What are the key takeaways from this Manager Tools episode?

Key insights include: **Development Plan Failure Rate:** Organizations cannot produce data showing development plans work effectively. Out of millions of managers globally, fewer than 100 have likely completed a full development plan that successfully developed a direct report to promotion.; **Manager Time Burden:** Creating and maintaining development plans becomes a full-time job when managing 15 people. Plans require constant updates as business strategies, technologies, and priorities shift, making multi-year or even year-long plans obsolete before completion.; **Weekly Delegation Method:** Assign one to two developmental tasks per quarter maximum. Monitor progress through weekly one-on-ones, provide daily feedback on new responsibilities, and only add another delegation when the direct handles current tasks efficiently, not perfectly.

Manager Tools

Development Plans Are Dumb

January 5, 2026

Read time

2 min

Topics

Career Growth, Relationships, Leadership

AI-Generated Summary

Published Jan 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Development Plan Failure Rate: Organizations cannot produce data showing development plans work effectively. Out of millions of managers globally, fewer than 100 have likely completed a full development plan that successfully developed a direct report to promotion.
✓Manager Time Burden: Creating and maintaining development plans becomes a full-time job when managing 15 people. Plans require constant updates as business strategies, technologies, and priorities shift, making multi-year or even year-long plans obsolete before completion.
✓Weekly Delegation Method: Assign one to two developmental tasks per quarter maximum. Monitor progress through weekly one-on-ones, provide daily feedback on new responsibilities, and only add another delegation when the direct handles current tasks efficiently, not perfectly.
✓HR Span of Control Problem: HR business partners cannot effectively review hundreds of development plans across their organizational area. They lack detailed knowledge of each person's specialty, career path, and role requirements to provide meaningful input or oversight.

What It Covers

Manager Tools explains why traditional development plans fail in practice despite sounding logical in theory, and advocates for short-term developmental delegations through one-on-ones and frequent feedback instead of long-term planning documents.

Key Questions Answered

•Development Plan Failure Rate: Organizations cannot produce data showing development plans work effectively. Out of millions of managers globally, fewer than 100 have likely completed a full development plan that successfully developed a direct report to promotion.
•Manager Time Burden: Creating and maintaining development plans becomes a full-time job when managing 15 people. Plans require constant updates as business strategies, technologies, and priorities shift, making multi-year or even year-long plans obsolete before completion.
•Weekly Delegation Method: Assign one to two developmental tasks per quarter maximum. Monitor progress through weekly one-on-ones, provide daily feedback on new responsibilities, and only add another delegation when the direct handles current tasks efficiently, not perfectly.
•HR Span of Control Problem: HR business partners cannot effectively review hundreds of development plans across their organizational area. They lack detailed knowledge of each person's specialty, career path, and role requirements to provide meaningful input or oversight.

Notable Moment

The hosts reveal that formal mentoring programs, gamification, engagement initiatives, and panel interviews all followed the same pattern as development plans: widespread adoption based on theory and press coverage, yet zero data proving they improve retention, productivity, or profitability.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to manager tools. This is Sarah. And I'm Mark. Today's podcast, development plans are dumb part one of one. This cast answers these questions. Should I create development plans for my directs? Why don't development plans work? And how can I develop my team without development plans? If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Are you ready to build confidence and capability for your year ahead? Well, manager tools offers comprehensive training that helps you communicate clearly, collaborate more effectively, and stand out in your organization. Join us at an upcoming virtual or in person effective communicator conference. Register now at manager-tools.com/training. So, Mark, it is our first Manager Tools podcast of the new year. Happy new year. It is. Happy new year, everybody. And I feel like because we're we're starting this new year, this is a really timely cast in that one of the most commonly recommended managerial efforts at the beginning of every, essentially, new year is that managers create development plans for each of their directs. Now it's especially talked about when we're talking early stage professionals. Right? Younger individuals, individual contributor type roles as opposed to executives, directors, things like that. And sometimes it's recommended as a generational tool because of the fact that it's recommended for for individuals who are newer in their career. So younger people like Gen z, for example. They're they're expecting them. Yeah. But I'll tell you something about that, Sarah, if I can interject here regarding that whole Gen z thing. Thirty years ago, before generational management was a thing, and it's still not a thing. It's just happens. There are some people whose livelihoods depend upon it, and so they show for it all the time. Generations are no different, Haven't been any different. Humanity hasn't changed in ten thousand years. The workplace has changed a little. But as I've said before, all 40 year olds think all 20 year olds are stupid because 40 year olds forgot how stupid they were when they were 20. But when people make this a generational thing, all they're doing is saying the latest generation to come into the workforce is this. They don't have any data that says Gen Z or Gen Y or Gen X or whatever did x, y, or z compared to somebody else. They don't. I often joke that, I tell people, hey. When it comes to, generational management, I bet you've heard these things about Gen z, and they'd say, what are they? So, well, they want more work family balance. Definitely. They want that. They want their work to fulfill them personally, not just professionally or monetarily. And they want their work to be aligned with their values. Oh, yes. Definitely. So it's too bad for you because those three lines come straight off the front page of the Wikipedia page for the baby boom generation. So when we said when Sarah said Gen Z there, guys, don't please …

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