Category: Time Management

From what I have experienced having been in different leadership positions along the way I always felt as if motivating the team is one of the most important tasks that I was faced with. From what I have read, those that study leadership and write on the subject are quick to point out that this is also the case for several reasons: boost in production, morale in the workplace and reduced turnover are all benefits of motivation.

Probably the most overlooked way to motivate a team is through communication. And effective communication can empower an entire team as it gives them an increased sense of belonging and responsibility. Employee motivation improves as employees feel more comfortable with their working relationships. Here are a few strategies to improve communication and motivate others to become better.

Schedule – schedule weekly meetings for no other reason than to simply open up the lines of communication. At the most basic level it gives the team the sense that as a leader you care about their opinions and will also value their feedback. The priority here is to open the floor to any questions, comments or concerns.

Loop – consistent and effective communication with your team will not only empower and encourage them to make their own decisions but will also build trust and loyalty. Just be honest and straightforward and don’t try to spin the truth.

Clear directions – many leaders find it difficult to set clear directions and then stand-by those directions. Communication needs to reinforce and provide a strategy with what you’re attempting to do. The best communicators in the workplace find ways to communicate to keep employees on course and make sure that the objectives are being carried out.

Feedback – the majority of leaders fail to give constructive feedback to their teams simply because they fear how the employees will react. To help resolve this, the leader should provide frequent feedback so the small issues don’t grow into much larger ones. From my own experience I have found it helpful when a leader would simply ask “how often would you like to receive feedback?”. In general most employees would say monthly or weekly…very few would respond by saying annually. Nobody wants to be surprised during their annual review.

Personal – share stories of your own personal failures and successes. This is a great way to lift the spirits of anybody on the team that might be in the need of a boost. You will also build a heightened sense of community by doing so.

Interest – if a team member approaches you as the team leader and shares a particular concern…ask what you can do to help address the issue. Ask if they have a solution in mind. This is a great way to show commitment to solving the problems of the employees and helps them feel like a valued member of the team.

Encourage – schedule time to meet with the team and encourage them to brainstorm and offer their input. Everyone should be available to generate ideas and participate in this discussion. Generally, employees want to help solve problems and give them a chance to feel that they’re being heard.

Open – early on in my career a team I was assigned to would encourage open lines of communication to prevent low morale and this prevented any type of toxic work environment. This particular leader always let the employees know that there are open lines of communication and as a result everyone was comfortable and brought forward problems and issues.

Kindness – leaders should never belittle, threaten or embarrass an employee in front of anyone. Rather they should only offer improvement opportunities. It’s just common sense that when an employee feels under attack and caught off guard their motivation is going to suffer. On the flip-side when employees are rewarded or provided an opportunity to grow you can bet they are going to feel empowered!

-RG

Recently I’ve had conversations with several colleagues regarding the idea of good work habits and what exactly that means for an organization. This of course prompted us to reflect on both good and not-so-good work habits that we’ve experienced in the past. Some of the habits we discussed included personal-presentation, organization, productivity, work quality, initiative, consistency and follow up. 

Employees today seem to think that these basic work habits are considered as matters of personal choice and do not always see concrete business reasons for certain requirements or preferences of their managers or supervisors. Oftentimes managers and supervisors will have strong preferences or requirements without having any true business reason, that is their prerogative. At the end of the day EMPLOYERS you are paying the EMPLOYEES…it’s not the other way around. 

In general they are very good reasons for following well-established best practices when it comes to good work habits. Things to consider:

• If employees are not well or not healthy – there is an increased cost in terms of absenteeism and increased healthcare costs. This also has a negative impact on performance and morale.

• Unfortunately when employees do not attend to their personal-presentation [grooming] this has a negative impression on those with whom they interact…both internal to the organization and most importantly customers.

• When employees arrive to work late, take long breaks, leave early for missed deadlines they are adding less value to the organization and oftentimes are keeping others waiting. This too has a negative impact on how the organization is viewed.

• Employees that don’t take notes, use checklists or have some sense of organization will often lose important details and just lose track of what they are doing. All of this makes it harder for others to collaborate with them.

• If employees aren’t paying attention to the details they are going to make more mistakes…again diminishing the quality of work and requiring work to be redone.

• Projects that are left unfinished are almost always the result of employees that cannot be counted on to follow up and then become a distraction as others will have to constantly remind them to keep moving forward.

• Many problems that go unsolved are the direct result of opportunities that are missed or when employees simply do not take the initiative.

We all agreed that these are very solid business reasons for managers and supervisors to enforce basic work habits on their employees. However not all of them apply to all people in all jobs. As a manager or supervisor you should always ask yourself: what is the business reason for making this a requirement?

-RG

Would it be fair to say that things are rapidly changing around us? Yes, of course. Careers, jobs and businesses in general are coming and going at a rate like we’ve never seen. We all need to be open and aware of ways to make changes to stay relevant while continuing to serve our customers. If we fully intend to take advantage of growth with new technologies we might need a few tips to help discover opportunities as we move forward. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you are looking for new opportunities:

Networking – over the course of time networking remains to be a constant need to do business. In order to identify and take advantage of the new opportunities we need to seek out people who have insights and contacts within our own industry. Some ways to continue or begin networking would include participating in trade association gatherings, communities of learning and practice within your field, and also subscribing to a variety of social media sites and groups. Find a way to select and participate in a group and make yourself an asset. Doing so will create opportunity.

