You're navigating conflicting career paths within your team. How do you align everyone's goals for success?

One thing I've found helpful is to brainstorm ideas on a variety of upcoming projects and programs and encourage all staff - regardless of current roles- to think about what sounds exciting to them and to self select wherever they see a fit.

I’ve found that the goals people tell you about and the goals they actually have can be two very different things. It’s important to assess what motivates people based on what they produce and communicate through their actions, not just what they say.

Das Verständnis der individuellen Karriereziele ist wichtig, um diese mit den Zielen des Teams zu vereinen. Offene Dialoge, basierend auf Vertrauen und Transparenz, sind entscheidend, um die Motivationen und Werte jedes Teammitglieds zu ergründen. Ein hilfreiches Tool ist das Reiss Motivation Profile®, dass die intrinsischen Antriebe analysiert und ermöglicht, persönliche und teamorientierte Entwicklungspläne zu erstellen. Dies schafft eine Beziehung, in der individuelles Wachstum und Teamerfolg Hand in Hand gehen.

The number one thing is to talk to each team member individually, and the team as a whole. Listen first! Learn what they want, and where they want to go. Sometimes career paths seem conflicting, but only need small modifications to get where the company and the individual need to go. Get creative, allow for cross training opportunities to help team members explore possibilities. Provide a mentor to employees who can help them navigate within the company. Most of all show that you care!

Escucha Activa, con tiempo de calidad, planificar cada reunión para que sea dedicada a lo que se quiere resolver, no es una reunión de amigo y suelo dejarlo claro

Escuchar es el arma más poderosa para enfrentar situaciones de conflicto dentro de tu lugar de trabajo, si no te sientas y escuchas las necesidades, dudas, molestias del equipo de trabajo difícilmente podrás mantener un rendimiento y resultados favorables en base a los objetivos de la empresa.

In working in multiple organizations, I have learned that great managers grow leaders. A great manager will utilize their team in a way that emphasizes personal strengths. Utilizing the skills of the individuals to build strong teams is important to highlighting personal strengths while also not calling out an individual’s weakness. This allows for the team to truly utilize all tools in their tool belts while secretly bolstering all members abilities in the other areas through modeling. By building their skills in other areas, it allows a leadership to showcase strengths and highlight future pathways aligned to their strengths that they may not have considered.

An important part of career pathing is connecting individual career goals with the broader goals and needs of the organization. Help team members see how their aspirations align with the company’s mission, values, and strategic objectives. This alignment ensures that their career growth contributes to the overall success of the team and the company.

Promote Open Communication by Foster an environment where team members feel comfortable discussing their career aspirations and concerns openly.

One thing I have found helpful is being cognizant of what is beneficial to the current field and how it can translate to others. Whether you’re an educator and executive, certain skills are beneficial in all settings. I cannot tell you how many trainings I have sat through that checked a block for staff but was not related to my professional growth. Finding ways to encourage staff to communicate areas of growth to obtain new skills is a meaningful process but if unmanaged often leads to good intentions that don’t quite hit the mark. Giving individuals the opportunity to add clarity to their goals and encouraging them to give guidance on what they have learned or would like to learn makes the time meaningful.

To address points listed, maybe bake secondary level objectives into strategic plans that accommodate individual growth plans. A team goal may be to improve project on-time completion rates. Let's say two people both want to be project managers and lead projects and tend to compete with each other. One is already strong at communications, the other at task management. Share the management. Whichever task one needs more practice with is what they should do. Encourage them to lean on each other for support, keep a journal, collaborate to distribute other plan tasks. Meet with senior for approval. At completion, two people have furthered experience towards managing projects solo, while improving the on-time completion rates.

Einerseits ist des die Möglichkeit zur beruflichen Weiterentwicklung, die auf unterschiedliche Karrierewege ausgerichtet ist (zit.). Genauso wichtig ist die Ausrichtung der beruflichen Weiterentwicklung auf den bisherigen Karriereweg: dieser soll Hochschulabgängern aber vielleicht auch ungelernten Mitarbeitenden geöffnet werden - diese haben aber unterschiedliche Ansprüche an die Trainingsform.

In working in multiple organizations, I have learned that great managers grow leaders. A great manager will utilize their team in a way that emphasizes personal strengths. Utilizing the skills of the individuals to build strong teams is important to highlighting personal strengths while also not calling out an individual’s weakness. This allows for the team to truly utilize all tools in their tool belts while secretly bolstering all members abilities in the other areas through modeling. By building their skills in other areas, it allows a leadership to showcase strengths and highlight future pathways aligned to their strengths that they may not have considered.

Aligning and collaborating can be win-win. It creates transparency across the time and the number of people supporting the missions can increase. I think competition can be healthy and motivating. It doesn't need to be ruthless or brutal. When goals and objectives are collaborative there's space for individual and collaborative success.

The key is strategic, clear, and consistent communication at every level of your organization. Make goals a regular part of leadership meetings, team meetings, employee one-on-ones, and performance reviews. Connect company initiatives and decisions to the underlying organizational goals.

Navig Identify Common Objectives: Find common ground by identifying shared goals that align with the team's and organization's broader objectives.

Collaboration must be intentional and meaningful, otherwise it is just coordination. I sometimes use a small pencil sharpener as a symbol. We collaborate best when we keep each other “sharp.” It’s challenging ideas, asking hard questions, and putting the work through the gauntlet until we know it stands up. This is effective, but only if you’re doing the work of listening, respecting, and uplifting along side.

Encourage Collaboration: Design projects that require collaboration, allowing team members to leverage each other's strengths and learn from one another.

Checking in with individuals and as a group is vital. There may be obstacles in the work as a whole, but also from an individual human perspective that could happen outside the working environment. Know and understand team members, be open about what support you can provide, and help by signposting or offering flexibility. Above all else, personal information must not be shared with other team members without the individual's explicit consent, as ideally, it should only come from them. Feeling safe in an environment where all concerns/feedback is taken seriously and acted on promptly, helps to build trust that allows people to feel valued, understood and supported.

Career conflicts are not the same as goal misalignment. If people are looking to follow different career goals, our role as leaders is to support, nurture, coach and mentor as people need. In terms of organisational achievement, it’s important to bring everyone together on the points they ‘do’ align on as part of their roles. That can drive ideation and innovation

This discussion started by urging team members to define career aspirations that are aligned to the team's success. Whilst discovery of members' drives, interests and long-term career plans is important, there needs to be transparency (insight) too on which career plans are unrealistic or harder to achieve. People have strengths but also development needs; recognising which needs are likely to be too much of a hurdle within the organisation and current team composition may help speed up development processes and spur on career progress. There needs to be open acknowledgement of the competition and the comparative skill sets of colleagues.

There is a need to develop metrics in order to measure success. Involve staff in developing the metrics. And discuss the results with staff. Allow ownership.