Why Fostering Personal Growth Matters

“When learning is purposeful, creativity blossoms. When creativity blossoms, thinking emanates. When thinking emanates, knowledge is fully lit. When knowledge is lit, economy flourishes.” ― A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (India’s 11th President)

It’s true. Giving someone the opportunity of personal development is the seed to any type of growth.Your ability to grow a company is dependent upon your ability to help others grow.

Why do some companies continue to grow, while others falter and die? I'd argue it's the result of flexibility. Nimble companies adapt to new situations and marketing conditions while rigid companies eventually crack under the strain.

So, then, what makes a company nimble? My answer: management's commitment to personal growth. Here's why.

As a company grows, it must change, and those changes are only possible when employees take on new challenges, expand their capabilities, cultivate new behaviours and entertain new ideas.

In other words, companies grow when the people inside them grow first.

That's why it's so strange that so many bosses spend more energy on the "organization" than the individuals inside it.

Millions of management hours have been wasted in the vain attempt to create a perfect organization chart and the attempt to pigeonhole specific job responsibilities. They're trying to create the perfect corporate machine which is crazy because machines don't and can't adapt!

Instead, bosses should focus on the real business at hand, which is developing the capacity of every individual on the team. BTW, I'm not talking about a five minute discussion during a yearly salary review. I'm talking about day-to-day behaviour.

Personal growth in a nutshell, is advancing your skills and expertise along with developing your qualities. It’s an important and given aspect in the workplace environment. To add, it’s one of the main reasons why individuals seek to work for organisations, the desire for career development. Why we should seek to foster for our employees’ personal growth are the following reasons being:

1. They add value to your company – Daily growth will see your employees flourish in their field. When they flourish, you’ll notice the knowledge and wisdom they possess become more diverse. Your employees can then apply this new knowledge with their tasks producing state of the art pieces of work. Quality work produced before deadlines? Doesn’t that seem beneficial for both you and your company as well as for your employees? (It’s something to consider…)
2. They become more interesting – As part of what makes an employee stand out, as well as being an underlying reason to their commitment to work is their interaction with others. When you provide mechanisms to grow personally, your employees will be able to hold and maintain conversations over interesting topics. (The jaw dropping new episode of Game of Thrones anyone?) With your employee exhibiting this quality about them, you see that they have the ability to grasp onto the attention of others. It’s a social psychological aspect that employees need to perform.
3. They remain sharp beside learning curves – To keep up with society’s inevitable changes to technology and processes, it’ll involve fostering for personal growth by building knowledge and skills. You’ll see the effectiveness that your employee has in overcoming challenges your company faces. By doing so, they’re able to help you see they’re worthy of securing their position in the company.

While each of these factors are beneficial in different forms, the real question left to answer is how do we foster for this personal growth? There are many ways in which a quality leader can utilise to reap these benefits:

• Pay attention to your employees’ interests and help expand them – Know what they want and how you can help them achieve it.
• Implement monthly team training sessions – It could be going through new cases together and sharing new skills and knowledge.
• Understand that your employees are not “machines” but “a community of individuals eager to learn” – Hear them out and understand them on a personal level. Treat them as mentees rather than slaves.
• Prepare employees to attend seminars with professional development speakers – Evoking inspiration every now and then will remind your employees what it’s all worth.
• Organise one-on-one health counsellors with your employees to help achieve growth related to health – Showing that you care about your employees’ wellbeing will see their need to do so.
• Encourage to grow by providing incentives – Spark growth with a bit of motivation.

 In order for your company to grow and advance, it starts with gripping onto the ability to help others grow. By others, I mean the individuals who help bring your organisation forward, which are your employees. Any great leader will realise that by consistently keeping this understanding in the forefront of their mind after onboarding new recruits, will see a better management of talent retention. In return, you’ll sustain performance levels to meet targets and goals through productivity. This is one of the reasons why we initiate in new recruitment, right?