Regulations – when trying to get out in front of an opportunity think about what needs to come about as a result of new laws or regulations regarding technologies. As new laws and regulations are created there will be a need for consultants and trainers who are knowledgeable in those areas resulting in the need for new products and/or services.

Capitalize – capitalizing on new technology that disrupts the existing ways of making, sharing and distributing things creates opportunities. For instance, if you wanted to take advantage of a new technology like 3-D printing and create an opportunity….ask yourself are there ways in which you could use this to provide a service? Or fulfill a need?

Tracking – tracking social trends and demographic information could lead to serving very specific ethnic markets, an age group or regional interests. A good question to ask yourself would be is there a need to address based on a certain type of tourism in your area?

Problems – be aware of and notice problems that people frequently comment and complain about. This could be related to a product or service that is no longer on the market and is in need of replacement. As products and services are removed from the market there’s often still a need and there will be an opportunity for others who can step in to fill that gap.

– RG

Recently, I was having a conversation with a colleague and we were reflecting back on our first leadership opportunities. The first time we were really in charge of others, a team or a group of coworkers. During this conversation it became clear to us that one of the most important things that successful leaders can do to retain their best employees…was create a sense of loyalty. Here are some of the ideas we discussed:

Believe and trust – to believe and trust that your employees will perform to the best of their duties leads to loyalty. These people have been hired for a reason and should be trusted to do so until a situation arises in which they cannot be trusted. In a book titled The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey tells us that a team with high trust will produce better results faster and at a much lower cost. 

Respect – respect the people you lead. Leaders who make a conscious decision to create a workplace in which people are treated with respect and dignity will see great results even when challenging employees to perform at the highest levels. Silos must be broken down, leaders must begin to listen and self serving leaders must be reassigned or let go. The bottom line – workers need to be valued.

Respond – Great leaders respond to the needs of their people. Taking a genuine interest in the jobs and career aspirations of the individuals on their teams will create loyalty. Look to the future to help create learning and development opportunities for team members. Leaders must find out what motivates their best people by getting to know them and what drives them to do a job well. As a leader, do you know why each member of your team gets up in the morning to do the best work that they can do? If not, you might consider asking them.

Freedom – many years ago employees would stand on a production line and simply do what they were told to do, taking orders from high-above. That doesn’t work today. Today’s employees want the freedom to collaborate, organize and innovate within an organization. Everyone should have the choice and responsibility to exercise leadership from their position…regardless of title. 

-RG

Every individual, business and organization is looking for a competitive advantage. One way to help create a competitive advantage is to use mentor relationships. A colleague and I were having a conversation about previous relationships with mentors or relationships that could’ve been considered a mentor-type relationship. We agreed that we’ve both seen articles in the media recently that communicate a common theme. That there is a significant correlation between business mentorship and the survival rate of those businesses. Not to mention individual mentorship and professional advancement.

Many years ago when I finished my undergraduate coursework, finding a mentor was not as easy as it is today. Today offers many more options for finding a match. There are online services that connect local National and even global matches. For example, MicroMentor is just one example of an online service that allows you to create a profile, reach out to others and start mentoring. According to MicroMentor, the average communication time between mentor and mentee is about 12 hours of phone calls, advice given online or in-person meetings.

Mentoring doesn’t have to be a huge commitment and there are no rules or definitions as to exactly what is to take place. The relationships can take on many different forms.

In general the benefits include:

Better recruiting – mentoring leads to better recruiting and retention of employees for organizations or small working groups.

Engagement by employees – mentoring can spark appreciative coworkers who put in extra time and effort on their jobs. Many individuals report that they are more engaged, happier and productive when they are acting as either mentor or mentee.

Savings – there are no direct costs involved with mentoring and it is very easy to implement.

New attitude – an attitude pick-me-up is a byproduct to those that participated in mentor-mentee relationships.

New skills – many individuals who communicate with a mentor or a variety of mentors make fewer mistakes and often end up developing job-specific and leadership skills.

In general there aren’t any disadvantages to simply asking someone with more experience for advice. If a mentor relationship develops and they become a mentor, this may just be a win-win scenario for both parties.

-RG

There’s been a lot of talk recently about leading from within or leading from where you’re at. The idea of leading or being a leader from your position in life makes sense to me and I’m not sure why that is. Might have something to do with the way I was raised. It might also have something to do with different positions I’ve held during my career. And every once in a while I meet somebody who doesn’t identify with the word leader. They might say things like “I can’t do that”, or “I’m not the leader”. To me leading and leadership doesn’t always have to relate to positional authority. Leadership is more about the behaviors we exhibit. 

These are behaviors that are unique to creative problem-solving and bettering the lives of others. Leadership behaviors can also directly shape the future and make things better. Leaders that I have known over time have demonstrated the following:

Confidence – this is simply the belief that you can succeed. We should all pay attention to our internal voice when challenged.

Service – this is to help make sure that your colleagues have the support and tools that they need. Directing your resources, talents and experience to help others we’ll develop trust and transform a working group into a highly-effective team.

Accountability – as challenges arise you must question whether your part of the problem and accept responsibility if need be. Focus on the items that you can control and disregard those that you can’t.

Credibility – this is the key to leadership and grows when the others know that they can count on you because your words match your actions. We should all work to minimize the gap that may exist between our words and our actions.

Character – be aware of what we value and how that enables us to direct our life and lead others. We should all find time to consider what values matter the most to us and how they can better guide us.

-RG