Career Development Relationships Begin With Care

Many professionals believe they’re on their own when trying to advance their careers, said career development experts Julie Winkle-Giulioni and Bev Kaye in their ATD25 session. To assist, Winkle-Giulioni and Kaye provided tools and resources to improve the employer-employee career development relationship and help individuals feel like part of a team.

“I’ve come to think of development as a Swiss Army knife,” Winkle-Giulioni said. “It’s the one tool that leaders can use to do so many different things. Here, what’s so fascinating is learning and development activates that discretionary effort that unlocks a cascade of other things.”

Kaye and Winkle-Giulioni discussed their Relationship-Based Development framework, which is based on three C’s: care, conversation, and ‘countability. [sic]

The co-hosts also highlighted qualities such as active listening, transparency, and trust that make relationships successful.

“Say what you see,” Kaye explained. “‘I noticed when you were working on that, you didn’t look very happy.’ Or, ‘I noticed the grin on your face when you were working on this report.’ It’s just finding out more information.”

To drive that conversation and help develop relationships, both employees and leadership need to be curious.

“We have to be curious about the words people use, about their facial expressions as they answer a question,” Kaye explained. “And of course, if one’s manager does that, then there’s that wonderful, delicious trickle-down effect. A conversation without curiosity on the manager’s side is, maybe, not worth having.”

Read more about ATD25 at conferencedaily.td.org.