are other ways of talking about developmental bias. In his excellent book Coaching for Commitment, Dennis Kinlaw emphasizes that almost everything a coach does should be in the service of developing commitment in the performer, the person being coached. He is not talking about commitment to the organization, but about building in people a commitment to themselves—a commitment to develop their own talents and skills to the highest level possible, and to work for continuous improvement.
In her book Leadership and the New Science, renowned systems analyst and consultant Margaret Wheatley helps us see a broader and more comprehensive meaning of commitment. She talks about people in dysfunctional organizations, organizations that have been tipped into chaos by leveraged buyouts or dramatic downsizings. She points out that about 25 percent of people continue to work to a high standard, care about their results, and bring creativity and enthusiasm to their daily work. At first she thought these people were simply denying reality, pretending everything was going to be okay three months down the road even though they had no guarantee of employment. When she interviewed them, however, she discovered that something else was going on. These were the people who had taken the time to create a sense of purpose and meaning for themselves in their work and in their lives, so that even if the organization didn’t make sense, they did. They were performing this way, to this level, because it was part of who they were as human beings.
Such inner commitment to one’s talents and skills usually reflects the work of some very good teachers, parents and other leaders who have taught, parented and coached with a strong developmental bias. Often, it is reflected in the individual in activities such as continuous learning and working on blind spots.
It is interesting to observe this commitment in young Olympic performers. Over the years they take on more and more responsibility for developing their own excellence and their own training programs. When athletes are young, the coach almost always does this, but exceptional coaches early on begin transferring these responsibilities to their young charges. The really good coaches understand that their job is to work themselves out of a job. They believe that this is the true meaning of empowerment.
Marco Beaulieu, who works in engineering management with Bell Canada, was a student in a weeklong leadership development program at Queen’s School of Business in 2007. During this program, offered four times a year, I get to meet many excellent managers and leaders. Marco told me the following story about the development of commitment and belief.
He was coaching 10- to 12-year-olds in minor hockey in Montreal. He had three important values he wanted them to learn during the year: sharing, teamwork and respect. He focused hard on those values and brought in a few people with the appropriate expertise to help teach such skills as power skating and shooting drills. One of these experts was Nancy Drolet, a former national team hockey player and Olympic gold medalist. Marco said the kids loved her. She spoke to them about never giving up, and it became a kind of rallying cry; they became committed to pushing through.
The team made the playoffs, and to Marco’s surprise got to the final game against a team that had beaten them all year. “They never gave up,” he said, “and we were tied 2–2 at the end of the second period in the final. Before the game I had bought a cheap hand-mirror with a handle. In the dressing room between the second and third periods I had all the players close their eyes. I told them that when I tapped them on the shoulder they were to open their eyes for a second and look at the picture of the person who would make the difference in the third period.” He then went around the room and in succession tapped each player on the shoulder while he held the mirror up to their face. The players rose to the occasion and won the game 5–2.
I had Marco tell my students that story the following morning. I asked the class how many of them wished their son or daughter had a coach like Marco, and every hand went up. We all, as parents, rejoice when our children get a teacher or a coach who has that developmental bias. It’s wonderful to have an ally as we raise our children in these challenging times, an ally who helps ignite the Third Factor in them.
We can see a good many of the characteristics we’ve been talking about in this one example. Marco knew what he was good at and left the skill development to others. He was an aware coach with a well-managed ego. He had spent a great deal of time throughout the year developing trust in his team. He had a clear image of the kind of experience he wanted to create for the players, and told me he met frequently with the parents to engage them and get them on board. He knew confidence could be an issue in the final, when they’d be playing against a team they had never beaten, but he stuck to his values and gave everyone a chance to play. Finally, at a critical moment, he gave each player an image of himself as “the one to make a difference.” He believed in them, and in the end they believed in themselves. In all likelihood, none of these players will ever go on to play in the National Hockey League, but with great coaching all the kids and their families had a major-league experience.
Developmental Bias: The Business Case
If you don’t have kids and aren’t involved in coaching recreational sports, at this point you may be thinking to yourself, “Why was this book in the business section?” Don’t panic. I spend 95 percent of my time working with managers from across North America, and I can assure you that what follows was developed for, and applies directly to, your world.
So, why might this developmental bias be so important for your situation right now? What are your folks going through that might make the five characteristics of a strong developmental bias an important tool in managing them? We’ve asked hundreds of managers this question in our corporate training workshops and looked at the research. While we’ve received thousands of different answers, they can largely be grouped into five categories of required adaptation.
Demographics
If this one surprises you, you are likely living in either a research outpost or 1985. From 2005 to 2025, the number of people of working age (15 to 64) will fall by 9 percent in Canada, 5 percent in the United States, and 4 percent in the United Kingdom. By 2010, 50 percent of the management workforce will be eligible for retirement.
The time of being able to take it for granted that workers will simply appear when you need them to fill a key position is long gone. In “Make Your Company a Talent Factory” (Harvard Business Review, June 2007), Douglas A. Ready and Jay A. Conger note that they have worked with numerous companies that have “been forced to pass on hundreds of millions of dollars of new business because they didn’t have the talent to see their growth strategies through to fruition.”
The other side of the demographics coin is a company’s capacity to appeal to, and retain, the so-called Gen-Y employees. These workers place a high value on development. They expect developmental opportunities and are willing to switch jobs in order to get them.
If you focus on development you’ll increase the likelihood of retaining the employees who are key to your future success.
Emotional Health
The mental side of health has recently become a prominent issue for HR departments in all levels of business. With mental health claims representing 75 percent of short-term and 79 percent of long-term disability claims, the cost of ignoring the emotional state of employees is massive: $3.5 billion annually in Canada for stress-related absences alone.
The most important variable in the mental health equation is the relationship employees have with their direct supervisor. Managers who focus on development using the five characteristics of a strong developmental bias send a message to their employees that they are valued, that their voices are heard, and that they will be given opportunities to use their talents and improve. This directly addresses many of the key sources of workplace stress, including the most important:
