Do you feel that chill surrounding growth conversations these days? Although summer temperatures are upon us, development is experiencing a deep freeze in many organizations.
In conversations with employees and leaders alike, I’m hearing common themes. Volatility and uncertainty are running rampant. People don’t know how evolving technologies will change the work – and the workforce. The future is unknown.
So, how are they responding? Development conversations — the ones that build relationships, engagement, and future readiness — are quietly disappearing.
And it’s understandable. Leaders no longer have answers. Traditional pathways are being demolished and reconstructed in real time. In many cases, organizations are shrinking and reforming, leading to fewer formal ways to grow. Leaders feel reluctant to jump into the void without a clearer view of the future.
For their part, employees are sensitive to these business realities (and quietly calculating job security risks) and wonder if asking about growth right now is tone-deaf or naïve. They don’t want to rock the boat. The result: a mutual, unspoken standoff. Not because anyone stopped caring. Because everyone’s waiting for the fog to lift. And the casualty of this pause is the very development that organizations and individuals need to survive and thrive.
Waiting for certainty is the wrong strategy – and an expensive one for everyone involved. The future has always been uncertain; what’s changed is that the comforting illusion of predictability has been stripped away. But here’s what hasn’t changed: development doesn’t (and honestly never did) require a fully plotted out destination. It requires attention to the present moment, which is rich with opportunity for the kind of ‘small-d development’ (informal, organic growth versus organizational programming) that builds engagement and positions people for whatever comes next.
Right now, organizations and leaders need employees to lean into growth – not keep their heads down. Employees who demonstrate curiosity and an investment in their own development don’t look tone-deaf or demanding. They look like savvy business partners who are working to make themselves indispensable. In uncertain times, the people who seek out new skills, expand their perspective, and deepen their value are precisely the ones organizations will work hardest to retain
Silence may feel safe. But growth is the better bet.
So how can leaders break the standoff? Two straightforward strategies can get everyone talking again
Name It.
The most powerful thing a leader can do right is to say the quiet part out loud. Honestly acknowledge that this feels like a strange moment to talk about development. Humbly admit that you don’t have all the answers. Openly express a desire to figure it out together. This kind of honesty signals awareness. And it creates the permission employees have been waiting for. Something as simple as “I know there’s a lot of uncertainty right now, and nobody has a crystal ball. But I don’t want that to stop us from talking about your growth” can thaw what months of silence have frozen. One simple sentence and an invitation to dialogue break the standoff better than any carefully constructed individual development plan.
Make Uncertainty the Curriculum.
Leaders cannot afford to wait for clarity to arrive before investing in their people and their growth. And the uncertainty that’s immobilizing the workforce actually serves as a counterintuitive tool for moving forward.
The fog isn’t the obstacle to development. It is the development.
Uncertainty is both the content and the context for growth right now. Try asking: “How can we use what’s got us stuck as an opportunity to grow?” to instigate conversations that mind current conditions for possibilities.
Navigating ambiguity, making decisions with incomplete information, staying curious when answers aren’t available – these are the durable skills being stress-tested in real time. And the experiences that build these skills are hiding right in plain sight. Leaders who understand this leverage ‘small-d development’ – the organic, in-role, project-based growth experiences that are prolific and completely within their sphere of influence to control. Getting closer to customers, for example – deeply understanding their needs, anxieties, and evolving expectations – offers present-moment development that grounds both individuals and organizations. It builds empathy, deep listening, and judgment – skills that hold their value regardless of what the future brings.
A standoff ends when someone blinks. In the case of the great development standoff, someone must be the leader. Not because they have answers — but because they understand that waiting for answers is costing themselves and their people something they can’t afford to lose: momentum, engagement, and the belief that growth is still possible even (and perhaps especially during) uncertain times.
This post originally appeared on SmartBrief.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay