What is tenacity? And where does it come from?

I love this definition of tenacity: “The state of holding on to an idea or thing very strongly.”

Because if you’re a leader, who really believes in the “the idea or thing” you’re leading your team toward, that passion and tenacity can become contagious.

Asking For a Friend Conversation Highlights

2:47 How does grit and tenacity developed as a tri-athlete translate into your role as a leader?

Take stock of yourself – Where is your grit factor?
Most of the grit is in your mind.
Commit not to quit.
Be willing to hang in there longer than anyone else.
Lead by example.

5:07 Defining tenacity

No matter what you encounter, you can adapt/pivot.
Resiliency – inner confidence and humility to hang in there a little longer

6:06 How to coach someone to tap into and to nurture their own confidence

Get into their hearts. That will lead to getting into their heads. Build trust.

7:56 How Kurt applies some of what he learned as an athlete into his role as a CEO.

Daily reflecting on leaving a legacy.
Developing a sound culture.
Taking stock about whether he is personally growing.
Making enough professional development available.
A “no-finish line” attitude.
Life-long learning.

11:00 Getting into leadership development with your team

Be the lead learner.
Model a growth mindset.
Harness the collective genius of the group.
Do after-action reviews.
Schedule the finish.
Add up the years of experience on your team.

13:30 When you have the moments when you wonder if you can continue, what conversations do you have with yourself?

Name them: dark moments
Have a mindset that you will have major regrets if you don’t finish.
I’ve gotta go a little bit longer.

17:49 Additional advice for people who are leading people who are tired.

Mental health is paramount.
Create white space.
Take care of yourself daily – start with you first.
Consider the Most Important Things.
Focus on relationships.
Play the long game.

22:20 Thoughts about discipline

Overcome inertia.
Get to a routine/structure.
Don’t second-guess yourself.
Plan the week out but allow for flexibility.
Delay gratification.
Be willing to shift.

25:20 One great story

28:48 Last bits of advice

No matter how bad it gets, commit not to quit.
Keep culture a top priority.
Keep growing and learning.
Do things with integrity, pride, enthusiasm, and trust.

Your turn. I would love to hear your stories of how you find, and hold on to, leadership tenacity and grit.

The post How Do I Build Leadership Tenacity and Grit? appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Of course, leadership is not about being liked. But it sucks to go to work every day when you know your team would rather be working for someone else. Plus, if your team doesn’t respect you, you’re not going to have the influence you need to make an impact. So, how do you gain respect, when your team’s just not there?

This challenging and poignant question came up in one of our “Asking For a Friend” segments following a recent keynote.

“What do I do if I’m sure my team doesn’t like me?  How do I gain their respect?”

My first response was, “It depends. Why don’t they like you?”

I’m thinking about the handful of managers I had over the years who were the epitome of a jerk at work — the bullies who crush courage with their toxic leadership behaviors or who seem to be lacking a moral compass.

Those folks had deeper issues going on and probably needed a therapist more than an executive coach.

This article is not for them, but for you, the well-intentioned, human-centered leader looking to gain the respect of their team.

3 Reasons Your Team Might Not Like You (and How to Gain Respect)

“What do I do if I’m sure my team doesn’t like me? How  do I gain better influence and connection

Here are three common reasons you could be losing influence (and what to do to regain respect and the impact you need).

1. Your behavior is sabotaging your leadership influence.

We all have blind spots and opportunities to improve our leadership and gain respect. If you sense your team doesn’t like you, start by talking with each member of the team one-on-one.

In Courageous Cultures, I share a story of a well-intentioned manager who was coming across as a bully. Thankfully, one of his team members had the guts to confront him.

What he did next made all the difference. He asked others about their perceptions, and as it turned out, his reputation was consistent.

He learned to change his tone of voice. To ask more questions. And, to enter the room more gently. Those slight modifications to his behavior, coupled with the fact that he was asking for feedback with a real intent to listen, made all the difference. He gained the respect of his team.

In our leadership development programs, we often encourage managers to complete a Do It Yourself 360 (Listening Tour), to gather this feedback. Identifying one or two areas where you really want feedback, and then going out and asking people a few questions, and summarizing the themes.

