Creating Breakthroughs in Development

In his quest of exploring the relationships between leaders and the emerging leaders they develop Bruce Holoubek, owner of Contracted Leadership, and Host of The Development Exponent Podcast talks to Rani Mani and Jose Camacho of Adobe.

Rani Mani is the head of Global Social Influencer Enablement and Employee Advocacy at Adobe. She is passionate about cultivating and nurturing communities and coaching others to do the same. Her nickname at Adobe is “The Velvet Hammer” due to her ability to lead with her head and her heart– to be assertive and firm yet with kindness and respect. Rani’s mantra is “To make the impossible possible.” Jose Camacho is the Social Media Enablement Strategist at Adobe. He is passionate about building leaders in his community both at home and at work. Jose’s mantra is, “Wherever I’m needed, whatever it takes.” Jose reports directly to Rani. Jose is helping Rani mobilize all of Adobe to become employee ambassadors. Rani establishes key relationships across Adobe.

At Adobe people are expected to bring their whole selves to work and not compartmentalize who they are. This allows leaders like Rani to develop emerging leaders like Jose to see their preferences and talents and better create a mutually meaningful work environment.

To create a mutually meaningful work environment for your emerging leader, Rani recommends that you ask them questions like, “What makes your heart sing?” “ What do you want to do in life?” “What does success look like to you?” and look for projects that support those goals. Then co-create a plan to help them get there. In helping them with the plan, don’t hold their hand tightly, instead aim to be the wind beneath their wings.

Break Out

Sometimes emerging leaders have the limiting belief that they have plateaued. That they are where they are physically, emotionally, and professionally and that there is nowhere left to grow. By allowing your people to bring their whole selves to work allows you as a leader to be aware of where your people are personally and allows you to help them get unstuck from those limiting beliefs.

The pain of their limiting belief can be more painful than the work of growth, but the belief can be comforting psychologically, so finding out what the fear is that is holding the person back can be key in helping move them forward. Find out what the fear is in service of. Is the fear reinforcing a deeply seated belief about themselves or the world? Is the fear somehow protecting them in some fashion? One way to start is by asking the person, if the stagnation is more painful or less painful than the growth itself.

Break Through

A good problem is when your people are so passionate about what they do and the people they work with that their process becomes too familiar and familial. People become too comfortable. This creates a creative stagnation, and it becomes hard to have breakthrough moments.

To move out of that space, you can ask provocative questions and make declarative statements.

“What if this team breaks up, what if this role goes away, what do we lose?” “What if tomorrow we have to report to different organizations and different managers– does the work become less important? What we lose funding, do we have a more creative, scrappy way to get it done?” “What if we lose 90% of our team, can we still move forward?” Sensational “what if” questions get the juices flowing to see if were are leaving something on the table because we are too comfortable, robotic or predictable in our stance.