Maximizing the Human Potential

Maximizing Team Performance

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andrew shaffer consulting maximizing team performance
Photo by Jopwell from Pexels

Are you maximizing team performance? How do you know if your team is working at maximum capacity? Here are some of the symptoms of a team that struggles with low productivity.

  • Difficulty meeting deadlines and goals
  • Flat or decreasing revenue or profits
  • Increase in product quality issues (increased defects, customer complaints, returns, fewer repeat orders, etc.).
  • Increasing or unacceptable employee turnover and absenteeism

When a company, or team experiences these symptoms for too long they generally think they can’t do anything about it. This week, I am going to talk about how you can maximize the performance of you team and see real impacts on your bottom line!

Maximizing Team Performance

Businesses either grow or die. Keep in mind, if your business is growing slower than your competition, you are in the process of dying.  Some business owners might think this is acceptable, as long as they can ride it out until retirement. But think about it, if your business is dying, how well are you really servicing your clients? Are they getting the high level of service they expect or deserve? You’ll have to answer that question. Today I am going to talk about how to maximize your team performance, and make sure you stay in front of your competition today an in the future!

Talent Development

An employee development system is not an annual performance assessment. It is not long drawn out conversations about why someone needs to improve. I have 2 boys that play sports. I do my best to coach them both. When a player strikes out, as he’s walking back to the dug-out I often give him a quick piece of advice. Adjust your hands so you can get the bat around or shift your balance so you can get a more level swing. Something quick and immediate. I didn’t wait until the end of the season (like an annual review). We try to make corrections now so we can see improvements at his next at bat.

To continue with the coaching analogy, there is one coach, one piece of advice, and one conversation. I don’t overload the ball player with three for four pieces of advice. It’ll clutter his head, and he’ll certainly fail again next time. We don’t have every coach giving advice at the same time (I do see this at times). Again, keep it simple, direct and understandable. Normally the change doesn’t come immediate in a game, and that is OK. But at our next practice I remind the player what we needed to work on, then we practice it until we get it right.

As a coach I develop my players on a game by game, day by day system. I work to elevate performance, so at the end of the season we are better ball players. Hopefully at the end of each practice we are a little better. When creating an employee development system, these same fundamentals apply. A quick, simple, timely  process for feedback, with the intent of elevating talent, will improve productivity, lower retention, and drive profits that you will see in your financial statements.

Employee Engagement

Companies pay consultants to come in and do employee engagement surveys. (find out how ours is different).  Based on the results of the survey, leaders are encouraged to create action plans with their teams. The idea is to work on something that will get your team engaged and working towards a common goal. Most of the time, teams would pick something easy to do, something they knew they could accomplish without too much interference with their “real jobs.” As you might imagine, this didn’t really get teams engaged and had very little impact on actual engagement.

In most cases I observed that “focusing” on engagement often had the opposite result from the intended effect, and many times company leadership completely missed the point. The word “engagement” lost its true meaning and become a chore. Engagement isn’t about one more thing to do. Engagement is about building commitment and loyalty to a project or a company. Engaged employees give that discretionary effort needed to see a plan succeed under any circumstances.

Accountability

Believe it or not, your people like to be held accountable. Holding them accountable for doing their job is a sure-fire sign that their job is important. Accountability leads people to strive to do better. It isn’t necessarily the fear of being held accountable that motivates someone to succeeded. Success builds confidence and momentum. People genuinely like to be successful and it makes them feel good. We can all appreciate this, as we’ve all had days that were successful and others that just went down the drain. Which one makes you feel better at the end of the day?

Holding people accountable means, you, as the leader, need to hold yourself accountable. Hold regular meetings, or whatever form you use for accountability and stick to it. If you ask someone to finish a project by the end of the month and wait until the end of the month to check for status, don’t be surprised when your team member lets you down. They let you down, because you didn’t tell them the project was important. Therefore, develop a schedule and a system for accountability, follow it, and watch your engagement soar.

This Week’s Challenge

Is your team working at maximum efficiency?  In which areas could you improve performance? Do you know the root cause of the lack of performance?

Give us a call for an assessment and consultation and see how you can start improving your bottom line.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Leadership and Engagement and the Bottom Line

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andrew shaffer consulting leadership and engagement

When I talk about employee engagement or leadership, people tend to think it is a soft skill. Engagement isn’t something tangible, or that shows up as a line item on the P&L statement. I must admit; I had the same thoughts. In fact, when I started by consulting business, I tried to avoid the words leadership and engagement. Yes, I tried to avoid the words that describe what I do, precisely because they sound like soft skills.  As you can imagine, that made things a bit of a challenge when explaining what I do, and probably wasn’t good business practice.  This week, I want to get into some of the hard results I experienced when focusing on leadership and engagement, that made it important enough for me to focus a business around it.

