Why Development Is a Relationship

Most leaders treat development like a checkbox — a course, a conference, an annual review.
 But what if the real key to growth and retention isn’t an event… but a relationship?

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel sits down with leadership and career development expert Julie Winkle Giulioni to rethink how growth actually happens at work — through trust, curiosity, and small, meaningful moments shared every day.

Julie breaks down why:

• Development only happens when people feel supported
• “No time” is a leadership myth (and how great leaders use micro-moments)
• Curiosity is the gateway to better conversations
• Leaders must model their own learning
• The multidimensional career framework goes far beyond promotions
• Daily questions can build engagement, growth, and retention
• Development transforms workplace culture one relationship at a time

If you want to grow your people, deepen trust, build stronger teams, and become a leader people want to work for — this conversation will change how you think about development forever.

💡 Perfect for leaders, managers, culture builders, and anyone navigating their own career journey.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Julie Winkle Giuliani, and here's why she is, wait for it, awesome. She's a keynote speaker, leadership trainer, and bestselling author. Her books include Promotions Are So Yesterday- Redefined Career Development -Help Employees Thrive, and as the co-author of the international bestseller, Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go- Career Conversations Organizations Need and Employees Want. Translated into seven languages. Don't you know she's been named among Inc's 100 leadership speakers and she's a leadership development consultant for the Global Good Fund, which coaches, nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs committed to positive social change. One more thing she can add to the biography.

She's on Relationships at Work. Nice to meet you, Julie.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: And that is gonna the top of the biography.

Russel Lolacher: Even alphabetically, that's not true, but I appreciate that immensely. Thank you. Uh, excited to talk to you today. We're talking development. I'm, I'm just saying development, 'cause that's actually a question I want to get into a little bit of how we clarify development.

But before we get into any of that, the first question I ask all of my guests, which I have to ask you as well, Julie, what's your best or worst employee experience?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: I love this question because I love talking about my very first employment experience back when I was 16 years old, you know, wet behind the ears.

I had, uh, an assistant store manager at Montgomery Ward, who was my boss. At the time. I was teaching, modeling and charm to children. And, um, I haven't really grown up much, have I? I'm still kinda talking about how we all get along. Anyway. Um. I love this work. I kind of mastered the classes. We were making money. I kind of had had it all done and I was starting to get bored.

So I went to my boss and said, you know, Mr. Kelsey, I'm, I'm kind of bored. Um, I, I, I wanna keep doing this, don't get me wrong, but I need a little bit more, you know? And what I'd really like to do is play in the space of promotion, you know, and marketing. And so what we could do to draw more customers in.

And his default was yes. You don't get any budget, you know, you don't get any more support, but go for it. You know, I'm here, I'll, I'll, I'll personally support you in doing this. I was thrilled. Again, you know, I'm a kid in a candy shop, getting to play with and work with, collaborate with these other department heads to figure out how I can support their efforts.

You know, I had my friends and my parents dress up in costumes at Halloween and give out candy to customers. It didn't cost him a thing, and what he got in exchange for that was utterly priceless. What I got in exchange for that was priceless. I remember when I went to him and I said, you know, I had this idea.

I'd like to bring the circus down, and if we have the circus in the parking lot, imagine the people coming in. Well, I can tell you it, it, you can imagine the consequences of having elephants in the parking lot. I'm just going to leave it at that. I'm not going to say anything more.

But he was there, helping me understand how to deal with those consequences, brought in the extra resources. I learned so much. They made more money. And the engagement, the expectation then that I had for the workplace was incredibly high. I, I really owe my career to Mr. Kelsey back then.

Russel Lolacher: I always find this question super interesting on, because besides the fact that these stories are so interesting and impactful, but also because we seem to have to go so far back for them, especially the good ones. Um, bad ones, I, I would disagree. Bad ones are usually pretty go back far too, but they seem to be more trauma related that people have carried. But when you go back that far to this freedom and this, sure, do what you want. We're not giving you any more money, but you know, that's, that freedom is phenomenal. But then now you're looking for it in every job you have after the fact.

What did you bring with you from that as a leader in your own career?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Oh, I, I think that experience has informed every piece of work that I've done since. Having the visceral experience of a leader say yes. See something in me a capacity that maybe I didn't yet see. To have the support and, and frankly, you know, there's a lot, um, to be learned from not having resources.