Managers tell us that this simple process is a great way to get candid feedback to improve their leadership, and it also reinforces that they really are open to change, so it lays the groundwork for psychological safety. and helps them to gain respect. They are easier to approach the next time.

2. They underestimate the value you bring.

There was one time in my career where I was absolutely certain that my team didn’t like me.

I had been promoted to lead a 2200 person retail sales team at Verizon. The problem was I had zero sales experience. Thirteen out of fourteen of my direct reports were men. And, fourteen out of fourteen had been in retail sales for their entire careers.

The Associate Director of Operations on the team, “Greg” was an absolute rock star and was the obvious successor for that role. No one on the team could believe that this “HR chick” had been “given” this job. “It was probably a diversity move.”

You can read more about how this story ends in Chapter 6 of Courageous Cultures (you can download the first few chapters of Courageous Cultures for free here).

But here’s the long story short. I showed up in the stores on Sundays (and other times no one wanted to be at work) and rolled up my sleeves to really get to know the team and their approach.

I asked lots of questions and really listened. And then, I showed up with the confidence to establish a strong vision and leverage the skills that had helped me earn that role—rallying a large team to execute a turnaround plan on their most important priorities.

The team won the President’s Award for customer growth that year. One important way to gain the respect of your team is to help them win.

3. You’re holding them accountable for the very first time (stay the course!)

Of course, it can be quite a shocker to an underperforming team, when a new manager comes in and holds them accountable for the very first time. 

If you sense that your team doesn’t like you because you’ve raised the bar, or are holding them accountable to meet expectations, check your style. Make sure you’re focused on both results AND relationships as you’re giving performance feedback) and then stay the course.

It might be rocky for a minute, but most people really do want to work on a winning team. You might lose a few slackers who will continue to think you’re a jerk, but you will build respect with the rest of your team, not to mention getting the results you need.

Leadership is not about being liked. But, respect matters, if you want to have influence and impact. It starts with understanding where the breakdown is happening and then building a deliberate plan to gain their respect.

Your turn.

What would you add?

What’s your best advice to gain respect when your team doesn’t like you?

We would love to help.

Our new book Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict, focuses on four dimension of better collaboration: Connection, clarity, curiosity and commitment with over 300 Powerful Phrases to help you communicate through challenging workplace conflict. And it comes with a resource center filled with free activities your team can used together.

The post How Do I Gain Respect When My Team Doesn’t Like Me? appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

It’s not your imagination: if the pandemic shifted your job to working from home, odds are, you’re working longer hours. For many of the leaders we’ve spoken with over the past months, WFH arrangements are sapping their energy and their team’s morale and mental health. To lead your team through these challenges, it’s vital that you stop remote work from stealing your life.

One of the best parts of working with so many business leaders around the world is seeing the concern and creativity of leaders to help their teams during the pandemic. There is no magic wand that will solve every challenge, but you can stop remote work from stealing your life by incorporating some combination of these approaches.

Six Practices to Stop Remote Work from Stealing Away Your Best Self

Tap into the Power of Ritual

You’ve likely heard of Parksinson’s Law: that work expands to fit the time allotted for it. That’s a big problem when time seems unlimited.

One way to stop remote work from stealing your life is to clearly define the time in which it must happen. If you know you can’t work before or after a certain time, you’ll write that email in half the time, shorten or eliminate meetings, and spend less time on social media.

Without that clear definition, it’s easy to start work while you’re blearily reading emails in bed while waking up, keep on working through breakfast, and stumble into the evening without ever having stopped.

That’s a poor way to live (nor is it a good way to be a productive team member).

Tap into the power of rituals to create a “container” for your work. Writers are famous for rituals they use to define their work. Victor Hugo would take off his clothes to write and put them on again once he was done (not recommended for those Zoom calls!)

One IT manager we spoke with said his powerful work-from-home ritual was simply to pack his lunch. He’d eat breakfast with his family, prepare his lunch, put it in a cooler bag, and then take it with him the 15 feet to his desk. That would signal the start of the workday.