Leadership and Engagement and the Bottom Line

In EVERY business I’ve worked in or with, there were always inefficiencies that impacted the bottom line. Whether it be people that weren’t properly trained in their jobs and inefficient, or unnecessary bureaucracy, or frequent re-work because of errors and lack of communication.  These things add to labor costs, and most of the time are the cost of doing business. What would happen if they weren’t part of the cost of doing business? What if you had trained and efficient employees or if decisions weren’t bogged down by bureaucracy? Could you minimize mistakes and do it right the first time? Those are the opportunity cost associated with leadership and engagement.

Today I am going to share a few examples of hidden profit killers that I have seen throughout my working life.

Process Inefficiencies

At one point in a previous career, I was responsible for the testing of some complex engineering systems. We were the final test before the units were shipped to our customer. Because we were almost the last step in the process, there was rarely any slack in our schedule. By the time the systems showed up, we had to turn them around quickly to meet customer need dates. From set up to tear down, the whole process should have taken 3 hours.  Meaning we could easily test two systems in a typical 8-hour shift.  When I started this almost NEVER happened. Rarely could we get through a test in 3 hours.  Typically, it took almost an 8-hour shift to complete a test. Why? There were terrible inefficiencies inherent in our process.

Showing Leadership

How does this situation apply to leadership and engagement? Last week, I talked about complacency, and this is the way it is. And before I took over, that is the way it was. The difference was that someone on my staff approached me and said this was terribly inefficient, and he wanted to do something about it. He saw a problem and had a vision of a better future.  He knew there was a better way.  So, he shared that vision with me and the other members of my team, and elicited help. This is leadership.

Creating Engagement

At this point, creating engagement was easy. A better future was laid out to the team, and people wanted to be part of this process. So, I assigned a team to review our testing processes and inefficiencies to create a more robust testing condition.  I have to say the level of participation was astounding. There were second shift people coming in early, first shift people staying late. We had junior personnel and senior personnel and everywhere in between looking to create a better test environment.  The goal was to reduce testing by 50%, or from 8 hours down to 4 hours.

Results

What was the result?  Well, when I moved on, we didn’t quite get the testing down to a consistent 4 hours. On average, we got the test time down to about 5 hours. So, with two people running the test, we freed up about six man hours each night (30 hours each week) to accomplish other tasks. With the same amount of staff, we reduced testing costs, and increased productivity. Both of those were metrics any manager will be happy to see.

I could share a story where there was a recurring problem where there was a lack of leadership and engagement. But that would be boring, because they are probably still having the same problem!

This Week’s Challenge

Are you curious if there are hidden operational costs in your business?  Give us a call for an assessment and consultation and see how you can start improving your bottom line.

As a loyal reader I am offering a 25% discount on our motivational assessments. Do you want to know what motivates your employees? Contact us now and let’s have a conversation.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

 

Effective Communication

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andrew shaffer consulting effective communication

How well are you able to communicate your ideas to another person? Think about it. How many times have you argued with a spouse or significant other because of a communication problem, or lack of communication? What about your children? Have you ever asked a colleague or a member of your team to do something only to be totally disappointed because they did something completely different? The whole “bring me a rock” exercise. Most of the time ineffective communication is the cause of our disagreements and disappointments. This week I am going to share some takeaways from a recent workshop I participated in to learn effective communication.

Effective Communication

I recently had the opportunity to sit in a two-day workshop on communication. I am always willing to explore options for improving myself, and I understand the benefits of being a more effective communicator. However, as you can imagine, two full days seemed like a lot. I have participated in communication training, and by extension leadership communication training before.  Usually they were hours upon hours of hypothetical examples and role playing for scenarios that never actually happen.

To my surprise my expectations were completely wrong! We didn’t participate in role playing with over the top, unrealistic hypotheticals. Instead, during the two days we broke down and explored the causes of miscommunication, and how our own uniqueness contributes to it. It amazed me that just after day one, the workshop participants were sharing how they were taking what they learned and applied it at home that night! I cannot recreate the same impact in a blog that the workshop had over the two days, but I’d like to share some of the takeaways that might impact how you communicate.

How We Communicate

In today’s world there are almost an infinite number of ways to communicate with one another. We have email, text messaging, instant messaging, social media feeds, phones, video calls, pre-recorded videos, and good old-fashioned face to face conversation. Those are just the mediums we use for communication, that doesn’t even consider the message we are actually trying to convey!

