Team Health Check Action Guide

QUESTION 11
My personal progress and development are important around here.

Watch a brief video that walks you through Gallup’s take on their version of this question.

Providing a structured time to discuss each employee’s progress, achievements and goals is important for managers and employees. Great managers regularly meet with individuals, both to learn from them and to give them guidance. This give-and-take helps managers and employees make better decisions.

Key Insights

  1. The need that sits behind this question is ”Help me review my contributions”

  2. This question is an accumulation of the previous 10 questions

  3. There is a direct link with Q04

  4. It is about seeing a horizon and bringing hope into the conversation

  5. A focus on PERSONAL growth and development.  Greater than work with a focus from a job to your life.  Consider what has been done outside of work as part of focus e.g. child accepted into University

  6. Development can't be a once a year conversation.  The progress review cannot hold the weight of this requirement (annual review will often get delayed or never done).  Need to include development as an ongoing daily/weekly/monthly conversation

  7. When thinking about development a. who are the people around you that matter? b. what strategies can you leverage? c.70/20/10 learning framework c. SMARTER framework to ensure the actions are tangible

Team Activity to Unpack

Work in groups of four to six people:

  1. Give each person a piece of paper and them to write their name at the top

  2. Rotate the papers around the group.  Have each person write down one or two areas of strength that they have observed in the person named at the top

  3. Return the paper to the person whose name is on the top.  Allow the time for the person to think about one or two tasks that they excel at using the strengths their team members wrote on the paper

  4. Use these observations and commentary as part of the person's development planning process

Additional Questions to Ask

  1. How can team members best use our collective talents and strengths to achieve our performance goals more efficiently and effectively?

  2. What does progress mean to us?  What is the best way to measure it?

  3. What progress have we made as a team that we have not documented?  How can we capture this progress?

  4. How can we best incorporate remote employees into our development goals?

  5. Should we meet more frequently to ensure that there is support for progress on development planning?

Suggestions for Action

  1. Leverage the feedback questions to have the conversation a. What’s working? b. Where are we getting stuck? c. What can we do differently?

  2. When a team member learns something new or reaches a progress goal, have him or her present about it to other team members

  3. Encourage peer feedback on progress individuals have made in their roles on a particular activity or task

  4. Have employees track their own performance.  Ask them to make a list of actions they have taken on learning, partnerships at work, team performance, etc.

  5. Determine your top three performance development priorities.  How can they match the three domains that predict job success  a. Individual Achievement b. Team Collaboration c. Customer Value

  6. When thinking about actions for development leverage the 10% formalised learning, 20% relational learning, 70%  experiential learning model

  7. How do you move from individual progress check ins to include team to team as well?