Great managers should find ways to grow their people, but there will be many situations where a person maybe doesn’t want to grow. How do you handle this?

Firstly, it’s useful to imagine that growth is not linear. An intense period of learning and growth often requires stability and recharging. A series of tough challenges that force growth, directly one after the other often results in burnout. These situations, unfortunately, happen in hypergrowth companies all the time.

Secondly, it’s useful to find out what is most important to people *right now* and in the near future. As an example, new people to the industry (e.g. boot camp/university graduates, interns) are often full of curiosity, and motivation and are very open to learning anything and everything. Compare this to a seasoned person (e.g. 10+ years of experience) who will be more opinionated in areas they want to grow in. A more seasoned person may want to avoid certain growth challenges because it repeats past experiences or they are not interested in growing in those skills. For example, asking a distributed backend systems engineer to pick up iOS skills may not be a growth area they want to focus on long-term.

Finally, it’s important to remember that work reflects only one aspect of a person. I tend to reflect on a person’s full ability to learn, which will be affected by other aspects of someone’s life. For example, someone may have an extreme lifestyle change (e.g. the first newborn, or going through a divorce/separation) where learning isn’t their top priority. World events such as the pandemic and war also affect people in different ways, especially in their capacity to take on new experiences.

Great leaders build trust with their team so they can have open and candid conversations about a person’s needs. Sometimes people will be happy being a solid team member at work without needing a growth challenge for several months and that’s okay.

Enjoy this week’s newsletter, and please pass it on to a friend or colleague who might benefit.

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