When it comes to messaging it gets even more complicated. Have you ever said something (in any of the mediums above) and someone took offense, and you immediately had to clarify because your intent wasn’t understood? Yeah, me too.

Body language, tone of voice and other contextual clues add meaning to the words you’re saying. Most of us don’t put much thought and effort into the messaging and how we are communicating with others. We make assumptions based on our beliefs, what we think is commons sense, and our understanding of specific words. We have mental pictures or conclusions in our mind, and we assume others will have the same. This is far from the case.

When we communicate with others, we all need to be careful to make sure we are clear on what we are trying to communicate, and that our approach (message and medium) are appropriate and can be clearly understood by our audience.

 Language

“The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.” – George Bernard Shaw

Did you know there are 645 meanings to the word run? I was surprised too, so I googled it. It’s no wonder why non-native English speakers say that English is the hardest language to learn! In this workshop we played a word association game. The facilitator gave us a word and we each wrote down the next ten things that came to mind. It was a relatively common word, and we all knew the definition of it, but in the entire group we didn’t have one word in common.

The language we use while communicating can, and likely will, conjure different understandings in different people. In the workshop, we had the opportunity to do some group work. We had to answer some simple questions individually then meet as a group and find common meanings. Even with these simple questions, we all interpreted them slightly differently and answered them differently. The questions were about communication, but many people would have different answers if they applied the question to work situations or personal situations. The questions didn’t specify, and we interpreted it based on our experiences.

Clarity

We don’t ask enough questions. I have read Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling probably close to a dozen times. In this book he dedicates a whole chapter on asking questions? Why? Because asking questions (he says smart questions) is the only way to get information. I once listened to a talk on successful interviewing. One of the most common mistakes interviewees have is they don’t ask questions. Ironically this was more common in men than women. Why? I suspect we believe by asking questions we admit we might not have all the answers. If we don’t have all the answers the other person might think we’re not qualified.

On the contrary, we must ask questions. Asking questions shows curiosity and a desire for understanding. I’ll never know what you are thinking, how I can help you, or who you are without asking questions. Earlier I alluded to the bring me a rock exercise. You know when your boss asks for a rock, you bring a rock only to find out it was the wrong rock. We’ve all been there I am sure. What would have happened if you took a few minutes to find out what rock your boss wanted in the first place? Would it have been time better invested than to have to go find another rock? I bet it would. Asking questions is an investment in getting the job done right the first time.

This Week’s Challenge

Today’s article isn’t going to make you a better communicator all by itself. I wanted to share with you some of the takeaways that I took from this workshop. You may already know and understand these things. For this week’s challenge, I recommend you look at how you communicate and find ways to be more effective. A small investment in becoming a more effective communicator can help your productivity.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Team Building Ideas and Misconceptions

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team buliding andrew shaffer consultingDuring a conversation over coffee with my friend Steve Morris, founder of Catylator, we had an interesting discussion on some common techniques for team building and why they fall short of the goal. One thing we both agreed on was that some techniques for team building, while fun, don’t actually achieve any objectives of team building. Steve has a unique, interesting and effective method for team building and problem solving. If you think you could use his help or want to learn more, I encourage you to check out his website. This week I am going to share some ideas and misconceptions of team building.

Team Building

Most of us agree that working on a cohesive team improves productivity, engagement, and business outcomes. The terms “team” and “teamwork” are ramped in job descriptions and prospects inevitably boast about being team player or team leader. Many organizations I know will attempt team building through some social activity as a way to get to know each other outside of work. They might invite teams to a happy hour, lunch outing, or bowling. Is this the best way to build a team?

While these activities are fun, and can help build friendships, they don’t always build teams. I mean think about it, how is bowling or a beer going to help you be more productive at work? Personally, I prefer to have a beer or go bowling (actually golfing) AFTER I’ve established a relationship with someone.

Common Purpose

For a team to be highly functioning, they have to have a common purpose. Sports is the best and simplest example of this. The common purpose of any sports team, at least the good ones, is to win a game or championship. That’s it. Everyone in the organization from the owner, to the GM to the rookie that just signed this morning, all have the same goal. To win games.

In the business world, the common purpose could be a project completion, customer satisfaction score, or sales goals. The best teams I’ve ever worked with was when we were ALL focused on the same goal. The team was diligently working to complete a task. The team leaders were actively removing obstacles that impeded progress. Everyone knew what success looked like, everyone was keeping score, and everyone participated in achieving results. I’m actually getting excited just remembering these successes!

