❯ Talent Development as Gravity Slingshot

You've seen a gravity slingshot. Pick any space movie: Armageddon, Apollo 13, Interstellar, the Martin, the list goes on. The pilot uses the gravity of a planet to accelerate their spaceship much quicker than normally possible (and escapes some dire situation in the process). Unlike in movies, real life gravity slingshots can increase and decrease momentum.

Talent development can take a lesson from gravity slingshots. I first heard this analogy from Russ Laraway (VP at Qualtrics). I've struggled with developing others before. My own temperament towards career development (Type A, family business roots, flexible) sometimes meant a different perspective compared to my direct reports. Building upon Laraway's foundation and sourcing other material (Gitlab, Radical Candor, Bersin / Deloitte) has led to more informed and effective methods.

People leaders are the gravitational pull for their direct reports' careers. Individuals pilot their own career-spaceship, but leaders can either speed up or slow down their development.

SETTING EXPECTATIONS AND CAREER CONVERSATIONS

Diverging expectations about career are the primary source of frustration—for both managers and individual contributors. Align expectations around development (training, learning, expanding scope and responsibility), mobility (promotion, lateral moves, compensation), and prioritization (aligned with company goals, when, and how).

As for the actual conversations, connect the past and future with the present.

• Past - Motivations and Values

  • Take time to understand the person's past. What's their story, what motivates them, what values they hold. Go deep here. Pay special attention to major changes and bucket the patterns you see. Reflection will give opportunity for epiphanies.
    

• Future - Dreams and Vision

  • On the opposite end, take time to understand the person's dreams and direction for the future. What vision do they have for their own career? How close to it are they? We're not making hard commitments here. Instead, we're planting a flag in the distance to experiment against and aim towards.
    

• Present - Charter a Flight Path

  • Once you understand the path and future, we can build a path to connect them to their goal. This is the unsexy, hard, disciplined work. The IC should own it with support, buy-in, and ideation from the manager. Write down the next steps and apply SMART principles as a roadmap.
    

MEATY FUTURES AND STRETCH PROJECTS

Put meat on the bones for an IC's future. Have them get detailed; it makes it easier to develop and adhere to an action plan. "I want to be a CMO" has too many directions to meaningfully start. "I want to be a CMO at a mid-sized company within the technology sector. I'm best at setting up the machine and science of marketing (versus creative) and thrive when dealing with retention" takes much more effort to arrive at. And, it gives us the right context to build an actionable development plan.

Most plans involve some level of stretch projects. The fuel for our gravity slingshot. Stretch projects are tricky. It is where the manager can make or break talent development. It's helpful for managers and IC's to determine the areas under their control and start there.

Let's say your IC has an ultimate goal of being a CFO, but you sit in Product. That's a hard boundary to traditionally break. Yet, there's probably a team budget they could own. After mastery, look for higher challenge projects. In this case, maybe that's forecasting work.

TOOLS AND INFRASTRUCTURE

As a team leader, provide support through structure. Trying to level up your career is hard enough by itself. Structure (process, documentation, opportunities, etc.) makes it easier and reduces biases. The most beneficial infrastructure we've used included: job frameworks or ladders, action plans, planned check-ins, and space for reflection. In the end, the return on investment is a more highly engaged, skilled, and retained team.

Snapshot:

Bangor, Maine. It was our first time on the East Coast together. Walking off the plane, we could see all four corners of the airport. In 2022, they still let friends and family into the terminal to say goodbye to family and friends. Two baggage claims was enough for the entire building.

Striving for better,

Justin Pichichero