Finding the Growth Zone
In my last post, I wrote about the importance of growing the people you lead by letting them come up with solutions to the challenges they face. It makes the mahi they do even more fulfilling, it gives you space to do your job, and it makes leadership more fun.
But growing people comes with risks too, right? For people to grow, they need to go beyond what they already know. And in the land beyond what they know lies potential mistakes, trepidation, and slower progress. It’s where there’s a real risk that we stumble at times and – as I’ve written about before – graze our knees. This is all stuff that organisations often reject in favour of Get it right, don’t show vulnerability and deliver deliver deliver (fast). When that’s what we reward, people stay with what they know, don’t dare make mistakes, and supress creativity in favour of getting sh!t done. That place is called the comfort zone. It’s not always a bad thing; people are often operating from a position of strength in that place. But it’s not a place of innovation or growth. And that can mean you and your team stagnate.
So here’s the challenge then. How do we get people to step into the land beyond what they know, but not create a sense of panic or dread in them? How do we create an environment where people:
Reframe mistakes so that they become true learning events and signals that progress is happening?
Embrace the nervousness because that tells them they’re taking on worthy challenges?
Feel like they can be creative, daring, and still safely share that they are feeling vulnerable?
One idea I encourage leaders to use in service of the above is the Skill, Stress and Stretch test. When you’re challenging your people to go bigger, take on challenges and develop their capability, they’ll be more likely to step into that if they think it’ll be potentially rewarding for them. That means giving them a gentle push out of the shallows, but not leaving them floundering in the deep end. And it’s an art. Here’s how the Skill, Stress, Stretch test works. When you are asking your people to step into a challenge, get them to rate the challenge on this matrix. How do they feel about the challenge in relation to Skill, Stress and Stretch?
The key is to find a balance between getting out of the comfort zone but not creating a sense of threat. Stay too comfortable and there’s no growth. Push too hard and you create panic that shuts people down. In the matrix above, you’re looking for people to be more in the growth zone than comfort or threat. If they are feeling threat in one of the facets, work out together how to make it feel more like an achievable challenge. If they’re looking too comfortable, challenge them to push themselves a bit further.
You can grab a printable version of my resource for the Skill Stress Stretch matrix here – have a go and see what difference it makes for promoting growth and development with your people.