People First! with Morag Barrett

All right.

Yep.

So you're fine.

We can cut.

So are we going to ask a question?

Oh, no, no.

And you still may say it differently,

in which case I'll answer nonetheless.

Okay.

Fair enough.

You're like me.

Okay.

Excellent.

Well, let's do it then.

Welcome to this week's

episode of People First.

And my guest this week is

the bestselling author,

Julie Winkle Giuliani.

Oh, my gosh.

Sorry.

And take it again.

I jinxed you.

I know.

I was so confident and then I decided, no,

I'm not.

All right, Usman, here we go.

Take two.

Welcome to this week's

episode of People First.

And this week,

my guest is the award-winning author,

Julie Winkle Giulioni.

And she is the champion for

workplace growth and

development and helps

executives and leaders

optimize talent and

potential within their organizations.

which is all the fancy way

of saying that she helps us

all to grow our careers together.

She is one of Inc.

Magazine's top one hundred

speakers and the authors of

Promotions Are So Yesterday,

Redefine Career Development,

Help Employees Thrive,

and co-author of the

international bestseller,

which we will be talking about today,

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go Today.

Career Conversations

Organizations Need and

Employees Still Want,

which has now been

translated into seven languages.

And I have here a copy,

an advanced copy of the third edition.

Julie is a regular columnist

for the Training Industry

Magazine and Smart Brief

and contributes articles on leadership,

career development and

workplace trends to numerous publications,

including Fast Company and The Economist.

You can keep up with Julie

through her blog and LinkedIn.

More information to come,

but check out the show notes below.

So Julie, welcome to People First.

Thank you so much.

I am so looking forward to

this conversation.

I sat down and started to read,

help them grow or watch them go.

And I wish I had this as a

resource when I was in my

corporate career.

But it was interesting to me

that a lot of the tips and

tools apply now, even as an entrepreneur,

with the conversations I'm

having with my teammates and colleagues.

But more on that to come.

As with every episode,

I start with the burning

question of the century.

When you were a wee girl, Julie,

and the teacher said,

what do you want to be when you grow up?

What was your answer?

I had two aspirations as a child.

I wanted to be a medical doctor.

I just thought meeting

people would be the coolest thing ever.

And if that didn't work out,

I wanted to be an elevator

operator because I, you know,

back in the olden days, you know,

you had to, it wasn't just hitting.

There was a full-time

employee whose job it was to close the,

you know,

raking door and then to drive

the elevator up and down.

And one summer I got to

learn how to do that.

And I thought that was, you know,

that was right up there

with medical doctors.

I love that.

I wanted to be a long

distance truck driver

because I thought I'd get

to see the world.

And I remember at one point

my sons wanted to be, well,

they said box movers,

but they decided pizza

delivery because they got to move boxes,

but then they would get the pizzas too.

And I just love that sort of creative,

I don't know, just dreams that we have.

So from elevator operator to

what was the pivot then that

made your career move to

where you are today well I

don't know how realistic

elevator operation was you

know given that uh well I'm

your book speak it has its

ups and downs yeah oh well

did you like that so you

know there probably wasn't

going to be much of a

future in that once uh

buildings figured out how

to do it on a self-service basis

But I think that the

underlying idea of needing

to pivot and change and

adjust and update based

upon changing conditions is

pretty central to the work

that I do in the career development space,

because given how things

are changing and morphing

and evolving so quickly,

many of the jobs that feel

really compelling,

more so than an elevator operator today,

tomorrow could be off our

radar screens and there's

something else that needs to be doing.

And so that kind of

flexibility and the ability

to follow where opportunity lies,

I think may be central to

my success and my thinking

about this field.

It's funny because I can

recall one of the most

frustrating questions I was

asked often in my early career was,

where do you see yourself

in five years time,

which was code for what job

title do you think you would have?

And of course,

as you've just touched on there,

many of the job titles we

have now didn't exist when

my career was just starting out,

let alone five years ago.

