strategies you can use to support your direct reports.

Identify development opportunities that could be part of a development plan for your direct report.

Training
 An obvious opportunity is to suggest some form of training for your report. By this point in the process, you and your report should have an idea what gaps or weaknesses the report has that can be improved through training.

Peer Coaching
 Have your report shadow another employee to learn what they do and how they do it. This has an added benefit beyond teaching your report a new job or skill set. The act of teaching also helps the employee being shadowed, as the teacher often becomes more proficient by explaining her job to someone else.

Representing the team
 Placing your report in a situation where she represents your team or department at an important meeting or event can give the report a different perspective on the team and its place in the organization.

Changing job description
 Assign your report the task of defining his job, and then to identify ways of modifying the job description that might improve efficiency. The goal of this exercise is to get the report to think differently about his job – to take ownership of it.

Creating special projects
 Creating or delegating special projects can help motivate reports who appear to be bored or feeling under-appreciated. The key is to make the project challenging and meaningful. It should be viewed as a reward for competence, not a punishment.

Assisting the boss
 Have your report assist your boss or another executive on a special assignment. As with representing the team, this can introduce the report to new business perspectives of the organization's business.

You may have identified some or all benefits that come from developing your direct reports. The first is that providing development opportunities to your direct reports can make their jobs more interesting and challenging and contribute to a stimulating work environment. A second benefit of developing your direct reports is that you can inspire them to achieve top performance and fulfill their potential. Employees who are performing at their full potential produce the best results for your business. Inspired employees tend to take pride in their work and feel more responsible for the well-being of the company.

A third benefit for your organization is that motivated employees are generally more capable of working together to create new and innovative ideas for products and services, and to offer solutions to organizational problems. And the final benefit is that developing direct reports helps with talent management – of which the most obvious benefit is talent retention. By retaining employees with high potential, and helping them develop, your organization can make better use of their abilities. Human talent is also a competitive advantage for organizations. If your people are better than your competitor's, you have a competitive advantage. Developing your organization's talent also means developing future leaders. If people with high potential are retained, and well developed, they can be an asset for your company and will be the leaders in your organization in the future.

It is also important to realize that ignoring the professional development of your direct reports can have negative effects on your organization:

• employees feel neglected – Employees may be unhappy and feel neglected, leading to a decline in morale within the company.
• lack motivation and commitment – Employees may lack motivation and commitment. If they don't think their work is meaningful or important, they may start to pick up bad work habits.
• look for new jobs – Top performers who aren't given the opportunity to grow and don't feel they can move up in an organization may decide their talents could be put to better use elsewhere and look for new jobs with competitors. Underachievers may assume that they are doing a good job and feel they have no reason to improve.
• miss aligning goals – By not developing your employees, you miss out on aligning their development with the goals and objectives of your organization.

Developing direct reports effectively

As a manager, in order to develop your direct reports effectively, you need to encourage them to take responsibility and ownership of their own development. If employees are involved in their own development plans, they are more apt to succeed, because they won't see the plan as something forced on them from above.

Because employee development is a delicate task, it is best to use a structured approach. Employee development can be divided into three stages. The first stage is assessing the development needs of your direct reports. The second stage is providing them with the development opportunities to match their needs, as well as the company's needs. And the final stage is supporting their development on an ongoing basis.

So how do you assess the development needs of your employees? To begin with, you need to determine their current performance level. One method of doing that is to divide your team into three groups:

• overachievers – Overachievers are employees who are top performers. They consistently deliver excellent results and often exceed expectations.
• solid performers – Solid performers consistently meet expectations, but don't often exceed them. They are good performers but are not seen as stars within an organization.
• underachievers – Underachievers are employees who fail to meet expectations. Their performance is often the bare minimum that they can get away with, or it may not even meet the requirements of the job.

To differentiate your direct reports, you need to consider more than just their actual performance. You also need to consider their potential. To factor in both, you can use a performance and potential matrix. You begin by asking yourself two sets of questions – one each related to performance and potential – as they relate to your direct reports. Then you total the "yes" answers, correlate the totals to predetermined scales, and find each person's position on the matrix.

Developing your direct reports starts with looking at both their current performance as well as their potential. The benefits of developing your direct reports include making their jobs more interesting and challenging, inspiring them to achieve top performance and reach their potential. It is also a key factor in talent management. Not providing development opportunities can lead to unhappy, unmotivated employees whose efforts are not aligned with the objectives of your organization. Using the performance and potential matrix, you can divide employees into three groups: overachievers, solid performers, and underachievers. Being able to identify which group an employee belongs to will help you decide on an appropriate development plan for that employee. Overachievers require help to increase their exposure and prepare them for more challenging roles in the future. Solid performers need challenges that keep them interested and motivated. Underachievers need help to address performance issues and improve in their current positions before you can consider assigning them to new projects.