You gotta get scrappy, figure out how to do stuff with nothing. And so all of that I think has informed how I think about development. You know, so frequently managers, leaders, when they think about development, they think about sending somebody to a course, they think about their conference or the workshop. Which are all great, don't get me wrong, I make my living doing that stuff. But what I learned right from the get go is that there is growth that's available for literally no dollars whatsoever, right there in the workflow. When you've got to the point of your podcast, when you've got a development relationship forged between a manager and an employee.

Russel Lolacher: I love that you're, you're driving us right to where we're talking about, and I, I need to define something and I love that you actually have redefined in the title of your books. It makes it a lot easier for me to segue into this. We talk about development and I've heard it used so much and so broadly, but I'm curious as to what your definition of development is when it comes to the workplace, how would you define it?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: You know, I think it's a moving target to be honest, uh, Russel. It, in the past, we sorted development into these artificial categories, right? We had personal development and we had professional development, and we had career development, we had technical development, you know, and it parsed it all out and decided, you know, that the, uh, personal development was all about the relationships and that soft stuff, which we know is the hardest and and so on. And as the workplace has changed, as the workforce has changed, those lines, those buckets and the the lines of demarcation are real blurry to me. When we're bringing our whole person to the workplace. Um, and, and during COVID, when we brought our workforce into our homes to see our whole persons and our whole lives, those lives, they just don't make sense anymore.

So from my perspective, what development is about, it's about the growth that's meaningful to someone at any point in their careers. And it might be more in their personal, you know, it might be that certain points in my career I need to be really doubling down on empathy and compassion and communication.

And then there are other times we get more a technical event. Other times when it, yeah, but it's all about growth. And it's all seen through the lens of what is the employee interested in? What do they want from this season of their, their career worklife?

Russel Lolacher: I love that you talked about the blurred lines. I've certainly learned in the last couple of years. Every time we talk about leadership development, I'm like, but that's just about making you a better person. That it, it doesn't matter if you turn on a computer or walk into a building, you should have more empathetic, uh, forward, compassionate, uh, listening skills.

I mean, it's, these things should not be a light switch you just turn on and off when you walk into work. And yet, to your point, we differentiate career leadership. Uh, career development, sorry. Leadership development, professional development. Personal development drives me nuts. It's really all the same thing.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: It totally is if we're going to be integrated authentically in the workplace.

Russel Lolacher: So what is the connective tissue between development and relationship with others in the workplace? When we chatted earlier, before we were preparing for this show, you had talked about development is a relationship. Could you explain that?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Yeah. You know, I think that I was gonna, my lead into the answer was gonna be, I don't think there is any connective tissue because I think they're one in the same.

You can't grow and develop and, and realize your potential in the absence of supportive relationships around you. You know, learning, growth, development, it's risk business. Stepping out into the unknown, doing what you're not already good at, experimenting, it can, it can yield unintended consequences and mistakes and failures and whatnot.

People aren't gonna do that. Especially in today's workplace, the tolerance for that kind of thing is so slim. People aren't gonna take those kinds of risks to learn if they don't feel like they have a supportive relationship behind them. If their boss, if their team doesn't have their back, growth just isn't gonna happen.

So I really think that the only way people grow is when that relationship exists and leaders have to earn the right, you know, to engage like that with folks. I mean, this is the most intimate way a leader engages with an employee. You know, when you're talking about growth, you're talking about hopes and dreams and aspirations and fears.

I mean, that is deep stuff, and you gotta earn the right to do that by building the relationship, investing in the relationship, building the kind of trust that inspires growth.

Russel Lolacher: So why do so many organizations get this wrong? I remember a story, well, I don't remember a story. I was in the story. I was at a conference.

I was in the hallway and I was listening to this HR, it was a huge HR conference, and there was this obvious one, HR professional. She was calling back to work and she's like, this is my tribe. These are my people. I love what I'm learning and I have no idea what to do with any of this when I go back. Okay, so what had basically I'm hearing is leadership... I'm using air quotes. Leadership had done a checkbox exercise going, okay, we need to do development. Okay, go to that conference. We're not gonna talk to you when you get back. We don't care what you learned, but we can say, we developed our staff. So where's that disconnect?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: I, I, I think you've really kind of nailed it. The disconnect is that we're treating development as a series of activities and tasks versus as that relationship. Right? So if we're thinking about growth as a relationship, then yeah you know, we see this person who's gonna benefit from this conference, and we have a conversation with that person and say, here's the, here's the potential I see in you. Here may be some gaps, um, that would really serve you to, to look at and here's this conference. Would you be interested? These are the goals that you might wanna think about, but you look at the brochure, come back, let's talk about what you wanna get outta it, because there's a game plan going in, and then a development relationship means that person comes back and says, wow, this was awesome. Here's what I've learned.

