The art of conversation is gradually fading as technology replaces face-to-face interactions with short text messages and notifications. Businesses are continuously looking to automate processes, boost efficiency, and find technology-enabled solutions to their people management challenges. But are we forgetting the fundamentals of good leadership by neglecting to have development conversations?
If you are responsible for managing people, you cannot avoid having development conversations with them. These conversations might happen in person, over video calls, on the phone, or via email. They may happen many times a day or a few times a week. But here is the thing: those conversations reveal a lot about how you perceive the other person.
What your conversations communicate
Engaging in development conversations communicates more than just words. It conveys how you feel about others, what you value, what motivates you, how much they should trust you, and many other signals that define your relationship with them. An impersonal, directive approach produces compliance. A development-focused approach produces growth.
Start with a purpose
Before initiating a development conversation, explain why you are having it. Many people associate development conversations with negativity because they are often avoided until something goes wrong. Scheduling a one-on-one without warning is like saying 'we need to talk' - which usually implies something negative.
Be clear that the purpose of the conversation is to help the person reach a meaningful goal or overcome a challenge. This reframes the conversation from evaluative to collaborative, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Ask questions for clarity
When you have identified ineffective behaviour, the starting point of a development conversation is to accurately understand what it looks like. When does it happen? How does the person normally react? Who amplifies the response? How do they feel in those moments?
Each answer helps them understand their reactions better and pinpoint the root cause of the behaviour. This is not about diagnosis - it is about helping the person see their own patterns clearly enough to choose to change them.
Aim for consensus
Change happens when we acknowledge the need for it and take responsibility for it. The goal of a development conversation is not to tell someone what to do differently - it is to reach a shared understanding of what needs to change and why.
Look for specific actions they can take and are willing to take. Find out how you can support them. The more ownership the person has over the plan, the more likely they are to follow through.
Lock in a commitment to change
A development conversation without a clear commitment is just a conversation. Before you close, agree on what the person will do differently, by when, and how you will know it is working. This does not need to be a formal document - a brief summary of the agreed actions is enough.
Follow up. The follow-up conversation is where development actually happens. It signals that you took the first conversation seriously, and it gives the person an opportunity to reflect on what they have tried and what they have learned.
"Great people developers take a genuine interest in others. They recognise that they did not get to where they are on their own, and they want to pay forward the time that others invested in them."
- Peopletree Group
Why you should develop this superpower
Helping others unlock their talent and potential is an enormously rewarding task, and it does not require much time - just the right attitude. If you look back on your own career and recognise someone who invested in your development, you owe it to them to pay it forward.
Great leaders are not born. They develop their capabilities over time, often through the investment of someone who believed in them before they believed in themselves. By investing in others, you not only improve their performance - you build a culture of growth and collaboration that makes the whole organisation stronger.