Explaining why skill development is important

There are many skills that need to be developed through a career. Some are clear and obvious - Software Engineers need to develop their coding skills and experience. Others can be less clear and less obvious - Like building up a great community and workplace culture. 

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When skills that we want our folks to develop aren’t clear, obvious and anchored in a strong ‘why this is important’, it can be challenging for folks to connect with the skill development, and lead to performative or surface level behaviours. It can even lead to skipping or evading working on tasks that would help them develop these skills and experiences. 

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As a leader we want to set our people up for success, and a part of that is helping them understand why a particular skill, behaviour or even task is important. Not only is this ensuring that they are just as curious about their own career as they are about the next feature we are developing, but also when they understand the why, they might find an even better way to go about learning, developing and demonstrating this. It puts them in the empowered position to own their career development, not just to take suggestions and direction from us. 

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On the Kaleida platform, every skill has an overview page that explains to folks what this skill looks like as it starts and as you grow with it, and most importantly we give a description of why it is important to develop this skill. We believe this helps individuals connect and understand why they are developing this skill, and also to facilitate great conversations with their managers as they work towards it. 

Are you going through the Why of skill development with your team members? Next time you make a development suggestion to a team member, if you aren’t already, try leading with a why statement first.