Here's what I'm gonna do. Here's how you can hold me accountable. Here's the support that I need. But it becomes, you know, it's that relationship between the, the two. And I don't wanna, you know, I'm over blowing that it has to be the manager and the employee, because increasingly with, you know, larger and larger spans of control with the distributing workforce, sometimes it's not the manager who's gonna be your partner in crime when it comes to growth? It can be your team just as easily, but it's that partnership that extends it from, I'm going through the motions to, I'm absorbing information and content and insights and wisdom that I can then use. Um, and that happens in relationship with them.

Russel Lolacher: Do you think the, and I call this a blind spot in leadership, do you think it's the too busy problem that seems to get in the way of us being able to do this properly?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one, I would be a wealthy woman. Yeah. In fact, when my coauthor Bev Kay and I wrote, um, Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go originally, like, um, what, 13 years ago now?

Um, we did some research to figure out, because we knew that development was a key driver of engagement, but just deliver so much goodness. And we knew that employees were consistently saying not that net, and we had to reconcile that. So we did some research to figure out what was getting in the way and what we ultimately, it wasn't excuses or or reasons.

We ultimately framed it as immobilizing myths because there's a kernel of something in it, but not enough to actually create this immobilization. But the number one immobilizing myth was no time. Three to one. That's what leaders came back to us and said, you know, I'd love to do it. It's all good, but I don't have the time.

And, and I think this gets back to what we were just talking about. If we continue to think of career development as a task, as a to do, as something that goes on the list that needs to be checked off. It either gets checked off in that real mechanical way that we all love to do so we get it off our plates, or it just keeps moving down the list and doesn't, we don't get around to it.

When we help leaders reframe development in terms of a relationship... that it's not that too hour, once a year summit you have with somebody else in the corner to create this laundry list of things they're gonna do. That you might or might not ever look at again until next year this time. When we help them understand that it's the small moments that it's the following up on that conference.

That it's the asking, what did you learn this week? When, when it it, when we help them understand that it's supporting somebody when they make a mistake, rather than, you know, berating them, helping them unpack it and figure out where the lessons lie for growth and future improvement. Those are small things that people can fit in. Who doesn't have time for a three minute conversation, especially when it's gonna deliver the kind of engagement, retention, all the other things that we want.

So that's really the key, is helping leaders realize this isn't a to do, you know, this is a to be. This is how I show up with my people day in and day out.

Russel Lolacher: I think what a lot of leaders don't seem to understand is if they can't first manage their time, they can't even be leaders because they're not able to lead their team.

So I'm like, first you need to manage your time, which is a resource. And then you can be a leader, but leaders who have no time for their teams aren't actually leading anything other than following an Outlook calendar. So that it, we call them leaders, but they're not even able to be leaders in those situations because they're not, to your point, helping them grow and then they get to watch them go. I knew I was gonna squeak that title in there somewhere.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Well done, sir. Well done.

Russel Lolacher: So let's look inside ourselves a bit on how we can as leaders be better at this. So for instance, a leader's own development journey. 'cause as much as it is about helping others, we are also, that's, we also seem to miss is leaders are also employees.

We also have journeys and learning development that we need. So how does our own leadership learning development journey, how does that support the development of others?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Yeah. Well, and, and I hate overused metaphors, but you know, this is begging for the oxygen mask metaphor. You know, when we're on the planes, we're invited to put the mask on ourselves before we can help others, because if we're unconscious, we're not gonna be of much use to that kid sitting next to us. And I think a lot of, of managers are developmentally unconscious. You know, they haven't been attending to their growth. Maybe they didn't have great leaders modeling this and supporting them. And so it's hard when your own, you know, cup is depleted to be able to pour anything into somebody else's.

And so for a leader simply learning, growing yourself. Put you in a place where you're better able, um, where you feel more generous, you know, toward others when it comes to that. But I think the other thing that's really important is employees need to see leaders learning. You know, we, employees are looking, they're always watching, right?

When they're picking up on cues and they're taking away messages. And when leaders are demonstrating what it looks like to push the envelope, to challenge themselves, to make some mistakes and be authentic and vulnerable about it, and share the lessons learned. When leaders are doing that, suddenly it makes sense for employees to do it too.