Belonging

Being part of a team, is more than just having a role to fill. Being part of a team was a sense of belonging. I’ve been coaching little league baseball for several years now. One of the most exciting days for the boys are when I hand out the uniforms. Actually, from the first day of practice I generally have someone asking when we’ll be getting uniforms. Why? Because when we all have our uniforms on, we feel like we’re part of something. I make sure the coaching staff is always dressed like part of the team as well. Again, we ALL belong and it makes a difference.

When someone belongs to something, they recognize they are part of something bigger. Being part of something bigger tends to help us be less concerned about “me” as we are about “we”. When we’re concerned about “we” then we can help each other and the team improve.

Trust

Trust is a foundational aspect of any team. I need to trust that the other members of my team will be there when I need them. Going to back to my hobby of coaching little league. Sometimes my pitchers get focused on getting a strike out, and will get frustrated when players get a hit. When this happens, I’ll remind them that it’s OK, and there are 8 other players on the field that are there to make a play. Actually, the other players are hoping the batter hits the ball so they have something to do!

Trust is essential to everything in business and in life. My kids trust that someone will pick them up from school each day. My wife and I trust each other to uphold our responsibilities in the family. I trust my employees to do the jobs they say they are going to do. When the trust breaks down, the team breaks down and sooner or later you stop winning. Once trust is broken it is very hard to repair.

This Week’s Challenge

I want you to think about what you do to build a team at your company. Does it help you work towards a common goal? Does it foster a sense of belonging? And, does it help build trust?

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Use Culture to Gain a Competitive Edge

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Culture to Gain a Competitive Edge andrew shaffer consultingI had the privilege of sitting down with my friend Ben from Global Harvest Networks to share ideas on how to help companies grow. When I first met Ben, his story of growth in his company inspired me, and he hasn’t stopped growing. When Ben and I were talking, he shared that he is always amazed at how his team is willing to step up and take on new challenges. His company has developed a culture that gives him a competitive edge. In light of this conversation I thought I’d share with you how you can use culture to gain a competitive edge!

Use Culture to Gain a Competitive Edge

There are two things I know about your business. First, if you are not making money, you are going to go out of business. Second, your business cannot operate without people. Businesses either grow or die.

According to aei.org: only 12% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still a Fortune 500 company in 2015. It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is, or how your proprietary information gives you an edge. Without people to sell, develop, and produce the product or provide the service, nothing will get done.

The other little secret, your product or service can be the absolute best today, but if you don’t continuously improve, you’ll soon be left behind. Need proof? Remember the Motorola Razor phone? What happened to Motorola? When I was a kid, everyone in the neighborhood had an Atari 2600 game console. Atari isn’t even in business anymore. Not to mention the number of airlines, car companies, and electronics companies that no longer exist.

Last month we discussed the importance of developing proactive leadership. To take this discussion to the next level, your leaders should be creating a culture that gives you a competitive edge!

Challenge the Status Quo

When you find something that works stick with it. Right? I mean that sounds like good advice. My dad used to tell me, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This advice was probably sound, when my dad saw me taking a screw driver to the VCR because I wanted to “see how it works” but this mentality can be detrimental to a business.

I have met business owners that have done a decent job of building themselves a profitable business. However, after several years, they find they can’t increase revenue or market share, and sometimes they are even losing revenue. They call in consultants (like me), and when I suggest making changes to the business model, I get immediate resistance. They built their business doing it a certain way and come hell or high water, that is the way it will be done. In the meantime, their competitors have found a way to solve the same problem cheaper, faster and smarter. Who is going to stay in business longer? Create a culture that is as proactive as your leaders.

Develop Friendly Competition

Anther struggle I see in businesses is a culture of cut-throat competition. I mean that culture where everyone is out for themselves and not for the company? Friendly competition is fine, fun, and productive. It is when the competition is mean, undermining, and counterproductive that it becomes toxic to a company.

Let’s use a manufacturing company as an example. This company runs three shifts a day to produce their product. Management decides to help motivate the production floor, that they’ll have a competition over the next month to see how may products each shift can make. In a culture of friendly competition, each shift would work hard and try to produce the greatest number of products. They would get creative to find more efficient and effective ways. Ideally, each subsequent shift will do this. Each team wins, because they learn how to be more effective and efficient. One team may win a prize (or bragging rights), and the company benefits from improved productivity and profitability.

Now, if you have a cut-throat type culture, the results will be extremely different. Here you may have one shift trying to sabotage the next shift. They could damage or “lose” material. They certainly wouldn’t be creative and find innovative ways to be more productive. In this type environment each shift would be out for themselves, and may even hinder production on the other shifts if they thought it would give them an edge.

