It can be tempting to focus everything on performance and metrics. Whether I’m talking about myself and what I accomplish, or what I look for from my team. Ultimately, though, a stronger focus on development will lead to far better long-term results.
In his book “The Coaching Habit“, author Michael Stanier words it very well:
Focus on development, not performance. Performance is important, but you won’t empower your team if you’re constantly putting out small fires and forgetting the larger goals. Look for areas in which an employee can grow.
It’s hard to ignore performance, as that’s what pays the bills, but development can’t be skipped. It’d be like an NFL player resting all week so they’d be fresh for Sunday; it’d work well for a week or two, and then the lack of development and training would start to show.
It also leads back to some tricky questions such as “is reading work?“. I’m still in largely the same camp there, where I feel that reading is indeed work, but it’s also something I feel guilty if I ever do during “working hours” when I should be “really working”.
Fortunately, most of Stainer’s quote is easier for me to manage. Empowering my team is becoming easier and easier, as a consequence of them becoming more capable, but more importantly as my trust with them continues to grow over the years. Team development shows fairly rapid results, and I love every aspect of it.