Perhaps you light a candle to start and blow it out during breaks, lunch, or at the end of the day. Others set a timer. Find a ritual that tells your body and mind when it’s working and when it’s not.

Shift Out of Crisis Mode

Another factor that has contributed to the expansion of remote work is the feeling of crisis. As the virus first spread and shelter-in-place orders went out, most businesses and teams faced legitimate crises.

• How will we maintain enough cash?
• Will we survive this?
• How can we get everyone working from home quickly enough?
• How do we keep our people safe?
• Will I keep my job?

A crisis energizes people. It provides clarity, focus, and adrenalin. It disrupts inertia and sparks innovation. Everyone rallies together and you can achieve amazing results. Some leaders love crisis-productivity so much that they manufacture drama and drive everyone nuts with constant fire drills.

But the power of crisis is limited. You can’t maintain that energy, focus, and adrenalin forever. It’s like sprinting. You sprint 400 meters. You can’t sprint a marathon.

Shifting out of crisis mode is difficult when the initial crisis isn’t over. The pandemic is a slow-moving economic and social crisis that isn’t over in a week, a month, or possibly even a year.

To stop remote work from stealing your life, shift out of crisis mode. Sometimes deep breathing, meditation, prayer, time in nature, or conversation with good friends are enough to make this shift.

A ceremony can also help. Declare the crisis of initial response “completed” and define the next stage, including the level of energy, effort, and overall health you expect of yourself and your team.

Still struggling to shift back to a gear you can maintain? Make two lists: what you can control and what’s outside of your control. Highlight your M.I.T.s (Most Important Things) on the first list. Release the second list (burn it, flush it, shred it, or delete it) and release yourself from having to work on the things you can’t control.

Find your focus on specific actions you can take toward the M.I.T.s where you can make a difference.

If, after these practices, you’re still finding it difficult to shift down, a conversation with a mental health professional can help.

Practice Mini-Experiments

One fun way to maintain your sense of life, build culture, and personal/professional development is a technique Karin learned from Susie, an executive whose company cultivated the technique of personal mini-experiments.

In short, you choose a behavior you want to try out. The criteria are that it has to be easy to do—and it has to scare you or make you uncomfortable. You commit to practice the new behavior for two to four weeks and see what happens.

For example: Susie described how she had a tendency to over-prepare for meetings. So her mini-experiment was to limit her preparation time to one hour. She worried that she would be under-prepared, but she discovered she did as well as ever–and now she had reclaimed many hours.

As the pandemic has progressed, we’ve heard leaders share their own mini-experiments:

• Giving themselves permission to put down their phone and have lunch with their family for 30-45 minutes.
• Starting a garden.
• Waking up 30 minutes earlier for exercise, reflection, or to try a hobby.
• Saying no to opportunities.

Enjoy a Hobby

Your mini-experiment might take the form of a hobby. One way to keep remote work from stealing your life is to have somewhere else to focus. David, who already enjoyed baking bread, used our extended time at home to join the ranks of sourdough bakers. It refreshes him and keeps him going between long days of leadership development.

Bread might not be your thing, but what might you do that would be fun and absorb some of your attention?

Make Team Agreements

One of the powerful tools we’ve seen many leaders use is to establish team norms of shared expectations about how they will work together. Examples include:

• An international team that decided they will not schedule meetings after 7 pm for any participant. This forces them to be efficient with the time they have.
• Other teams that have declared no-meetings-days such as Wednesdays or Fridays.
• A commitment to always leave 15 or 30 minutes between online meetings.
• Clarifying what communications tools to use for specific content. What can wait, and what needs to be discussed promptly? What should be an IM, an email, a phone call, and what must be a video meeting?

These discussions and commitments help everyone use their time more effectively.

Use the Flexibility

Working from home gives us opportunities. Where can you use the flexibility to restore your energy and relationships? Can you take an exercise break mid-morning? Can you meet your partner, child, or neighbor for a 15-minute break? Perhaps a walking meeting?

We talked with a team leader whose team all leave their work-from-home desks and walk while they meet by phone for 30 minutes.