This Week’s Challenge

This week I have given a couple examples how a culture can help your business gain a competitive edge. By developing a culture that challenges the status quo. What are you doing well today, and how can you make that better? Develop opportunities for friendly competition. This can be in sales, marketing, manufacturing, wherever. Create a culture that encourages innovative and creative thinking, and watch your competitive edge sharpen!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Improve Employee Engagement

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andrew shaffer consulting improving employee engagementThis month, I’ve been writing about different aspects of proactive leadership. Proactive leadership is all about keeping your head up while taking care of the day to day aspects of your job. Proactive leadership is anything from keeping ahead of industry trends, to actively looking to identify and develop the talent in your organization. By being a proactive leader, you create a highly engaged workforce. There is a plethora of surveys to help you measure your team’s engagement. There are also tons of stats showing how engaged employees help your business. Today I am going to write about three ways you can help improve employee engagement in your organization.

Improve Employee Engagement

What is employee engagement? When I ask many leaders, they think that engagement is somewhere between how “happy” employees or some sort of satisfaction survey. I’ll tell you first hand, that happy employees are not always engaged employees, but engaged employees are happy employees.

In my book Maximizing The Human Potential I describe employee engagement as an emotional attachment to your job. When someone is engaged, they are more productive and less distracted. Here are some things to focus on to improve employee engagement in your organization.

Elevate Performance

The best leaders I ever worked with helped me become better at what I was doing. This goes for athletic coaches, mentors, and supervisors. The best leaders always helped me become better. Proactive leadership is all about raising the performance of your team. Elevate the performance of each member of a team and the entire team performance is elevated.

To elevate performance, leaders should be having regular feedback and coaching sessions. It’s not enough simply to tell an employee what they can be doing better. That can lead to resentment, confusion or frustration. Leader not only tell someone how they can improve, but show them as well. Offer suggestions to improve productivity or customer service. If you don’t know, work with your team to find solutions that can show improvements.

Accountability

Believe it or not, your people like to be held accountable. Holding them accountable for doing their job is a sure-fire sign that their job is important. Accountability actually leads people to strive to do better. It isn’t necessarily the fear of being held accountable that motivates someone to succeeded. Success builds confidence and momentum. People genuinely like to be successful and it makes them feel good. We can all appreciate this, as we’ve all had days that were successful and others that just went down the drain. Which one makes you feel better at the end of the day?

Holding people accountable means, you, as the leader, need to hold yourself accountable. Hold regular meetings, or whatever form you use for accountability and stick to it. If you ask someone to finish a project by the end of the month, and wait until the end of the month to check for status, don’t be surprised when your team member lets you down. They let you down, because you didn’t tell them the project was important. Therefore, develop a schedule and a system for accountability, follow it, and watch your engagement sore.

Loyalty

Lastly, we all want our employees to be loyal. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of my readers will think that they have the most loyal employees. You’d be surprised. Loyalty is different than your team liking you, or liking the company. I read an article the other day saying that 80% of employees will start looking for a job after just ONE BAD DAY. So, unless you have the 20% of the workforce that will stay with you through a bad day (or month or quarter…) loyalty isn’t that easy to come by.

I have worked with companies where there is an us versus them mentality. Typically, it is employees versus management, but not always. Other examples would be one department versus another department or even worse, one click versus another click.

I have found that the best way to foster loyalty in the workplace is to show loyalty to your employees. Leaders become part of the team and are not positioned above it. Each case is different, but here are some ways you can build loyalty in your organizations:

  • When overtime is required, stay as late or come in on Saturday with them (and buy lunch)
  • Offer help, guidance and solution when a problem arises
  • Trust their expertise. It doesn’t have to be your way, they can be right too.
  • Get to know them on a personal level. People are more loyal to a friend than a colleague.

This Week’s Challenge

In conclusion, enhance your proactive management skills by focusing on these three areas – performance, accountability and loyalty. Even if you already have a loyal staff, and are doing these actions, give them a little extra effort. There is always room to improve employee engagement.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Leadership Lessons from Coaching My Kids

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leadership lessons coaching andrew shaffer consultingOne of my favorite parts of being a dad is coaching my boys in sports. I have fond memories of my dad coaching me, and I am hopeful that I am building the same fond memories for my kids. Coaching also gives me an opportunity to spend time with my kids doing something we both enjoy. My objective is to teach kids the sport and how to be winners on and off the court. The side benefit of coaching is sports always provides business lessons, especially leadership lessons. Today I thought I’d share leadership lessons I learned from coaching 5th grade basketball.