And who knows what's

going to be available in the

years to come and you make

that point in the book

which is more or less about

what you want to be and

more about what you want to

do and the skill set so

tell us a little bit more

about that yeah you know

the where do you see

yourself in three to five

years to me feels like the

corporate equivalent of

what do you want to be when

you grow up you know

pushing people toward titles, toward roles,

toward these very specific

boxes on an org chart that, as you said,

may or may not be there.

But it also sets up this

dynamic of scarcity and the

tendency for managers to be

in a position where they have to say no.

Because if I want to be the

vice president of XYZ,

there's only so many of those.

And they may not be ready when I'm ready.

I might not be ready when

the opening is ready.

And so it sets up this

dynamic where we end up

feeling frustrated as

individuals and stressed

out as managers who have to

have conversations and

perhaps disappoint people

and not meet expectations.

And so the shift from what

do you want to be

to what kind of work do you

want to be doing?

What kind of problems do you

want to solve?

What kind of challenges are

you angling for?

What kinds of customers,

technology do you want to work with?

All of that opens a

conversation up in a way

and lays something out on

the table that managers can

start to say yes to.

Because when we get creative

and we hear what people want to do,

we can frequently introduce

into the envelope of

someone's current role

those experiences and

opportunities that keep

them engaged and growing

perhaps on the road to, you know,

some other role or, you know,

what they want to be as well.

Well,

you opened the book with a few of the

myths associated with

career development and

career development conversations.

And I think you just touched on one there,

which is the, yeah,

but what if I can't meet

their expectations?

So you know what?

I'm just not going to do it.

No.

So what's your answer to that?

Yeah.

You know, the funny thing is,

as managers and leaders,

we frequently go into the

conversation thinking

everybody wants the promotion, the salary,

increase the corner office, you know,

things that we've

We don't have a lot of.

But the truth is,

when we get under that and

really start having

authentic conversations,

we discover that people are

interested in so much more.

When we originally wrote our first edition,

we did a survey and we asked employees,

what do you want more than

anything else out of a

career conversation with your boss?

The number one theme was

creative ways to use my

skills and talents.

Now, one manager...

Can't say yes to that.

What manager wouldn't benefit?

What organization wouldn't

thrive if we were using

skills and talents in new

and different ways?

So the challenge for

managers is to work past that myth.

And the problem is these

myths tend to immobilize us.

Work past the myth.

Start having the conversation.

And folks are going to be

really surprised by what bubbles up.

The other one that stuck with me was the,

well, the employee owns their career,

which was actually also not even code for,

it was explicit for.

So we as an organisation are

washing our hands of it.

You are responsible for your

own career development.

And again,

a little bit of me just dies on

the inside every time I

hear that because it's

abdicating co-responsibility.

So how do we make sure that

both parties are showing up

to this conversation as

prepared as they can be?

Yeah, it's really a relationship,

isn't it?

It's not an either or.

Employees have to own their development.

I mean, nobody else can own it for you,

but they can't do it alone.

They need the support,

the encouragement of those managers.

and the systems that support

them from an organizational standpoint.

So it becomes a little bit,

I look at it as a bit of a dance.

Employees have their steps,

but a manager needs to be in there too,

doing the facilitation and

the enablement and the

networking and offering the

resources that are necessary.

So the key is for both to

recognize that they've got

a stake in this and a

responsibility associated with it,

And to come to conversations, both,

you know,

the formal ones that might

happen a couple of times a year,

but also to have, you know,

the ongoing conversations

being really rich with

insight about what's possible.

Ongoing conversations?

How often should I be

talking and thinking about

my career then?

So the way we really look at

career development, it is,

and this is right up your alley,

my friend, it is a relationship.

And it's a relationship that

plays out through conversation.

So frequently, managers, leaders,

they think, OK,

I have that one big hour

and a half conversation and

we plot out everything the

employee is going to do all year long.

And then back to what you were saying,

I'm done for now.

And we know that doesn't

that one and done approach doesn't work.

What works and what actually

works better given the

cadence of business and how

busy managers and employees

for that matter are,

is an ongoing thread of dialogue.

When managers start to look

at the interactions they're

already having with people,

they're going to be able to

see that there are

wonderful opportunities to

just with some curiosity

and a great question,

shift that conversation

you're already having, not an extra one,

not extra time that you

have to add to your agenda.