And then it's just like that virtuous cycle. So now the next generation of leaders are seeing this done well. They're going to naturally do it with others, and tell others, you know, on it goes.

Russel Lolacher: And it creates such a sense of relatability too, because there's so many leaders that come in thinking they have to have all the answers. They got the job because they know it better than anybody else.

And then we see all these, you know, team members going, well, it's a facade. You can't know everything. So for you to also be on your learning journey, you're like, oh, you're not to say you're like, you're one of us, but you are somebody that I could aspire to work the career up to. Yeah, I love that.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Absolutely. And you've got more visibility to what that career looks like. You know, so frequently employees see somebody at the director or the VP level, and they just assume that it was as straight line, easy assent. And the truth is, you know, for most people it's one step forward, two steps back, falling down the hill, climbing up again.

And when leaders are authentic about it, it also right sizes employee expectations for what careers can look like, that it's not just that easy climb up the ladder.

Russel Lolacher: One of the best executive speakers I ever saw was for the first time, extremely introverted. I've told this story before on the podcast, extremely introverted, um, extremely not comfortable public speaking, but she went out in front of everybody and then talked about every job she'd never gotten and every job she had wanted, but also didn't have the skills and had to continue doing development to get the career path she wanted.

It was the first executive in the history of that organization that had admitted they hadn't got a job. Everybody else was like, I started, I wanted that job. I got that job. I wanted that job. I got that job. It was so unrealistic and so well patronizing and narcissistic, to be blunt, but the amount of people that scurried up to her at the end of the talk to, thank you.

Can you help me? I need mentorship. I, where should I go to learn... it was eye opening at the relationship she was building right before your very eyes.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Exactly. Well, I, you know, vulnerability, transparency, I mean, that is, that's the currency of relationships, isn't it?

Russel Lolacher: You mentioned in your books about the multi-dimensional career framework, which is these, these seven Cs.

Uh, let's go. Contribution, competence, connection, confidence, challenge, contentment and choice. I did not do that from memory. I had to write that down. All really impactful. All really interesting and really impactful. But I was super curious, as somebody ourselves, as a leader on our leadership journey, how does this understanding of a multidimensional career framework help us... help us basically in, in preparing to help others?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Yeah. Yeah. And so the multidimensional career framework is something that I developed over 12 or 15 years of field research.

And and what it, it attempts to do. It goes back, I know how you like your definitions. It goes back to redefining career development because for so many of us, it's been defined very narrowly as that next step up the ladder. That's actually the eighth C. It's climb, you know, because that's how we used to think about it.

And so if that's how you define career development, very few people are gonna be happy. Very few people feel like they're growing and that's the problem that we had to date. And so the research that I found that there were actually those other seven Cs that people really hunger for, uh, that people really want, that represent ways that we can engage with our work and grow right within the role we currently have. Um, and so for instance, the, our, our research, I think, or I dunno, 25,000 or so folks in our database now, what we find is that that dimension of greatest interest to people is actually contribution. People want to make a difference. They wanna live on purpose and they want to be of service.

They wanna leave, you know, things better. And I think about my first situation, my first work, uh, opportunity with Mr. Kelsey. I wanted to make a bigger impact there. It didn't cost him anything to enable and empower me to do that. And in the process my engagement shot up, I learned so darn much. And to be honest with you, I stayed at that job so much longer than I would have if I had been stuck just teaching my classes.

Um, and so same thing with some of the other dimensions. The second most interesting of the dimensions in our latest research, um, from last year is, um, competence. You know, people are looking around the corner, they're seeing how fast things are changing and understand if they don't keep those skills up, um, they're gonna be irrelevant pretty quickly.

And so giving people opportunities to grow key skills like that conference that, uh, the woman you described had gone to. But there are ways to do that in the workplace as well. Assignments, you know, special assignments, special projects, cross-functional, um, opportunities to contribute where skills can be built right in the, the workflow, and that's the case with the, the other disease as well.

So the key is, you know, looking as you said, first into ourselves, how do we wanna engage? What's important to us right now? How do we wanna learn is key? And then when we're leaders who have that kind of awareness, we can help to inspire similar awareness in others, and then again, further ferment that kind of a development relationship.

Russel Lolacher: Let's switch a bit from relationships with ourself to relationship with others in the sense that, I'm curious how often we even talk to our teams about this. Are we...? because right now it seems like we talk maybe once a year as a check mark going, did you do the thing, productivity review or whatever, you know, and then we talk to them again in a year or you know, and maybe mention a couple classes.