Leadership Lessons from Coaching My Kids

Almost every one of the boys on the team will look down at the ball when they dribble. We do drills in practice to help them become more comfortable with the ball, but ball handling hasn’t become second nature yet. Because of this tendency, we miss A LOT of opportunities for easy scores because the player dribbling the ball doesn’t see his open teammate, or worse yet turns the ball over, takes a less than optimal shot, because he didn’t see the defense closing in on him.

Unless your business is playing basketball, most of us don’t walk around the office or job site looking down as we dribble a basketball. However, too many leaders do keep their heads down, being productive, and never look up to and see opportunities or challenges getting near. As a result, leaders and managers are reactive to problems and rarely recognize and take advantage of opportunities. Proactive leadership is all about keeping your head up, and recognizing opportunities and addressing challenges before they become problems.

Time Management

I only have two hours a week to coach my team. We practice two times a week for an hour, and that is all. There is so much the team needs to learn, so I really must structure the time I have to maximize effectiveness. This means at each practice, we focus on the important things that will put us in a position to win. So, some weeks, I choose only one skill to practice and put off teaching other skills. I want my team to be good at everything, so this is a challenge.

As with sports, it is important to set priorities in the work place. Your time is valuable and you cannot do everything. Sorry to tell you, but multi-tasking is a myth. Proactive leadership is all about deciding the focus and eliminating distractions.

A client of mine realized this when trying to make his team more successful. He brought his team members into a room to find ways to be more productive. He learned that they were spending valuable time creating reports that nobody used! Take a moment to evaluate the tasks that fill your day/week/month and eliminate any that are not necessary.

Assistant Coaches

My coaching staff is a critical part of any team I coach. Without exception my assistant coaches bring skills, knowledge and experience that I don’t have. During games we all have different roles. My assistants help me with game management and player coaching. If I had to coach the boys on the bench, manage the game, and watch everything that is going on, there is no way we could have any success. My coaches help me be more effective, I trust them, and they trust me.

Proactive leaders make it a priority to hire and surround themselves with competent, dependable staff. It is also important to trust your employees. I had a leader share a story with me once about a boss that constantly undermined every decision he made. His boss would go around him to manage employees, which was often in conflict with the direction he would give. This sent a clear message to the manager and his direct reports that he wasn’t trusted by higher manager. My question to the boss would be, if you don’t trust me, why did you give me this job?

Build Leaders

Almost every team needs a leader on the field or court – a leader among peers. We develop players to be leaders. Players that can help others understand their assignments, and coach them when we miss something. Peer leaders are important because it can just be a different, non-authoritative, voice offering guidance. Having leaders on the field and court make it easier and more effective for me to coach my teams. I can’t be on the court, but the player can.

Proactive leaders will build the next generation of leaders. Proactive leaders will identify and develop talent. This benefits the leader (as opposed to the closed-minded thinking of threatens the leader) by allowing them to be in more places at once.

If you have people on your team that can and will step up when you are away, then you have the flexibility to pursue new opportunities. Imagine you were a leader and didn’t train the next generation leader. What would happen when you took a vacation? Would things go as smoothly as if you were there, or would production come to a halt?

This Week’s Challenge

Learn to dribble with your head up so you can see opportunities. Mastering time management by focusing on a limited number of priorities, hiring talented help, and developing the next generation leaders will help you become a proactive leader.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

 

Setting a Priority

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andrew shaffer consulting setting a priority for your businessI have a client that is hell bent on building a successful business. She is a relatively new business owner and is learning as much as she can to be successful. I have to admire her enthusiasm. But there is ONE problem. Actually, the problem is actually a lack of ONE problem. Because she is learning so much, she is trying to find ways to implement everything all at ONCE and ends up being overwhelmed. This situation can occur with large companies too, and if there are several layers of management, it can be worse. This week I am going to talk about the importance of setting a priority for your business and focusing on it until completion.

Setting a Priority

You are a great leader. You’re ambitious and pride yourself on getting things done. I mean that is how you’ve been successful throughout your career. Besides, you can do anything if you make it your #1 priority, right? The truth is how many #1 priorities can you have? Answer: 1.

I’ve fallen into this trap before. I’ve sat in staff meetings, telling my team that solving this problem has to be our #1 priority. Then, I am reminded that last week we had a different #1 priority. It wasn’t that my team didn’t want to work both, or both problems weren’t important. My team knew that they only had so much energy and wanted to get the most productivity out of their time.

