Podcast Episode #9 : From Feedback to Future: Career Conversations That Drive Success For You and Your Team
What makes a career conversation actually helpful—not just another check-in or feedback session?
In this empowering episode of What Is Your Working Title?, we speak with Priya Khosla, seasoned HR leader and learning strategist, who brings 25 years of experience designing learning cultures and coaching managers. Priya offers a clear, human, and refreshingly honest take on what it takes to run meaningful career conversations—ones that motivate, retain and develop talent across all generations.
Whether you’re a people manager, HR leader, or individual contributor navigating your own growth—this episode will shift how you think about ownership, feedback, and the future of work.
Key Takeaways
❌ Managers Don’t Need All the Answers – what you need is humility, curiosity and the right questions
📍 Career Conversations ≠ Performance Reviews – don’t confuse feedback with forward-looking development
🧭 Employees Must Drive Their Own Careers – accountability starts with the individual, not the org chart
🛠 Use Skills Language, Not Job Titles – focus on what’s transferable and future-relevant
🤝 Internal Mobility Starts with Trust – let go of talent-hoarding and grow people, even if they move on
❌ Managers Don’t Need All the Answers
Too many leaders enter career conversations feeling the pressure to advise, direct, or solve.
Priya is blunt: “If you walk in thinking you need to know the next move for your employee, you’re going to fail.”
Instead, she urges managers to take a coaching stance—ask open-ended questions, surface values, and support reflection. It’s not your career. It’s theirs.
📍 Career Conversations ≠ Performance Reviews
We often muddle feedback with growth. Priya draws a clear distinction: “Performance is about what’s happening now. Career is about what could happen next.”
While the two can overlap, a great career conversation needs future orientation, reflection, and psychological safety. Otherwise, it becomes just another appraisal meeting.
🧭 Employees Must Drive Their Own Careers
Priya’s own pivotal moment? A career conversation that caught her unprepared—and taught her to take the driver’s seat.
“After that, I realised: I need to come prepared. I need to do the homework. My manager can coach me, but I’m accountable for the direction.”
The message is clear: don’t wait for a roadmap. Build one.
🛠 Use Skills Language, Not Job Titles
In a non-linear world, roles change, but transferable skills last. Priya recommends regular “skills inventories” to assess strengths, gaps and relevance.
“Think: what are my baseline skills that I can bring into any future role? How are they evolving? And how am I getting feedback on them?”
🤝 Internal Mobility Starts with Trust
Too many leaders fear that career conversations mean losing talent.
Priya reframes it: “If someone leaves your team a better version of themselves, that’s a win. Whether they stay or go, you’ve grown them.”
She advocates building cultures of transparency, curiosity, and career support—where growth is celebrated, not hoarded.
Tune in for a conversation that’s both practical and personal—about building the skills, mindsets and relationships that make career conversations worth having.
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Tags:
#CareerDevelopment #ManagerTraining #FutureOfWork #LearningCulture #SkillsFirst #InternalMobility #HRLeadership #CareerOwnership #WorkingTitlePodcast