Your Turn

For many, working from home during the pandemic is more difficult than traditional remote work. The challenges of family members unloading the dishwasher while you’re on a call, ad hoc workspace, concerns about illness, and social isolation add extra layers of complexity and stress.

If you’re working remotely, in order to lead your team and help them maintain their health and productivity, it’s vital that you stop remote work from stealing your best self. Energy, confidence, and empathy are hard to find when you’re strung out and exhausted from unending work.

We would love to hear from you. What techniques have you and your team used to stop remote work from stealing your life? Leave us a comment and tell us what’s working for you!

See Also:

Too Many Meetings? How to Make Meetings More Effective and Free Up Your Team

What Your Employees Are Yearning For in a Remote One-on-One

The post How to Stop Remote Work from Stealing Your Life appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

If you’re ready to conduct a succession planning calibration session as part of your overall talent strategy, read this first so you can avoid these five common mistakes.

Succession planning, done well, gives you a brilliant competitive advantage. Poorly executed, at best it’s a waste of time, and can wreak serious havoc on long-term performance.

Here are a few disturbing phrases,  I’ve heard in the last 15 days:

• “Oh, we’re too small to need a formal process.”
• “Our business is moving so fast we don’t have time for that.”
• “We’re baby boomers and we don’t know how” (trust me, I would never have included this one until I heard it TWICE this week from different companies looking for help).
• And the scariest of all, “We’re a family-owned business so the decision is obvious.”

The 5 Biggest Succession Planning Mistakes

1. Talking People Before Priorities

Before you can decide WHO is in your succession pipeline, be sure you are clear on WHAT you need. Think about the future and the critical competencies that will make that possible. Write them down. Then map your people against those possibilities. Choosing people for tomorrow based exclusively on today’s performance will slow you down.

2. Cloning

What often passes for “executive presence” is actually someone who looks and acts like the rest of you. Be careful. Sure you want poise, effective communication, and a tidy together look. But it may also be true that the quirky creative who marches to a different drum may just who you need to take your strategy to the next level. Too many like minds lead to uninspired strategy.

3. Letting Diversity Trump Common Sense

If you complete your 9 box succession planning grid and it’s all balding white guys with a dry sense of humor in box 9 you clearly have a problem. The question is, what IS that problem? Take a hard look in the mirror for bias and discrimination. Challenge one another to make it right.

Sometimes, it’s another issue. It’s the recruiting and leadership development that is broken. You can’t make someone ready for the next level by talking yourselves into it. Or worse, putting diversity multipliers on executive compensation which incent them to promote the diverse candidate just to hit a target.

The worse thing you can do is pad your “grid” by sliding diverse candidates into blocks where they don’t belong. Sure, identify opportunities for accelerated growth to make up for lost time. But NEVER promote an unqualified person for diversity reasons. You hurt them, your business, and weaken your diversity strategy.

4. False Consensus

You know you have a true box 9, high potential when every head at the table is chiming in with a resounding “Yes!” Not looking the other way when conflict arises.

A succession planning conversation without conflict is useless. The very best talent reviews involve robust discussion and lively debate which leads to important next steps (e.g. “You’ve got to know my guy better;” “She needs a stretch assignment.”)

If you start playing games like “I’ll vote for your manager if you vote for mine, the business loses.

5. Ignoring the Plan

The worst succession planning sin of all is going through the motions, and then reverting to the old patterns “just this time” when it comes to promotion. No one will take your succession process seriously the next time.

Don’t short change your talent strategy. The right people, at the right place, at the right time, will change the game. Be sure you’re prepared.

If you’re struggling with succession planning, I can help. I’ve facilitated hundreds of succession planning discussions over the years from the executive level, through merger integration, and at the frontline. Succession planning is worth doing well. Please give me a call for a free consultation, 443-750-1249.

