Visible and real.

Are you as excited for 2020 as I am? As we’re getting closer to the start of the latest decade, I can’t help but feel this excitement and anticipation of what’s to come.

One of the really cool initiatives I get to work on next year is creating sustainment opportunities for the personal and professional development training started this year at an organization here in Calgary. They are wanting to focus on increasing the levels of psychological health & safety in their workplace as well as provide more opportunities for team members to use their learning in day-to-day interactions, helping to embed the language and theories into the culture of the team.

As you can imagine, I’m thrilled with this! I love that the organization is investing in sustainment, putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and not asking someone in the organization to run these sustainment initiatives off the side of their desk but focusing on these initiatives as someone’s only job. (and I’m extra happy that someone is me, obviously 🙂 ) The investment this company is making in training is not a “one-and-done” and I love that.

This organization has made development training sustainment part of their 2020 strategic goals, tying annual compensation to the success of these initiatives.

Their commitment to success is visible and real.

They’re making a cultural shift where development and growth is not just a priority but a core value.

I believe very strongly that leadership doesn’t only exist at the top of an organization, but that we all have leadership qualities and most of us have a desire to grow into better leaders. The view I’m going to take with this work next year is to encourage those team members in the middle of the pack, performance-wise, to grow and develop with some focused effort.

This approach is something I feel very strongly about too. I remember very clearly a conversation I had with my high school guidance counsellor about how the high performing kids received a lot of support and accolades for their contributions (and well they should, for working so hard!) and the kids that weren’t performing so well also received extra attention and support to continue to grow (and I’m glad they did!) but the bulk of so-called “average kids” in the middle were kind of forgotten, left to their own devices to float along, succeeding but maybe not reaching their full potential.

I see the same thing playing out in organizations – the high performers are asked to do more and more, feeling stress and pressure to maintain their excellent performance. The low performers are either supported to grow to stay employed or performance-managed out and the middle-of-the-road performers stay at the status quo, under the radar.

I’m going to work with those folks in the middle, the ones with so much potential, the ones who are looking for cool opportunities to stretch their abilities and grow their skills. The masses with desire and purpose and ideas, those that just haven’t yet been given the opportunity to feel supported, encouraged and invested in, in any meaningful way quite yet.

I’m going to approach the learning from a place of strength, encouraging people to take the talents they already have and build on that foundation to continue growing. There will definitely be some hope involved, the expectation that their future will be better than today when they take action over the things they can control and overcome the barriers that will absolutely get in the way.

I can’t wait to watch people grow and succeed and build confidence.

The organization is going to thrive and reach new levels of performance by mobilizing this awesome group of people with so much more to give, given the focused opportunity to learn.

It’s going to be awesome and I’m blessed to be part of it.