiences. At the end, mention that it’s called succession planning.
3. Should we give people a chance to grow into the roles we have available, maybe giving some extra help to those who show more promise? This is a chance to discuss development planning and a manager’s responsibility to guide people to roles where they’ll best contribute. At the end, mention that it’s called development planning.

Leaders will overwhelmingly agree with the questions above and happily devote time to achieving those outcomes. Our role is to make the concept so simple and obvious that they rush to support the answer.