Does Your Employee Development Strategy Include Vertical Development?

Most talent management folks only see one form of development

A foundational aspect of talent management is developing employees. Undoubtedly, your organization is engaging in efforts to develop its employees.
 

Acknowledging this, I have a question for you: What form of development does your organization focus on and prioritize?

If this question causes you to cock your head, furrow your brow, and ask, “huh?” You wouldn’t be alone.

Most talent management folks only see one form of development. To them, it is just “development.” But, for those who know that there are different forms of development, this most common form of development is “horizontal development.”

Horizontal development involves broadening employees’ knowledge, skills, and competencies. The focus of this form of development is to help employees DO MORE. It is not unlike downloading an app onto an iPad. Provided the app is compatible with the iPad, the new app broadens that iPad’s usefulness. It can now do something that it couldn’t do previously. While this form of development surely broadens what one can do, it does not necessarily improve how well the person functions as a person.

But there is a different form of development called vertical development.

Vertical development is elevating employees’ ability to make meaning of their world in more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways. The focus of this form of development is to help employees BE BETTER. It is not unlike upgrading an iPad’s operating system. Its objective is to help employees operate at a higher and more effective level.

To help demonstrate how these two types of development differ and what their implications are, let me focus on one of the most commonly-focused on topics in manager and leadership development: Delivering effective feedback.

In most instances, when an organization decides to help their managers develop their ability to deliver effective feedback, they will plan a training for managers to attend. In this training, those involved will generally be given (1) best-practice recommendations for delivering feedback as a way to enhance their knowledge, and (2) opportunities to develop their skills via role plays.

The organization’s assumption with this approach is that once managers go through the training, they will then have the “delivering effective feedback app” downloaded; and therefore, will deliver more effective feedback in future feedback situations.

But, the reality is that only some of the managers have an operating system (i.e., the cognitive and emotional sophistication) to actually download and run the app on their system. In other words, the individuals who likely need the most help are the ones least likely to improve.

Let me demonstrate how this plays out.

A common question that I use to assess the quality of managers’ operating systems is: “Do you think, in general, that employees are trying the best that they can?”

The most common answer that I get to this question is, “No.” This answer is not completely invalid, but it demonstrates a failure to see and respect the environment’s role in low employee performance.

When a manager “makes meaning” in this less-sophisticated way and an employee underperforms, the manager is likely to be critical of their employee. Specifically, the manager will be inclined to think: “What is wrong with this employee?”

If managers maintain this perspective after delivering effective feedback training, they will be unlikely to change their criticality toward their employees, which is a foundational hindrance to delivering effective feedback.

On the other hand, if an organization wanted to improve their manager’s ability to deliver effective feedback via vertical development, the focus would not be directly on enhancing knowledge or improving skills. Instead, it would be focused on helping managers make meaning of their world in more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways.

In this case, the development efforts would likely focus directly on the question: “Do you think, in general, that employees are trying the best that they can?”

The whole purpose of the development would be to help managers change their perception of their employees from “instinctively not trying their best,” to seeing them as people who are “trying their best.”

When managers can make this shift in perception, a whole new world of opportunity opens up to them when they encounter an underperforming employee. Instead of seeing that employee not doing their best and being critical of them, they will approach that employee inquisitively, asking: “What is preventing you from performing at a higher level?”

It is a shift from “what is wrong with you?” to “what is getting in your way?”

Which of these two managerial approaches to feedback is going to lead to more effective feedback delivery and development of employees? Of course, the latter. The former will only cause employees to be defensive.

Horizontal development is important and has its place. But, it is often a band-aid and short-sighted approach to development, particularly at higher levels of the organization.

Something you should note about vertical development from the example is that the development provided didn’t even need to directly address feedback to improve managers’ feedback-giving abilities. By changing managers’ “meaning making,” it would likely not only improve their ability to deliver feedback but would also help them improve their ability to better engage and retain their employees.

Vertical development is a deep and long-term approach to development that is largely unknown and underutilized, but it is the next frontier in talent management and can help organizations establish a real competitive talent advantage.