See Also: How to Navigate Yet Another Office Shake Up (Wall Street Journal)

7 Big Rules For a Successful Talent Review

The post The 5 Biggest Succession Planning Mistakes appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

7 Ways to Get Your New Team to Trust You

1. Don’t Badmouth their Last Manager

If they had a poor leader before you, the more you listen, the worse the stories will sound. Or perhaps they had a superstar whose shoes you need to fill. It might tempt you to trash the guy before you. It may feel good and make you feel like a hero, but you don’t want to go there. Build your credibility on your own merits. No good ever comes from tearing down another person. Besides, you never know the whole story. Listen, reflect the emotions you hear (eg: that sounds like it was frustrating – or awesome), then let it go, and focus on your leadership. And while you’re listening …

2. Go One by One

The best way to get to know a new team is one person at a time. Invest deeply one-on-one. Learn about what they need, what they want, and what they most yearn to give. Get to know each person as a human being.

3. Listen and then Listen More

One powerful listening technique begins as you meet with each team member individually. Ask each person these vision-building questions:

• At our very best, what do you think this team can achieve?
• What do we need to do to get there?
• As the leader of the team, how can I help us get there?

These questions get everyone thinking about the future, not lingering in the past.

4. Share Stories

The team longs for signs you are credible and competent. Share a bit about your leadership track record of results—framing it with stories of what your previous teams could achieve (not what you achieved). You want them thinking about how awesome they can be, not how awesome you are.

5. Get Some Early Wins

Find two or three achievable goals that will help create a sense of momentum. Nothing builds credibility faster than success. Generate some early wins to build confidence.

6. Let them see you

Tell the truth. Be vulnerable. Let them know who you are, what scares you, and what excites you. Show up human. Your new team needs your authenticity.

7. Prove That They Matter

As you get to know them as human beings, meet each person where they are. Help the person who wants exposure to get visibility. Help the one who wants to grow to learn a new skill. Take a bullet or two when things go wrong. Give them the credit when it goes well.

The team needs to know you care about them and their careers at least as much as you care about your own. First impressions matter, for you and for them. Don’t judge their early skeptical behavior, or assume they’re disengaged or don’t care. If they sense your frustration, that will only increase their defensiveness.

Your Turn

Every relationship takes time and getting your new team to trust you is no different. When you invest deeply at the beginning, you’ll build a strong foundation for long-term, breakthrough results.

We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a comment and share your #1 way to help your new team to trust you.

More You Might Like:

10 Questions Your Team is Afraid to Ask

How to Build a Strong Team Vision

How to Encourage Your Team When Results are Disappointing

10 Stories Great Leaders Tell (podcast)

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Inspiring Leadership Secrets

To accomplish this elegant combination of grace and strength, great bonsai practitioners must be both gifted horticulturists and artists. In the same way, leading people entails both vision and cultivation. Here are eleven inspiring leadership secrets from the art of bonsai:

1. Focus on strength and directing energy, not fixing weakness

In bonsai, the artist looks for a tree’s strengths. What is unique and special?  What can they showcase?

Similarly, effective leaders look for strengths and build on those. Know of weaknesses to manage them and keep them from hindering strength, but focus on ability – in people, in yourself, and in your team.

Focusing on weaknesses builds nothing. Strengths produce results. What abilities, talents, and energy do your people bring to your team?

2. Growth requires patience

A fully developed bonsai can take decades to reach perfection. You collect material, let it rest and grow out for two or three years, prune and shape, then wait some more.

One of my very favorite trees is on display at the National Arboretum in Washington D.C. It is a Japanese pine that’s almost 400 years old! It’s an awe-inspiring sight, made all the more so by the fact that this tree survived the bombing of Hiroshima.

Nearly 400 years old, atomic bombing survivor

There are no shortcuts to produce growth. Nothing less than four centuries make that tree what it is.

But sometimes we force ourselves and our teams out of season. We push when we should rest. Or rest when we should study. Or move when we should question. Or question when it’s time to act.

To be effective, how can you be aware of your own seasons and your team’s season? You can use the competence-confidence model to give people what they need at this moment.

3. Treat individuals as individuals

A skilled bonsai artist knows that you cannot prune a trident maple at the same time of year as a juniper. Not all trees are the same.

People are also unique. Different people should be treated differently. What motivates one person may terrify or humiliate another.

