3 Therapeutic Techniques for Employee Development
In the last 4 years, I have been tasked to put together a team that could help us support seafarers globally. As the acting Chief Operating Officer and overall psychologist, I found myself treating the workplace much like therapy - where data privacy, client handling, needs analysis, and treatment plans were my default. When we first went into lockdown in March 2020, my main concern was focused on the psychological well-being of the team, and how they could continue to work productively despite the circumstances. Over time, I found that there were 3 techniques that best helped me in maneuvering employee development - a process of improving a person’s existing competencies and skills to be able to support the organization’s goals.
Choice Theory by William Glasser - WDEP Technique
Choice Theory® (by William Glasser) is based on the simple premise that every individual only has the power to control themselves. The pandemic has taught me that when you’re dealing with remote teams, you need to have faith that they are using company hours productively. The Glasser WDEP technique allows employees to reflect, assess, and refine the direction in which they are heading by establishing the following:
WANTS - Have them define what they want to achieve. This can apply to a career path or a task-oriented goal.
DIRECTION - Let them define the direction and strategy that they feel they can handle
EVALUATION - Review the strategy used and the results that came from it. Were they effective? And how can they redefine or strengthen their course of action?
PLAN - Allow them to guide you through their next steps, how they plan to execute, and timelines which they can commit to.
This approach allows your team to think independently, wherein they can consider best actions when they are working on their own.
Narrative Therapy - Timelines
Narrative therapy is a style of therapy that helps people become—and embrace being—an expert in their own lives (Clarke, J. 2021). Narrative techniques are probably the most common management skills that we use without even knowing it. We see this in the way we produce project timelines, develop a marketing pitch, and utilize social media. It’s all about the story that we tell ourselves and where we want our story to go.
In employee development, narrative timelines can be quite effective in understanding the strengths, talents, and skillsets of an individual - helping you collaborate towards goals that can support the direction of their careers. A timeline can begin at any point in their lives. Ask the employee to reflect on their timeline and define key experiences both high and low that they feel have shaped who they are.
When the timeline is complete, take a look at the themes of wins and challenges that they have accumulated through the years and how they have managed each one. What kind of story have they been in until today? And in which direction do they want their story to progress?
The beauty of narrative timelines, is how the answer will often come from the insight that the employee can gain from this exercise.
Question Maps - a basic counseling approach
When I was fulfilling my course work in counseling, we would have exercises on “asking the right questions”. We never knew what kind of client we were going to get, so we needed to get good at inquiry, framing our sentences, and eliciting a response that may draw insight and awareness. As a leader who held on to a lot of information, I knew that there were lapses in the way we were functioning when I recognized that some team members didn’t know what to do when I wasn’t around.
It was crucial to the business that I could oversee operations without hand holding. Question Maps became a simple cognitive exercise that helped redefine the way we did work and collaborated as a team.
Ask everyone in the team to create their own questions maps around key areas of work that they tackle regularly
What questions do they need to ask themselves to hold themselves accountable?
What questions would they have that may be shared with their team?
What questions could they escalate to their immediate supervisor?
Which questions are critical towards the client?
Which questions would they need answered by the management?
This simple and yet elaborate exercise helped shape independent thinking and creative work across various teams. And within a few weeks, it provided leaders with more time to tackle high level discussions and concerns in a more effective manner. In some ways, the question map fit in nicely with the WDEP technique, by allowing them to flesh out the problems and explore them with a more critical lens.