But it's not constant, it's not frequent, it's not organic, I think is what I'm trying to say.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Right, right. So the annual or twice a year sorts of conversations. I, I don't wanna diminish those because those are important points in time. Uh, and they yield data for the organization that drives manpower planning, succession planning, and the like.

So I don't wanna diminish those. I have not heard one employee ever say, you know, my peak development experience or that meeting back in that corner in 1992. I mean, that's not where people are growing. They're growing organically in the workflow, and that's where those conversations need to happen. Um, so in a lot of organizations, you know, there's been a push toward, um, distributing feedback, making sure that you're having more feedback conversations, maybe even replacing the annual performance review in, in, of these frequent feedback conversations, which sounds good, depending upon how they're, they're structured.

So frequently though, it's just the, the information, you know, you did this well, you didn't more frequently it didn't do that well, and so it's the what, but without the so what. Okay, so the, so what becomes, what do we do with this that translates into growth? Leaders who can take those feedback conversations and then morph them or take that second step into the so what and we'll, and then, then what? What are we gonna do about it? That can be really powerful leaders who are doing, you know, their weekly one-on-ones. Who spend that first five minutes talking about what have you learned, what's challenging, what's interesting to you right now, and then get on with the business that needs to be done.

Those are the leaders who are forging the relationship that builds the development. Those are also the leaders who end up with employees and teams who are highly engaged with the work and with their development. And then when you've got that kind of engagement, when you've got that kind of a, a leader that just inspires a level of loyalty, that builds a kind of retention that most organizations are looking for.

Russel Lolacher: And, and I know you're a fan of this as well, curiosity seems to come up a lot for me as you're mentioning this, of we need to ask questions. But it can't be, I mean, formulaic is great. It's a framework. It's a nice way of at least being able to refer back to, to your point, data points. But it also needs to be human.

And I think curiosity comes in there a lot of like, listen to what your employees are saying. Maybe ask them, Hey, have you encountered anybody that has a job you'd want one day? What are the things that you could be doing to get to that point? How has curiosity shown up in your research as a, as a tenant of this?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: It's huge. It's, you know, I refer to curiosity as a gateway competency because it informs and elevates every other skill we might have. If you're in sales and you bring curiosity to it, you're gonna understand the customer and be able to find that right product or service match. If you're in service and you bring curiosity to those conversations, you're gonna be able to fix those problems and, and elevate the customer experience.

And if you're a leader and you bring curiosity to those conversations, you're gonna be able to unlock information that could go dormant, you know, for, for decades, for a whole career, for that matter. So curiosity to me is, is really key. And questions, you know, are a perfect way to demonstrate that curiosity.

And at the end of the day, that's kind of the, the approach that Helping Grow or Watch Them Go takes is from a leadership standpoint. You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to have me, the answers. What you need is those great questions and the curiosity and the listening that goes along with them. So that for instance, you know, asking somebody so frequently, you know, the formula to, to use your uh, expression is where you see yourself in three to five years?

Not a very curious question, and it's not a very question because who knows what the workplace is gonna look in three to five years. Pick a job AI might have, you know, rendered that irrelevant by then. So the curious question is, what do you wanna do? You know, what kind of work do you wanna do? What kinds of experiences do you wanna cultivate?

What kind of technology do you wanna work with? What kind customers do you wanna work with? What do you wanna achieve? Those kinds of really curious view questions, unlock, excuse me, insights that allow for the manager and the employee to co-create an experience in the here and now rather than waiting, you know, until, unless that new promotion or role or whatever makes itself available.

I mean, so many times employees feel like they're in the waiting room. We can turn that waiting room into a really vibrant classroom where learning is infused in the day to day work. And so, you know, maybe that prepares them for that ultimate promotion or maybe it just keeps them really happy and engaged right where they are.

Russel Lolacher: One of my biggest pet peeves is that question of where do you see yourself in three to five years? And I've encouraged, even on my own show, I'm like, you should ask your leader where they see you in three to five years 'cause they're the ones that know the industry. They're the ones that have the bigger lens than you do.

So they should have a plan for you too. So I always...

Julie Winkle Giulioni: I always find that I love, I love that turning at the table, but even their answers, I really worry the world, the workplace, it's moving fast. When you think about what you would've said three to five years ago that you wanted to do today, I mean, who knows? It may not be there.

