For many, the development discussion is a familiar annual routine. An hour is booked in the calendar, the manager and the employee fill in a form and go through it point by point. Finally, goals are recorded and the matter is revisited a year later at the latest. As a result, the form has been filled in, but did anything meaningful happen?
The starting point of a modern development discussion is different. Its purpose is not to get the development discussion performed, but to generate a conversation that helps the employee, the manager and the organisation develop.
What does a modern development discussion look like?
A modern development discussion is a goal-oriented dialogue between the employee and the manager, examining the direction of the work, successes, challenges, competence and development. What matters is not the form used, or even a single annual conversation, but that the conversation connects to the organisation's goals, helps the employee evaluate their own work and continues in everyday life.
A good development discussion therefore looks in two directions at once:
What does the employee need in order to succeed and develop?
and
What does the organisation need from the employee to reach its goals?
When these two meet, the development discussion changes from an HR practice into a leadership tool.
Why does the traditional development discussion fail to inspire?
There is nothing old-fashioned about development discussions in themselves. But they have got stuck in an uninspired form-filling shuffle that is a necessary evil for manager and employee alike. If filling in the form becomes the conversation's main goal, the attention is no longer on a developmental conversation.
The same questions are gone through with everyone in the same order, regardless of which things are essential in this particular person's work.
Development discussion = a conversation whose purpose is to help the employee develop.
The much-maligned forms were probably originally just a way to document things consistently, but over time the format has hijacked the content, and everyone in organisations now performs the same ritual dance without pausing to ask what the real goal of the conversations is and how productive and inspiring they could actually be.
Another problem is disconnection. If the things agreed in the development discussion do not show up anywhere over the following weeks and months, even a good conversation held once a year will struggle to bring about change. At worst, both the employee and the manager already know when arriving at the conversation that this is an obligation to be got out of the way. Then the development discussion does "happen", but no development happens.
A modern development discussion begins with dialogue
There is nothing wrong with a form as such. Good questions help with preparation and bring structure to the conversation. But the form should serve the conversation, not the conversation the form.
In a modern development discussion, not everything needs to be covered. It is more important to identify the things worth discussing more deeply right now. It starts from a real need and is dialogical.
For one person it may be developing their own competence. For another, unclear work goals. For a third, collaboration with the rest of the organisation. For a fourth, the question of where their work is heading.
When the topics of the conversation can be prioritised, the limited time is spent on things that genuinely matter to the participants. This also deepens the manager's understanding of their team members, and people are met and led the way today's employees want: as individual human beings.
The development discussion must connect to the organisation's strategy
The modern development discussion is an interesting strategic leadership tool from management's perspective too.
If the organisation has a new strategy, new goals or new priorities, the development discussion offers one of the few situations where you can pause to reflect on what they mean from the individual employee's perspective:
- What does our strategy mean in my work?
- What should I do more of, less of, or differently?
- What kind of competence will I need in the future?
- What is preventing me from succeeding in my goals?
A strategy is not realised by the personnel having seen the strategy slides. It is realised only when people can connect the organisation's direction to their own work.
The development discussion can be a general place for development, but also a natural forum for making the individual's connection to the strategy visible.
What if the whole development discussion model needs renewal?
An individual manager can do a lot to improve their own development discussions. From the organisation's perspective, however, the question is bigger.
It is worth examining at least whether the current model produces the kinds of conversations the organisation needs:
- Are the right things being talked about?
- Do employees genuinely get their voices heard?
- Do the conversations connect to the strategy and the goals?
- Can the things agreed on be revisited?
- Do hundreds of individual conversations generate any shared understanding for the organisation?
If the answer to several of these questions is no, the problem will not be solved with a new form or manager training; then it is worth renewing the way the conversation itself is held.
How often should development discussions be held?
When talking about the modern development discussion, you easily run into the idea that annual development discussions should be scrapped and replaced with continuous one-to-one or pulse conversations. The confrontation is unnecessary.
An organisation can well have a more thorough development discussion once a year and lighter conversations alongside it throughout the year. What matters more is what kind of continuum they form and whether they consistently feel fresh and necessary. Then the development discussion is genuinely part of leadership.
A good development discussion does not feel like a form
The goal of the modern development discussion is ultimately quite simple: to get two people to talk about the right things openly and concretely enough.
Structure helps. Good questions help. Tools can help. But the job of all of them is the same: to make the conversation better.
When a development discussion succeeds, the employee gains a clearer picture of what is expected of them, where they want to develop and what happens next. The manager understands the employee's situation better. And the organisation gets something more out of development discussions than a pile of filled-in forms.
To sum up, the development discussion is not meant to be just an HR process to be performed. It is an important leadership tool that strengthens the interaction between the manager and the employee and helps the employee genuinely develop and the manager lead with a coaching approach.
Do you want to stop the stiff formality and form-filling and turn development discussions into genuinely developmental conversations?
Try Topaasia's 1:1 development discussion tool for free in your next development discussion and you will know why there is no going back to the form.
"You will be pleasantly surprised by how much higher-quality conversation is possible and how much more meaningful topics come up."
Juha Riippi
CEO, Quanscient
"If you really want to go deeper in a development discussion, so that you are not always talking only about issues but about causes, consequences and opportunities, I would recommend using Topaasia to help."
Mia Santala
Saranen Consulting
"This felt more like a coaching conversation than going through a form. The person chose the cards and went through them, while the leader listened and challenged them to think."
Elisa Laatikainen
Manager, Entteri