Learn what each person actually wants from their career and life

Care personally means knowing the goal behind the job — not just what they’re working on, but why.

Why it works

People work with different levels of engagement, loyalty, and discretionary effort depending on whether they believe their manager sees them as a whole person with real goals, or just as a unit of output. When a manager demonstrates genuine knowledge of someone’s deeper aspirations, it signals psychological safety: the manager is on their side. That trust is the substrate on which honest challenge can land as help rather than threat.

How to do it

1. In a dedicated one-on-one (not a performance review), ask: "What do you want your career to look like in three to five years — inside or outside this role?"
2. Follow up with: "What are you trying to learn right now?" and "What parts of this job give you energy vs drain it?"
3. Write down what you learn and refer back to it — making it inform assignments and feedback shows it wasn’t performative.
4. Revisit annually; goals change and remembering the update matters as much as learning it the first time.

Evidence

Self-determination theory supports the value of attending to a person’s goals and growth needs — people who feel their manager understands and supports their development report higher engagement and openness to feedback. Scott’s prescription operationalizes that. (mechanistic)

Self-determination theory is well established; the specific management practice of asking career goals and acting on the answers is Scott’s prescription. Whether it produces the trust Scott claims is not separately trialed.

Sources

• Deci & Ryan (1985 / 2000), self-determination theory — need for relatedness and competence as drivers of motivation

Common mistake

Asking the career-goals question once at a formal review and never again — people read this as a checkbox, which is worse than not asking, because it shows you gathered the information and discarded it.