Russel Lolacher: Jobs may not even exist in three to five years that suddenly pop up that are more than AI, AI, AI uh, that are such a big deal now. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, when we ask questions, I always ask this question, which is, what does success look like to you? I always find that to be an interesting, uh...

Julie Winkle Giulioni: I love that one.

Russel Lolacher: ...Barometer question, but that also when that brings up for me when we're talking about, I don't know why I did this.

I'm trying to point to my head. I'm a smart person. Um, diversity comes up for me because different people define success differently. And since we're talking about development, not promotions. Others, depending on your cultural, socioeconomical, may have a different idea of what development success looks like.

How do you tackle that in the conversations?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: It, it's through conversation, isn't it? I mean, that's the bottom line, because we don't even, we're not even aware of what that diversity of success definition is until we start talking to people. So having, and the, the precursor to someone answering a question that's that deep.

I mean, when you think about it, you're digging into somebody's heart and soul when you start asking them to define success. So the precursor, the prerequisite for that is trust and psychological safety. You know, managers, leaders who aren't investing in relationships are not gonna get very authentic, meaningful responses to a question like that.

And so it's sort of like, you know, you start watering your plants, you know, before they start to grow. In anticipation of that, we need to be watering those relationships with trust building behavior so that when we get ready to have that conversation, we're going to, um, have earned the right for someone to expose themselves at that kind of a level.

Russel Lolacher: And making assumptions as to what people's, just because you have this job means you want this job next can only get in the way. I've seen that happen so many times. Or people that aren't ambitious for those next jobs, they just wanna be really good in the one they have. Um, that I think gets in the way of a lot of leaders having these expectations of what a career path automatically should look like, because that's the career and that's the organization they work in.

Drives me nuts.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: That is really well said on two different fronts. One is leaders in a really well-meaning way, they will look at someone and they will see themselves. And then they will cultivate that career in their own image. Whether that makes sense for the person or not, I get really well-meaning, um, but not necessarily aligned.

And then you hit on the other thing is so frequently we are pushing people up artificially, um, when they just wanna really rock their current role. And when you push, you know, you take a technical person who's not ready to move into management and then they get, there's like, I don't even like people, how did I get here? It's not a good fit.

Um, then you risk losing a great technical contributor, but honoring what someone wants, what success looks like, the kind of relationship that they want with their work, um, is, is in the individual's best interest, but it's also really in the organization's best interest long term as well.

Russel Lolacher: That makes me think about one... so one of the things I find that has broken leadership systemically is that we either from the top, I'm gonna use the hierarchy, hierarchy that I hate the, we're looking for bums in seats. We need people to fill these roles. Yeah, they're good enough. Like we just, we need bodies. Meanwhile, there's people that are looking at the hierarchical chart going, I need to make more money even if I'm not prepared.

Even, uh, just the economy's horrible. I need to pay rent. I need to take on more responsibility, even if I'm not the right person, just to make that five whatever more per hour. Development seems like the cure to this, but we have this friction still happening between, between the top and the bottom on this, what leadership is or is not. How is development and, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe it isn't the solution, but I feel like it is based on how we're talking right now, is how do you feel this fits into this?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Well, I think you bring up yet another C into our conversation. It's compensation, right? And, um, the fact that leaders and organizations tend to make that next pay bump creates an artificial incentive for folks to, even if that's not the job that they wanna do, that's how you take home more, more money for your organ, for your, uh, family or, or whatnot.

Um, so we've got a lot of people chasing leadership roles who aren't necessarily interested in doing the work of leadership. Um, but need to do that just for the, you know, kind of the Maslov's of the lower levels of need. Um, and so yeah, I think that development is part of that. Uh, and then we come back to that in a moment.

I think the other thing is organizations, you know, I'm working with so many organizations where the folks in HR are working overtime to crack the code on that. To really figure out how do we decouple some of these, you know, compensation and level issues. How do we reward people for building skills? How do we reward them for the contributions that they're making?

So there's a lot of work that's being done within organizations to rethink that very fundamental issue. The other thing relative to comp is that there are studies out there that suggests that people would be willing to make less money for more autonomy. And so organizations can also, you know, you've got that level to, to use as well.

But when it comes back to development, you know, it really comes down to helping people get in touch with why they might wanna move into a leadership role. I can't tell you how many people um, say, you know, I really wanna be a manager. And so I was like, great. That's wonderful. What do you look forward to doing in that role?

