If you were the Rahul Dravid of your team - a strengths based approach to people development.

A couple of years ago, Gallup came out with a major study. And in what's clearly a writing on the wall that most of the organisations and managers can ignore only to their peril, the five new expectations of people from their workplace included a major shift in what they expected of their managers at work. Instead of managers as bosses they expected managers to be coaches.

A couple of months ago, I was in a series of training sessions with managers on the topic of managers as developers of their team members. (And this was well before the historic 2-1 series win that India had in the Border-Gavaskar trophy in Australia in January this year.)
While I don't remember the specific question that triggered it all, it was essentially around:

• How do you decide on developing your team members?

• What will you develop in them?

• What will you develop them for and what will you develop them towards?

1. What all will you develop in them as under 19 players?

1. What all will you develop them for?

1. What all will you develop them towards?

• Develop the young Sehwag for his fearless and explosive batting skills as well as help him in understanding the importance of pacing his game where the circumstances and team needed it the most. Also give him the opportunity to develop his slip-fielding, part-time off-spin skills but certainly not try and make him an all-rounder with part time medium pace and wicket-keeping skills also added to his 'individual development plan'.

• Develop Dhoni certainly for his explosive batting cum match-finishing skills, ability to read the game well, strategise with plans A and B and of course his un-precedented wicket-keeping skills.

• First identify the naturally recurring patterns of thoughts, feeling and behaviour in their team members that can be productively applied.

• Then look for the areas where these could be strategically utilised, paired with and the like.

• Choose training and development programmes in line with the natural talent themes of their team members.

• Help the team members manage their lesser talents with the right kind of partnerships and help them become aware of self-derailing behaviours or weaknesses as is popularly known.

• Be open to the unique approach/ strategy that each team member would bring to the same role given their unique talent combination rather than just expecting their team members to grow into their own copies or that of the so called star performers in the team/ organisation. For example, not to expect a Shane Warne in an Anil Kumble or a Dhoni in a Virat Kohli or a Dhoni in a Rishabh Pant.

All these assume importance in light of the still prevalent tendency of expecting individuals to become all-rounders or become copy-cat versions of their managers.
As usual, cricket came to my rescue given that there were a number of participants across those batches that were ardent fans of the game as I have been (even though honestly speaking, I only watch the highlights of matches that India actually wins and not otherwise).
Coming to the point, I requested them to imagine themselves as Rahul Dravid - the current coach of the India under 19 cricket team which produces cricketers for the India seniors team. I told them to imagine that as Rahul Dravid, they have got two new and young players under their charge - Virender Sehwag and MS Dhoni and that besides the reputation that precedes the youngsters you've also had the ring side view of observing them for some time in the under 19 team camp.
And then I posed the same questions as above: With the benefit of hindsight having seen these two players perform and grow over the years of their active play:
In a nutshell, what came out was:
What also came up was that they as Rahul Dravid won't insist on either of them also developing their commentary skills as of now given that retirement and post-retirement was at least a decade and a half away.
The whole conversation centered around a strengths-based approach to people development.
It's important for any manager/ leader to:
There's more that can be shared here but suffice it for the time being.
One of the biggest mistakes we all tend to make is to have unreasonable expectations from people and that happens primarily when we don't understand their dominant, supporting and lesser talent themes.
As a result, it wasn't surprising to learn from a survey that Gallup conducted many years ago where it turned out that in Singapore, 77% of the people surveyed said that they were sent to training programmes to fix their weaknesses whereas only 23% said that the training focused on building areas where they had natural talents. As a result attendance in training programmes was on the decline there.
The CliftonStrengths assessment tool helps us know these talents in ourselves and people around us and then go on to crafting a highly effective engagement cum talent development plan with our team members.
Rahul Dravid has himself in an interaction with Rajdeep Sardesai insisted on people developing in line with their innate talents and characteristics and not to blindly ape Virat Kohli in case competitiveness and aggression don't come to them naturally and so long as it doesn't bring the best out of you.
While there's a lot that I can talk about and share when it comes to a strengths-based approach to leadership, management and people development, I will just mention the following two books in conclusion. These are books for any manager who is interested in improving their effectiveness about people:
First, "It's the Manager" by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter
Second, "12: The Elements of Great Managing" b Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter".
So, in conclusion, if you have read so far with patience and curiosity, what are the top talent themes of the people you are responsible for at your workplace? And what edge would you get as a result of knowing that and applying it constructively?