Proactive leadership is about looking to the future and creating a responsive vs reactive culture. Here are some common barriers to proactive leadership.

Symptoms

When working with large companies, I have noticed that every time there was a change in leadership a new initiative was introduced. This makes sense, the new executive wants to solve a problem and have an impact. So, the logical thing to do is to create a new initiative for improvement. But, what happens when two or three new initiatives are introduced by different executives? Or even worse, what happens when an aspiring manager is positioning themselves for an executive leadership. It can be overwhelming the number of new initiatives or priorities that can come down in a large organization.

Too many initiatives, or priorities will turn proactive leadership into reactive leadership. Your employees are busy enough with their “day jobs” and now they have to focus on half dozen new ideas? I have been in a meeting where my boss actually said, “Let’s wait and see if this sticks before taking action.” My boss decided to be reactive. He decided to wait until his lack of effort caused a problem, then he’d react to it at that point. Not only did it kill this initiative, but it killed every initiative that came afterword.

Solution

The solution is simple: Don’t overload your employees. There will always be another great idea, another market to capture, service to provide, or way to be successful. But what will kill any initiative is a start and stop momentum. When people are asked to focus on too many things, they don’t do any of them well. Choose one initiative or priority and focus until it is complete. I mean your people have enough to work on just doing their jobs. How much more can they handle?

Benefit

So, the benefit of setting a priority and completing it is that you get things accomplished. You create a culture of success. Your employees know what is important today will still be important tomorrow. They, and you, will develop a habit of completing projects. There is nothing more frustrating than focusing on a project and not seeing it through to completion. Or even worse, by the time you finish something it is obsolete because it took too long because of your other priorities.

Managers and leaders in your organization can be proactive when focusing on fewer things. They know what is important and they can concentrate on completion.

This Week’s Challenge

Limit your initiatives and priorities to one or two at the most, and clearly understand which is number one and number two. Make them your focus for your weekly meetings. Avoid the temptation of chasing the next good idea. I promise when you’re done with this idea another will be waiting for you to execute.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

How to Avoid Having Dissatisfied Employees

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how to avoid hearing i quit andrew shaffer consultingI’ve had some serious writers block today, so I scrolled through some social media to see what inspiring things people are posting, or articles that are being shared. I thought I’d write about something that seems to be on the minds of other people. I found it quite surprising, that there were a lot of articles and statistics about people quitting their jobs to find new work. One article went so far as to state 60% of all employees have quit or are considering quitting right now! Do you have dissatisfied employees? Are your employees looking for a new job? How would you know?

How to Avoid Hearing “I Quit!”

As a business owner or a team leader you know how costly turnover can be to your bottom line. Retention is especially important when you have highly skilled workers that are in demand. I recently wrote a blog on the key to retention. In today’s economy there are more jobs available than people to fill them, and highly skilled workers are in high demand.

To be completely honest, I have quit more than one job and it took my boss by surprise. When I give an honest assessment of my performance leading up to deciding it was time to move on, the signs were obvious. If your employees are displaying any of the following traits, it’s a good idea to talk with them about their future.

Engagement

For the weeks, and months prior to ever leaving a job, there was almost always a lack of engagement in my work. I was doing my work, but I’d have a tendency to procrastinate, or let a task take longer than was necessary. During this time, I would participate less in meetings, and was reluctant to volunteer for any “extra” assignments. I didn’t necessarily do this on purpose, but most of the time, my mind was elsewhere. Sometimes, I was thinking about where I wanted to work next, or other things I’d rather be doing. I would easily be distracted by non-work-related things which resulted in a lack of concentrated focus on my current job.

High performers generally have a high level of engagement. They bring excitement and enthusiasm to their work which drives them to be top performers. As a leader, it is important to monitor and observe changes in behavior in your employees. Changes in behavior, and engagement, are symptoms of an underlying issue. When you observe these symptoms, it is in your best interest to identify issues quickly and resolve them if you can.

Absenteeism

Employees looking for new work tend to miss work more often. If they are less engaged and can be doing something else, they are more likely to do so. Also, if your employees are looking for work, they are likely to take time off to attend job fairs, networking events, or even interview for another job. Unplanned or one day time off can be an indicator that someone is looking for another job.

Absenteeism isn’t always manifested in unplanned time off or time off with short notice. Often times, it is strolling in just a few minutes later than normal. Nothing completely unusual, but a sign that getting to the office wasn’t a priority. Leaving promptly and taking longer than usual lunch breaks are also signs of absenteeism. If you notice a high performer taking more time off than usual, or longer breaks than they are accustomed to, this could be a sign someone is looking for another job.

