“We need to talk.”
Those are the 4 words you never want to hear. Regardless of what follows, you know your life is never going to be the same.
A week before my 21st birthday, my long-term girlfriend messaged me those words and asked if she could come over. As soon as I read them, I instantly felt a wave of anxiety and stress wash over me and a knot started forming in my stomach.
We had dated casually for a couple of years and then made things “official” almost a year prior to that message. Just a couple weeks before that we were looking at engagement rings and talking about our future together.
For a brief moment, I wondered if there was a way I could avoid having this conversation and hopefully things would stay the same?
No! This was happening whether I wanted it to or not…
My girlfriend pulled up in front of the house and I quickly jogged through the cold, mid-December rain and climbed into the passenger seat of her car.
She turned and looked at me nervously and handed me a 3 page letter that had been folded up. Before I unfolded it and started to read it she quickly explained,
“Something happened yesterday and I didn’t think it was right to hide it from you. I spent a while figuring out exactly what I wanted to say and wrote it all down in that letter. After you read it, we can talk.”
As I opened the letter and began to read, the knot in my stomach began to grow and it felt like my insides were being torn apart. To spare you the drawn out telenovela drama, here are my highlights:
She went to a house party with some friends the night before and they got drunk.
The guy hosting the party convinced her to spend the night and have sex with him.
The thrill of the taboo experience was so exciting that she had more “sober seconds” the next day.
She wanted to break up and go back to casually non-exclusively dating me so she could see what other experiences life had to offer.
Even though the heater was on in her car, I felt cold and nauseous.
The tears began pouring down my cheeks uncontrollably as she sat there awkwardly staring at me.
Why?! I didn’t understand.
If you had been a fly on the wall for the conversation that followed, you would have been horribly uncomfortable and probably wanted to get away.
She said that she still loved me and that she still wanted to get married eventually like we had been talking about, and have kids together some day.
But she wanted to get the partying out of her system first and experience everything she could while she was young, so she didn’t have any regrets when we settled down together. She wanted to keep dating me – but wanted us to be casual and non-exclusive again so she could do stuff with other guys and not feel like she was cheating on me.
She asked if I was good with that arrangement?
What would you have done in that situation?
I know all of the relationship coaches reading this next part are going to be groaning in frustration, but it’s true… sorry.
I agreed to be her casual backup-plan boyfriend, justifying it to myself that if I could be good enough or love her more or somehow outweigh the allure of the other experiences with more benefits in an exclusive relationship with me again, then this would all be in the past and we could go back to the way things were.
Fortunately, things didn’t work out and I chose to walk away from the relationship for my own mental and emotional health. The following year I met my amazing wife, Cierra, and the rest – as they say – is history.
But how often do we find ourselves in a similar situation in our business? Having a similar conversation with one of the people on our team.
One of the key leaders on your team wants to end their relationship with your company because something else came along that excites them more or gives them the opportunity to experience things they never have before.
They like your company and they’re thankful for the time you had together, but they see their future somewhere else.
Have you ever been surprised when someone turned in a letter of resignation or just straight up quit?
Keep reading if you want to know one of the best ways to create a fulfilling relationship between your company and your team members… the kind of relationship that creates loyalty that can’t be bought off by other companies.
According to the Global Talent Trends 2020 report from LinkedIn, organizations that have a performance training program for their team members have 53% less personnel turnover than companies that do not offer training.
Since the 1960s, formal performance training programs have increased in priority with each successive generation entering the workforce. More than a third of GEN Z job seekers list it the #1 factor in determining job selection, and more than a quarter of Millennials have it as their top factor as well.
In a recent study done by Udemy, almost two thirds of the people that quit jobs listed the primary reason as a lack of training for their supervisor. The same study found that more than half of current employees planned to quit their job if performance training was not offered for them in the immediate future.
Almost 90% of Millennials acknowledged that they would not leave their job if some kind of performance training was offered with their organization. But two thirds of employees will never ask a supervisor for the training that is so important to them.
West Monroe conducted a study recently and discovered that almost half of the team leaders surveyed admitted that they had received no performance training for their position and were simply mimicking the behavior and activities of the person they replaced.
So what’s the solution?!
There are 3 simple steps to creating an effective performance training program for your team members. To make it easy to remember, we can use the acronym “ACT”. (I’m a prior service US Army Soldier, so bear with me – we military guys love our acronyms!)
Step 1: ASSESS the performance training needs.
Have a mentorship conversation with each person on your team. For large teams, do this with your direct reports and teach them to do the same thing.
Preframe the conversation by having your team member bring notes about their professional development and career goals to the meeting, as well as a personal assessment of their strengths and areas for growth. As the leader, make notes about your perceptions of the team member ahead of time and bring those notes to the meeting.
Step 2: CREATE an individualized training plan.
A one-size fits all training plan is ineffective at best. Every team member is at a different place in their professional development and career, so they need customized training for their role and development level – not an 87-slide PowerPoint that everyone has to sit through once a quarter.
Use the feedback from the mentorship session with each team member to create a performance training plan tailored to their needs, interests, and goals within your organization.
Sometimes, this may not even require a financial investment from the company. Occasionally all it takes is you allowing some schedule flexibility and time freedom for them to attend online training or night classes that your team member is willing to pay for.
Make sure the training plan has clearly defined checkpoint goals, an end-of-quarter or end-of-year goal, and some kind of KPIs to assess progress.
Step 3: TRAIN your team members and monitor their progress.
Leading change in an organization is not a sprint. Substantive professional growth is not a 40-yard-dash.
Consistent, progressive improvement and development yields the greatest results and ROI on the investment your organization makes into your team members.
Monitor the progress of your team members as they go through their individual performance training plan. If you’re a few months into a year-long plan and you (or your team member) realize that the training isn’t producing the desired results in their performance and productivity, it’s OK to revise the plan.
Ultimately, you’re after results that actually work, not just strict adherence to a plan.
Implementing individualized performance training plans for your team members will not only demonstrate that you value them and view them as a worthwhile investment. It will also provide the environment for their relationship with your company to continually be new, fresh, and exciting as it continues to evolve.
Post your questions and success stories about performance training programs in the comments below.
Remember: everyone deserves exceptional leadership, and you can be that leader!