You will draft a six-month growth plan with one team member that links their goals to real work.
Most people on your team have some idea of where they would like to be in a year or two. Few of them have a plan for getting there, and fewer still have a manager who has helped them make one. A growth plan changes that. It is a single page, agreed between you and the person, that links what they want to the real work in front of them.
This exercise takes about half an hour to draft and one one-on-one to agree. You will need the answers people gave you in lesson 6.1, What motivates people once pay is fair, and the growth questions you added to your bank in lesson 2.2, Questions that get past everything is fine.
A growth plan works well as a short page with five parts.
The first is what the person wants, in their own words. A role, a skill, a kind of work, a direction.
The second is one or two skills to build over six months. Not five. One or two that would move them toward what they want.
The third is the work that would stretch them. The real projects, tasks or responsibilities in the next six months where they could practise those skills.
The fourth is learning support. A mentor, a course, a book, time with someone who already does it well, or a stretch assignment beyond the usual role.
The fifth is the review dates. When you will look at it again in one-on-ones.
Step 1 is to start from what the person wants. Begin the conversation with their answer. If you think someone would make a great team lead but they want to become a technical specialist, the plan should be about becoming a specialist. A plan built around what you want for them will be followed politely for a month and then forgotten.
If someone isn't sure what they want, that's common and fine. The plan can then be about finding out: trying two different kinds of work over six months and seeing which they enjoy.
Step 2 is to pick one or two skills. Narrow it down. "Get better at data" is too broad. "Write SQL queries to pull our own client data without asking IT" is specific enough to practise and to check.
Step 3 is to find the stretch work. This is where the plan becomes real. Look at the work your team has coming in the next six months and find pieces that would let the person practise. The delegation plan from lesson 3.4, Build your delegation plan, is a good source: tasks you are handing over may be exactly the stretch someone needs.
Step 4 is to add support. Name a specific person or resource for each skill. If a course costs money, find out what your company funds. In Singapore, the person may also be able to use their own SkillsFuture Credit, so suggest they check their eligibility and balance on the SkillsFuture website.
Step 5 is to set review dates. Put a check every six to eight weeks in the one-on-one document. The point of each check is to see how it's going and adjust. Plans change as people learn what they enjoy.
Wei Ling drafted this with Hui Min during a one-on-one.
What Hui Min wants: to move toward data analysis within two or three years. She enjoyed the analytical side of her old job and wants to do more of it.
Skills for the next six months: first, write SQL queries to pull client data from the company database without asking IT; second, build a dashboard that shows the team's weekly report and escalation figures automatically.
Stretch work: automate the data-cleaning step of Farid's weekly client report, working with Farid, so it takes one hour instead of three. Then build the escalation dashboard Daniel has been asking for, which would replace part of the monthly service report she now owns.
Support: a short online SQL course, which Hui Min will check against her SkillsFuture Credit. An hour every two weeks with Mei Fen, an analyst in the finance team, who agreed to be a mentor when Wei Ling asked. Read access to the client database, which Wei Ling will request from IT this week.
Review dates: one-on-ones in weeks 6, 12, 18 and 24, with the dashboard as the main check at week 24.
You have a one-page plan with all five parts, written with the person in the room. The skills are specific enough that you could tell at the next review whether they're improving. At least one piece of real work is named as stretch. The support has names and next actions beside it. The review dates are in the one-on-one document.
The best test is whether the person would describe it as their plan. If they would call it "the thing my manager made me fill in", go back to step 1.
Book the conversation with one person, bring their answers from lesson 6.1, and build the plan with them in the room.
Draft a growth plan with one direct report in a one-on-one and add it to their shared document.
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