It's like deers in the, in the headlights. Um, because I dunno, it's just been either the comp thing or just the kind of the habituation of climbing. I mean, it's just the assumption. Um, so when you help people start to unpack, what do you wanna do in that role? What does success look like in that role?

At that point, then you've got all this rich fodder for, okay, how do we use today to develop you so that you are ready to really be effective when as and if you hit that leadership role. So I think you're absolutely right. I think that that development is absolutely a key to growing that leadership.

The other thing that we know from the research that's out there is that people want growth so much that they will leave an organization where they're not growing to go to one, where they will. And so I think that's the other, you know, kind of lever that we have when it comes to the, the comp conversation.

Russel Lolacher: It's that very popular saying, if you're not earning or learning, leave.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that.

Russel Lolacher: Trust and impact are felt every day, and yet organizations are much more interested in grand gestures, IE the annual conversation about professional development or the annual conference. What can leaders do every day, not weekly, not monthly, but every day to sort of foster that development is almost a daily habit thing.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: You know, my advice would be pick a question and ask everybody, you know, so, what'd you learn today? Or what do you love about your job? Or what was the last really big challenge that you had to contend with?

Or, or, or. I mean these are not sophisticated rocket science questions by any stretch. But when leaders start asking people and bringing that curiosity and that attentive listening to it, a three minute conversation around one of that, one of those questions. Layer, day after day, week after week, year after year. That demonstrates something so much more profound to folks than the two hour conversation off in the corner.

That's a development relationship. That's authentic. That's really demonstration of care rather than a check the box sort of behavior. And that's where leaders build the trust and ultimately have the greatest impact. Both on their people and then ultimately, you know, on the business.

Russel Lolacher: I think situational awareness is so key in those situations.

Pay attention to what your teams are doing and look for things and be curious to your point of, well, you did that really well, would this be a career path or would you like further development in that thing? Or you've illustrated that you found this pretty challenging. Are there some development I can help...? like. As it happens, don't make a note and then wait for it for your weekly meeting or yearly meeting, like do it right there and have a conversation in the cubicle or in the wherever you are.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: It's so powerful when we do that, and I'm convinced that there are thousands of cues like that every day. It's not just when somebody's doing something well, it's when they're struggling. It's not just when they're super engaged, it's when they're disengaged. You know, the beginning of a, a project. That moment to say, what do you intend to learn? And at the end of the project, how did that turn out? What did you learn? You know, whatcha taking away, what can you do today that you couldn't do yesterday?

You know, there are just so many small cues day in and day out that if we're q sensitive, if we're curious about the environment around us, leaders can can zoom in. Find that moment, ask that question and elevate the quality of the relationship and the growth that people can, uh, enjoy.

Russel Lolacher: Of course, in leadership, we can only control what we can control.

Uh, we can control the subculture in which we have influence over, which is our team, which is unfortunately sometimes in larger cultures that have very different points of view, that might very much have a promotion focus, not a development focus. So I get that we have to model the behavior and I get that we have to focus on our teams and and help with their development.

Is there anything we can do to influence up, influence out, when it comes to the larger organization who may not be getting this, who may not be embracing the development is not a fancy word in front of it. It is just development.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I honestly believe that leaders have so much power, not just to model what good looks like for their teams, but to model what good looks like upward in the organization.

When a leader is really demonstrating these behaviors, when their teams are thriving, word gets out . Um, you know, executives wanna know what's going on over there in Russel's corner of the organization because they want more of that. And so as leaders, as we feel like our development efforts are yielding, being able to, to share that narrative upward is really key. You know, because so frequently it's like, oh yeah, yeah. It was just a team. We've got a great team. But to say, no, you know what? Every day I'm talking with people. We've got development plans in place. Every one of my employees is working on X, Y, Z.

Yeah, whatever it might be, that is why we were able to deliver those results. That starts to help people understand, help executives understand what really are the, the levers of success, and when they realize that what you're doing is not costing the organization. In fact, in many cases it's actually adding to the bottom line because people are taking on work that needs to be done in service of their own growth and it's done for the business at that point, you know, it's kind of a, a no brainer.

Russel Lolacher: I, I retained a team, same team for 12 years. And one of the pieces was that development completely to your talking about, and the funny thing is, is also to your point, what everybody saw was the result, not how the sausage was made. They saw the result, which was high performing, high retention, high, you know, they, they see the result of it and then they start asking questions.

