Development, when done well, is one of the most important roots of employee engagement. An increase in engagement equals a decrease in turnover. The ability to preserve your talents is a big competitive advantage. Ask everyone from the team to prepare a short training session – half an hour is enough. They can choose topics from their own development plan or sometimes they could demonstrate a few techniques they learned from articles or TED videos, if it is about strategic thinking or creativity. What other techniques does the management.about.com website suggest?
1) Have them talk about their wins and share experience
Managers convene regular meeting to talk about what the team has accomplished and what failures have occurred in the past week. The team generally agrees what the key wins and misses were, then plans for next week are proposed and adjusted. Some insights and knowledge were gained through the accomplishments and successes, but are rarely shared during these meetings. More time is spent on our mistakes than we devote to utilizing the opportunity to learn from accomplishments. Make it a rule that every team member who experienced a success in the last week will have 3 minutes to talk about it and share his lessons learned with others. It works in two ways: others can learn and the respective employees will get some recognition of their accomplishments. The effort they put into research and risk taking can inspire the rest of the team.
2) Everyone can have a turn at being the facilitator
By rotating who will be acting as the facilitator, you get the chance to observe how your employees behave as leaders. You will know how they react when they are exposed. After the meeting, ask all the attendees what they think to be one strong point and one learning edge of the colleague who did the facilitating job this time.
-jk-