As your starting point, you and your report need to make time for the meeting. You should agree on a mutually convenient time and make sure that neither of you have appointments immediately before or after the meeting – you need to give your full attention to each other. In order to ensure these meetings are productive, you need to do your homework beforehand. Gather information on the reports, their values, preferences, capabilities, and interests in terms of career progression. Record concrete, possible, and realistic development opportunities based on the development strategy you identified as appropriate. The appropriate development strategy is based on which category your direct reports fall into.

During your preparation, focus your attention on obtaining a few key bits of information. Find out what skills your direct reports possess. You should also have a reasonable knowledge of your direct reports' interests and values. Finally, based on your direct reports' unique skills, experience, interests, and values, discover what opportunities are available for them.

Conducting the meeting

The goal of a career development meeting is to create a dialogue with your direct reports, learn more about them, and establish a plan to help them achieve their objectives. Conducting effective meetings with your direct reports involves four distinct guidelines:

• be clear – Be clear on the purpose and importance of the meeting. You need to communicate to your reports that their development is important to you – this is essential to building trust. If your reports feel you're simply going through the motions, they will not be receptive to you or the plan you're suggesting.
• assign responsibility – Assign responsibility for the development plan to your direct reports. It's very important that your reports understand that they are ultimately responsible for their own development and that you're there to help.
• share opinions – Share your opinions with your direct reports and verify with them that your perceptions are correct. This is where your preparation prior to the meeting pays off – having done your homework, you can provide valuable feedback. Communicate what you think are your reports' capabilities, interests, values, and preferences. Once you've presented your feedback, ask for your reports' opinions. Listening carefully to their responses is crucial, as it enables you to be in tune with your reports and what they want from their career.
• discuss development opportunities – Discuss, with your reports, the development opportunities you've identified, but be careful not to create false expectations, and again, listen to their responses and reactions. Once again, proper preparation in advance of these meetings is crucial for providing your reports with the information they need. Reports who have been identified as underachievers must address performance issues and improve in their current positions before they can be considered for assignment to new projects.

Agreeing on a development plan

A successful development plan must accomplish four main objectives:

• challenge the employee – Growth comes through challenge, so it's essential to the success of a development plan that it sufficiently challenges the employee. This is especially true in the case of overachievers who can become bored or disillusioned by a development plan that lacks sufficient challenge.
• align the strategy with the report's development needs and the team and company objectives – Another key to a successful plan is aligning the plan to the development strategy identified for your direct reports – it must play to their strengths. It must also be aligned to the team and company objectives.
• identify deliverables, actions, and timeframes – This objective is achieved through a structure that includes deliverables, specific actions, and timeframes. Success also depends on your ability to define the plan's objectives.
• include follow-ups on report's progress – Finally, you need to establish a follow-up schedule to track the report's progress. You should also remind the reports that they own the plan, and are responsible for it.

As a manager, you've done your homework, met with your reports, and shared your thoughts on what development opportunities they would like to pursue. Now it's time to suggest a course of action. There are a number of development opportunities you can pursue with your reports. For example, you could suggest training or peer coaching. You could also suggest a situation where the report is representing the team. Other options include changing your reports' job descriptions, creating special projects, or assisting the boss.

You can customize your development opportunity suggestions depending upon your reports' individual needs. Customized suggestions lead to greater job satisfaction and increased productivity. When you provide them with the right opportunities, your reports can see how important their work is to the organization's overall success. This understanding can lead to greater job satisfaction and increased productivity.

Providing development opportunities involves three things: preparing for the meeting, conducting the meeting, and agreeing on a development plan. Prior to meeting, you need to prepare – collect all the relevant information so that you can make informed decisions on the direction of the report's career development. Conducting effective meetings with your report involves four distinct guidelines: being clear on the purpose of the meeting, assigning responsibility for and ownership of the plan to the report, sharing your opinions with your report, and discussing development opportunities you've identified. Finally, you and your report need to agree on the best development plan. To ensure that the plan is effective, it must be sufficiently challenging for the report and align with the development strategy you identified for your report. It should include deliverables, specific actions, timeframes, and a follow up schedule to monitor progress.