Many of the most significant and memorable conversations of my professional career were impromptu. I don’t look back with any high degree of fondness for the formal performance reviews my working life. The talk over a beer about my career with a mentor — or even the complete unscheduled dialogue with an executive I looked up to — are the moments I remember years later. These conversations helped support confidence in myself and reassured me that I was headed in the right direction. These “napkin” talks where my future was discussed were sketched on a scratch sheet of paper or literally a napkin in some cases, not a power point presentation. The casual nature of the exchange made both more natural and sincere. They were having the talk with me because they cared and saw potential in me, versus the discussion being mandated by management to include in a performance review.
Part of the enormous value of the napkin talk isn’t that you are necessarily going to paint a crystal-clear picture of your employee’s future; the point is you are expressing to your employee that you want them there, you see them in your company future and, most significantly, you care. You aren’t required to have this talk; you want to have this talk because you’re invested in your employee’s success.
Here are three keys to executing an effective napkin talk:
1. Paint a long-range picture.
Your parents or grandparents worked in vastly different times than we live in today. Perhaps they started their careers in their twenties with a big corporation, and…