How Leaders Can Support People As They Grow

You can’t spend too much time on growth and development of employees. 

Do you agree with that idea?

I certainly do!

We recently took a tour of Nick’s Pizza & Pub, and they’ve fully embraced that notion. Here are two must-know insights from that tour.

Nick’s thinks in terms of leadership development for every single person on their team

Nick’s hiring process looks to seek out a certain kind of person—someone who takes initiative for improvement, sacrifices for the betterment of the team, and someone who can hit the ground running as part of a fast-paced team. 

Once that person is on board, Nick’s is intentional about how to grow and develop that person with retention in mind.

They also think in terms of leadership development for each and every person. Nick says he thinks of this as enrichment of his employees. They require no formal review; instead, they are able to select when they enroll in training programs.

Employees can see how training translates to growth and to promotional opportunities—and that path to promotion/advancement is actually shown on their wall for them to see. Employees’ success is a result of their performance during their training. No matter how fast they go through that training, they can see the clear map that they need to follow to acquire more skills and to contribute at the company.

Nick’s knows that people crave self-expression…and that doesn’t stop at work. 

There were a multitude of lessons at Nick’s; seeing how he handles open book financials with a very young group of employees alone (they have “fiscal huddles”) was inspiring and educational.

But one of the lessons that was also important was one you don’t hear too often in business.

Nick made it a point to tell us just how much he recognizes and appreciates how people crave self-expression…and said another way, how much people just want to be…well, themselves at work.

I’ve never heard it put this way before, but I had to agree once I thought about it. It makes complete sense to me that if you want to see people authentically care about their work, and you want to see them bring their best versions of themselves to work, how can you expect them to not be who they are at work?

This is one of the great things about small business; we should support people, in their ongoing growth and self-expression, and allow them to be who they are (assuming they aren’t harming anyone else).

At Nick’s, they encourage this sort of self-expression. They also support and celebrate spontaneous self-expression. As long as this behavior is in alignment with the company values, it adds to the fun and the synergy you feel inside Nick’s.