ESSENTIALS MANAGEMENT Performance reviews are backwards-looking, while career conversations are forward-looking. Performance reviews ≠ career conversations. Limit them to the near future. “In thinking about career conversations, the short term is not a good way to think. The idea that discussing promotion equals discussing career? Nope,” Laraway says. “Promotions, at their very best, represent an incremental increase in scope and growth. At their worst, they’re nothing more than a title and comp change, a nice formal recognition for a job well done. Promotion conversations do not equal career conversations.” Just check the box. “Big Bad Company Inc.’s CEO convenes all the VPs and they put up on the screen the recent scores from the engagement survey. They discover that in three to ifve years, a bunch of people are going to leave because they’re concerned about career growth and development. Panic ensues,” says Laraway. “I’ve seen this a number of times in more than one company. An HR person chimes in and says, ‘You know what? We’ve got to get everybody on an IDP, an individual development plan.’ Boom. Problem solved. The VPs, desperate for action, say ‘Yes!’ and relay the message down the line to directors, managers and their teams. Employees burn their weekends putting together their IDPs. Monday comes. They say, ‘Got my IDP.’ Box checked, squared away. Then no one looks at the IDPs again. It is a terrible process, but the box has been checked. That’s a problem.” Improvise. People sometimes approach career planning in a start-and-stop, half-baked way. “We plan a lot of things. We plan our families, plan our weekends, plan our vacations and plan our meals,” says Laraway. “It’s a little crazy to me that we don’t otfen put a lot of energy, intentionality, or conscientiousness toward our careers. We need to put a little more structure around that.” The way to ifx this imbalance is to follow the framework Laraway lays out for developing career action plans and having serious, meaningful — and even amazing — conversations with your employees. By doing that, you can really help them grow towards their dreams. By investing in your people in this highly differentiated way, otfen they’ll say, “I’m growing and my manager has my back. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.” 112