Productivity

Your high performers are high performers because they are productive. I mean these are the people you count on when things absolutely have to get done, right? Productivity decreases as engagement decreases. This can sometimes be difficult to spot, but the signs are there. High performers, engaged or not, will still be productive. They are wired that way, and really don’t know how to not be productive. However, there will be signs of slowed productivity. Maybe they are completing tasks on time, instead of beating deadlines. Another symptom could be turning acceptable work quality instead of the exceptional work they typically provide.

This Week’s Challenge

Dissatisfied employees always leave signals of their dissatisfaction. Attentive leaders are tuned into changes in behavior and are willing to take action. In an economy where the employer is at a disadvantage, and qualified highly skilled employees are in demand, ensure your leaders are watching for signs that your best talent is looking for another job. Being proactive with your employees can help you retain your best performers and keep your competitive edge.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Playoff Mentality and YOUR Business

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andrew shaffer playoff mentalityHere we go again! No, not with New Year Resolutions and a fresh start, but PLAYOFFS! The NFL playoffs started over the weekend and the College Championship is being played tonight. As I watched the end of the NFL season, and some of the College Bowl games over the holiday weekend, I saw a wide range of emotions on display. I saw joy and anger, optimism and disappointment. This emotional roller coaster was not just experienced by the teams on the field, but by the fans in the stadium (or in my family room). It highlighted how invested fans are in their teams.  This week I am going to share how harnessing the playoff mentality and this type of excitement can benefit your business.

Playoff Mentality and YOUR Business

There are a lot of parallels between sports and business. In fact, in many business meetings I’ve attended there have been sport metaphors used to express urgency, a level of performance.

  • “She hit a home run on that one.”
  • “He struck out with that client.”
  • “We need a game plan for that project.”

You don’t have to be a sports fan to see the parallels. Business is competitive, and you have to play to win. Just like the playoffs, it’s win or go home in business. However, the similarities are much deeper. Here are a few things I witnessed this weekend watching sports and how you can apply them to your business and create YOUR winning team.

Play to Win

You have to play to win. If you aren’t winning, you are losing and when you continuously lose, you go out of business. Playoffs bring an intensity and a sense of urgency with a win or go home scenario. You, and your employees, should bring that same intensity to your business, EVERYDAY!

Sports fans are cheering for their team to win every game. As a fan I’m receive no physical benefit from my team winning. The players, coaches and team organization benefit, but not the fans. So many times, in business though, employees don’t really care if the business wins. I have worked with employees that were almost cheering against their company because they didn’t see any benefit from winning.

Imagine if everyone in your company was doing everything they could to help the business win? How would that benefit your company? Now imagine if you had up to 70% of your employees indifferent to winning or even a handful actively working against you. Everyone from the CEO to the new hire walking in the door today need to be playing to win, and more importantly, needs to know what winning looks like!

Loyalty

This is something that just impresses me. Every weekend from September through January I see people out wearing something that represents their favorite team. It might be a jersey, t-shirt, gloves, jacket, hat, but it’s everywhere. Honestly, it continues all year round. Every week, fans are reminding me of their favorite brand (team), and nobody is paying them for the advertising!

People talk about their favorite teams waiting in line for coffee, on social media and at holiday parties. Sure, sports provide entertainment, but let me ask you this. Imagine if your customers had half the emotional connection to your products or services as they do to their sports team? People are loyal to their team, in good times and bad (unless they are consistently bad). Do your customers have that kind of loyalty to your brand? Do your employees have that type of loyalty?  Why not?

Eternal Optimism

Even the best teams don’t win the championship every year. Although there are always some that seem to be in contention every year. Consistently top performing teams take loss or a setback, or even a bad season, and build upon it. The next game, or the next season is always an opportunity to redeem yourself. Great teams don’t quit, they don’t give up, and they don’t accept defeat. They study setbacks, and build upon it to prevent them from happening again. Eternal optimism, and a sense of hope for the next challenge keeps them engaged, improving and loyal.

I have worked with individuals and teams that had become accustomed to losing the same problems on every project that they eventually accepted defeat as a way of life. This prevented growth, innovation, and eventually competitiveness. Do you struggle with the same challenges year after year? How are you working to resolve these problems, or have you accepted them? How could your business thrive if your team had eternal optimism?

This Week’s Challenge

How could having a playoff mentality in your business help you thrive? Find steps that you can incorporate into your business that will give your employees the same sense of loyalty and emotional attachment they have to their favorite sports team. When your employees begin to work with a playoff mentality, your company production, profits and customer loyalty will increase!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.