Shift the time that you're

already spending with

people to bring some

attention to development,

to bring that out.

And so again, with some curiosity,

a good question,

we can mine the

interactions that are already there,

get some development wrung out of that.

And then what we're doing is

layering these small pieces of insights

and ideas and momentum, one on the other,

to create more of an

authentic approach and an

embedded organic approach

to career development.

What I like about that is, again,

it's not about doing more.

It's doing what we are already doing,

just a more laser-like and

thoughtful and intentional way.

So I've already mentioned

that we're talking about Julie Winkle,

Giuliani's book,

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go,

which is now on its third edition.

So in this third edition,

what are readers going to uncover?

What new nuggets are you including?

You know, that's such a great question,

because when the publisher

first came to us and said, hey,

it's time to update it.

You know, my first thought was, well,

you know, it's kind of evergreen content.

Is it really, does it need to be updated?

And upon reading it, what I recognized was,

yeah, sure.

Yeah, it's good evergreen content.

But the context that this

has to happen in today has

changed dramatically.

A few things have happened

over the last five years.

And so context is everything.

And so that's really what

we've leaned into with this

edition to really look at

the current issues that we

have around psychological safety.

We've got a whole new

chapter around developing

at a distance because we've

got a critical mass now of

employees who are remote or

hybrid and attending to the

growth needs of that

population is different and it requires

back to something you were

just talking about intentionality, like,

you know, we've,

we've not seen in the past.

We've increased the number

of questions because we

know that's really the,

the currency of great

career conversations.

And so we've got over a

hundred questions in this edition.

We've,

we've addressed the issue of talent

hoarding because a lot of times managers,

leaders,

they bring this scarcity

mentality to talent people and

And if I develop them, I get to keep them.

And of course, the harder you squeeze,

the more they want to get

the heck out of Dodge.

And so how do we think about

talent as more of an

enterprise-wide resource

and growth as something

that's a responsibility and

a privilege that leaders have?

And then finally,

one other thing that we dug

into a bit in this edition was,

especially in a world of AI,

where there's so much

technology to help us,

We wanna also understand and

honor the role of HI, human interaction.

It really trumps the technology any day.

People are looking for a human connection,

that sense of investment

and respect and connection and belonging.

And so we talk about the

importance of that and how

to bring that humanity to the fore.

I love that you touched on

that because yes, with automation and AI,

we've all been at the

recipient end of being

ghosted by recruitment

processes or applications

where you never hear

whether or not your

application was received.

And there's that element of

doubt and all the

psychological impact that has.

But what you're saying is

that the relationships still matter.

So we

do still,

whether we're working in an

office co-located or

working at time and distance,

still need to invest in

that human interface,

as you've described it,

and nurture those

relationships because that

differentiates and can help

make a difference as we're

moving up the ladder or

across the ladder.

Which actually brings me to

another question.

Is the ladder dead?

Well, that is a very good question.

The ladder is definitely rickety.

In many organizations, right?

And it has been for a while.

I mean, you know, the,

and even the idea of a

ladder that suggests an

even flow of talent, perhaps, you know,

it's like this and the air

gets thinner and thinner toward the top.

The opportunities are fewer and fewer.

So I don't think the latter is dead,

despite, you know,

my other book is titled

Promotions Are So Yesterday.

And, you know, promotions are so today.

There's going to be so tomorrow.

They're part of the

organizational structure,

the organizational psyche.

But they're just one of many

ways people can grow.

And, you know,

there are only so many opportunities up,

a lot more opportunities this way.

But where the opportunities

are nearly infinite,

is right within the role you occupy.

And when we become really

intentional about that,

when we get clear on what

our interests are, how we want to grow,

there are lots of ways that

we can invite those

experiences into the

envelope of that current

role in a way that serve us

and our development needs

and serve the organization as well.

All right, so I have two questions.

Let's start with the manager,

the people manager.

So they're listening to this episode.

How do they find out whether

or not the career

development planning and

conversations they're having right now,

how do they find out how

they're doing and what's

one thing they can do to up their game?