But that's at the, the executive level they start asking questions at the. Uh, team level. At the employee level. I had others con constantly going, so when are you hiring? So when are you hiring? So when are you hiring? I wanna leave. When are you hiring? Because my team doesn't do this. When are you hiring?

And I'm like, my team doesn't leave. So, uh, never. Uh...

Julie Winkle Giulioni: You know what I love about that is so frequently managers are afraid. I develop my people, they leave. Then I've got this hole, I have to start all over again. Of course, you know that except on your teams that's gonna happen for others. But you really demonstrated that a great developer is a talent magnet.

When you have a reputation for developing people, if you end up with an opening, you're gonna have a, a whole, you know, slew of folks from which to choose to fill that.

Russel Lolacher: I think one of the biggest challenges, uh, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, is that a lot of organizations do not look at it as a journey.

They look it at as an onboarding exercise and then I'll see you when you leave. It is... that's it. As opposed to you start your first impression, which is the application process, which is a whole other conversation. Then there's the onboarding. Then there's these Thrive interviews. I call 'em Thrive, not stay interviews. 'Cause I want people to thrive. I don't want them just to stick around. Oh, I love that. I love that. And then they exit, like there is a arc. To this and development is the DNA of that. That is the, did we deliver what we promised at onboarding? Are we doing, are we continuing that journey? Are you, are you growing?

Are you, and then checking back, checking back, checking back until they leave, when you go, did we deliver what we promised when we hired you 10, 15, 3 weeks ago? Um, but we see it as these moments in time. And I think we can't look at relationships that way. So why do we look at career development that way? It breaks my heart.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Well, and and it makes sense because we have deconstructed the employee experience into these different categories. We have specialists in the organization who attend to each of them, and that's why the leader is so key, because the leader is that thread of continuity. The leader is the one who connects these different, um, points on the journey and keeps it, um, keeps it, it, it real and going deeper on the development, uh, angle.

Russel Lolacher: It's holistic and I, I think, yeah, it's, it's absolutely holistic. In your research and in your interviews and in your, in your work yourself, have you seen that light bulb go? Like, how have you seen that light bulb go off where people are looking at going, oh, right. This is just an ongoing never ending journey. This is not just another rung in the ladder.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Yeah. I think there are a couple of, of things that happen that that kind of, um, make me smile when it comes to, to this question. I'll frequently just do the math for them. Would you rather take 120 minutes once a year or 10 minutes a month, you know, five minutes a week.

A moment a day, you just start doing the math and suddenly people say, oh my gosh, absolutely. Gimme a minute a day, any day of the week. Um, and so they start to see the value of deconstructing development into this kind of ongoing relationship. I do a, uh, exercise in my workshops typically where I'll pair people up.

They have a whole bunch of questions. They get to choose which question they want to ask of each other.

Here's the kicker, 90 seconds and I hit the stopwatch. They talk, switch, ask their question. The other one answers. When people go through this exercise and realize that with a great question, a curious mindset, you know, willingness to listen, that you can do development in 90 seconds. You could really, you know I ask them how did, how would you describe those conversations? Insightful, fun, engaging, deep. Ninety seconds. Who doesn't have 90 seconds to drive a development conversation and a development relationship?

Russel Lolacher: So I wanna wrap it up with a final question, and maybe you just answered it. But I'm super curious as to what do you think...? so somebody's listened to this, you've inspired the hell outta them, Julie, they're like, yes! Development. This is what we should be doing. And they wanna dip their toe in the the water tomorrow. They wanna start on the right foot. What would you recommend they do to just take that first little nudge in the right direction of building development and relationships with their, with their teams?

Julie Winkle Giulioni: I think the easiest thing that you could do as a leader is start asking people, so what did you learn last week?

Just start there. The, the wisdom, the insight, the intel you're gonna get from that is gonna be enormous beyond what, what you might expect in terms of the business side of it. But this is where you start to get in touch with where people are coming from and where the opportunities lie relative to to development. So if you just start asking that question, then you're gonna get in the habit of asking a question. You can ask a couple of different ones, and over time, before you know it, you're gonna have earn the right to develop somebody.

Russel Lolacher: Ending on curiosity, that is Julie Winkle Giuliani. She is a keynote speaker, leadership trainer, and bestselling author. Two books that need to be in your library. Promotions Are So Yesterday- Redefined Career Development to Help Employees Thrive and Help Them Grow Or Watch Them Go- Career Conversations Organizations Need And Employees Want. Thank you so much for being here, Julie.

Julie Winkle Giulioni: Oh, Russel. Thank you.