Probably the most powerful

way to assess how you're

doing is to ask the people around you.

And invite feedback.

So going to employees and saying,

I really want to offer the

experience of development.

And I'm learning about this stuff, too.

So tell me, what am I doing well?

You know, how am I making you feel valued?

How am I supporting you to grow?

And what am I not doing so well?

What else do you need from

me or what differently?

Can I do to better support your efforts?

And it is amazing how

generous people will be

with the information that

will help the leader to grow and,

of course,

help them then in return to grow as well.

So that's probably the first

step that I'd be inclined

to take just to get, you know,

kind of a baseline.

So I know as a leader,

what do I want to keep doing?

What do I need to change?

What do I need to stop?

And then responding accordingly, you know,

based upon the feedback

that you get is key.

One of the things that we

hear from most employees,

very few people complain

about the quality of the

development they're getting.

Mostly it's the absence of it.

Okay.

Simply increasing the number

of times you're talking to people,

asking them, what are you learning?

What are you interested in learning?

Where are you succeeding?

Where are the struggles?

Just having those conversations.

And again,

it doesn't have to be a big

major sit down.

It could be five minutes at

the beginning of your one-on-ones,

just making that a ritual.

Let's talk about your growth.

Where do things stand?

Or passing people in the hallway,

finding ways to infuse more

of a development focus into

those conversations.

Just increasing the number

of times that we're talking

about this has a profound

impact on people.

It really leaves them

feeling respected and

valued and invested in.

So, okay,

let's put ourselves now in the

shoes or the slippers or

the socked feet of somebody

who's working at a time and

distance away from their manager.

And again, listening to this conversation,

what advice do you have for

them in perhaps raising

this topic for the first

time and going into that

first conversation with some preparation?

Yeah, and that's really key, Marig.

I think

The preparation, the thoughtfulness,

the being deliberate,

the being intentional is

what it's all about,

especially when you're at a distance.

You've got that much more

intentionality to it.

So for someone who's remote or hybrid,

who's not getting the

quality or the quantity of

development that they're looking for,

the key is to come to the

manager with a

non-threatening approach

and invitation to engage.

So to say, you know,

if I find myself at a

distance and I don't want

that to get in the way of

my ability to contribute to our team,

to our organization,

I want to make sure that

I'm continuing to grow and develop.

And at a distance, it's a little harder,

Mr. or Ms.

Boss.

So I wonder, could we,

at the beginning of each of

our one-on-ones,

just spend a couple of

minutes talking about development,

just so it stays top of mind for me?

or bringing to the boss, you know,

I'm really interested in

learning more about finance.

I want to build my business, you know,

acumen.

Is there any chance that you

might need help as you

start to build next year's budget?

You know,

could I shadow you some of the

grunt work and just kind of

through osmosis,

get that bringing some of

those ideas to the table

takes the weight off the

manager's shoulders and an

idea that's a win-win like that.

I mean,

You know, what manager is not going to say,

absolutely, I could use the help.

Okay, love it.

So as we come to the end of

our time together,

what's the one thing that

you hope listeners to

people first take away from

our conversation?

I sure hope that leaders and

managers walk away with the

understanding that career

development doesn't have to

be hard or heavy or onerous.

It doesn't have to be long, big,

planned out meetings.

it can be really spontaneous

and organic and embedded in

the workflow when we

rethink how development operates,

when we realize that it

really fundamentally is how

we show up in the

relationship that we have with our folks.

And when we bring that kind

of development orientation

and relationship,

then everything we do

together is infused with a

sense of growth or at least

the opportunity for it.

Love it.

And at the beginning,

I mentioned both your blog and website.

So where can people go to

learn more about you and your work?

The website is probably the

best repository of my stuff.

It's Julie Winkle Giuliani dot com.

And I'm also on LinkedIn,

probably the only Julie

Winkle Giuliani there.

Love it.

Well,

thank you very much for being my

guest this week, Julie.

I've really enjoyed the

conversation and look

forward to future opportunities.

Thank you so much, Maureen.

Me too.