How can you better understand the people you lead and learn how to maximize each person’s potential?

4. Healthy conditions produce growth

You cannot force a tree to grow. Rather, you provide the right nutrients, fresh air, sunlight, water, and soil and the tree will naturally grow. That’s what trees do.

People and organizations are much the same. Healthy organizations have healthy cultures and in healthy cultures, healthy people accomplish great things.

If your people aren’t growing and producing what you believe they’re capable of, examine your culture and systems. What can you do to help?

5. Appearances don’t tell the whole story

With certain trees, there are times of the year when you might swear the thing is dead. Some of the greatest abstract juniper trees have vast amounts of dead wood. A tree (and a person’s) potential is not just what you see.

In a tree, you look for life in the roots, in the channels that carry sap to the branches. In a person, you look for character. For integrity. For the desire to learn and willingness to try.

And when those are there, you:

6. Nourish or encourage what you want more of

A bonsai master knows which of three buds on the tip of a branch will be strong and best serve the tree. That bud is encouraged. If other buds would steal energy, they are removed.

You cannot wave a magic wand in bonsai or in leadership and have the right branch, team, or skills spring into existence. These things must be grown. If you want:

• More creativity, encourage it and remove barriers to healthy risk.
• More ownership, nourish responsibility and remove impediments to implementing ideas.
• To strengthen customer relationships, remove policies that prevent people from serving.

7. Pruning is beneficial

Sometimes a bonsai master will remove a branch or an entire limb for the health of the tree or so it can realize its full potential.

In your organization, do you regularly ask what we need to stop doing?

What methods, products, or services are no longer beneficial or serve the mission? You have limited time, money, and people. Set aside activities that do not serve your team or the mission. You can use the Own the U.G.L.Y. method to facilitate these conversations with your team.

8. Every part needs light to thrive

When caring for a tree, masters give great attention to ensure that every set of leaves or needles receives the light it needs. Without this care, interior leaves weaken then wither and die.

In organizations, we can shade out essential people who make a difference every day but aren’t the glamorous ‘face’ of the organization.

Do you treat your cleaning staff with the same dignity as your executives? Do you show appreciation to everyone in the organization for their contribution to the mission?

9. Make mistakes to grow

“Killing trees is the tuition you pay for learning bonsai.” – John Naka

No one enjoys making mistakes, but they are the price of knowledge. How can you create a safe environment for your team to make mistakes and learn what to do next time?

10. You cannot change the core

When selecting a tree, the bonsai master knows that some qualities of the tree cannot change. The general shape and strength of the trunk, the position of key limbs, the way the roots spread into the ground … these things are core to the tree and you cannot change them later.

Likewise, one of the most important leadership secrets to know is that you can’t change people. No matter how hard you work at it, forcing a gregarious people-person to work in isolation all day will end in failure.

Find people with a passion for the mission and the skills their work requires.

11. Nothing is perfect

Inspiring bonsai often tell a story. A tale of a lifetime fighting salt-laden storms blowing in from sea … or the struggle to survive hostile conditions in a rock cleft far above treeline.

These stories and a bonsai’s grace often result from the tree’s imperfections. The masters incorporate dead wood, twisted branches, and even wounds into the design to reveal the essence of the tree. They specifically select the best viewing – you don’t view most trees from every angle.

Leadership isn’t about perfection. It’s about improving the condition of your team and accomplishing the mission. Just as there is no ideal tree, neither is there one ideal person.

Abraham Lincoln reportedly answered complaints about General Grant’s heavy drinking by telling the complaining party to find out what Grant was drinking and to send his other commanders a case.

Your Turn

As in bonsai, effective leaders look for strengths, manage imperfections, and aim for magnificent results. We’d love to hear from you – Leave us a comment and share: What is one of the most important leadership secrets you’ve learned from an unusual source?

The post 11 Inspiring Leadership Secrets from Bonsai appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Passion is good. You want team members who love their work and serve their customers with passion. We are big believers in the power of purpose. Connecting what you’ve asked to why it matters is a powerful source of motivation. However, there is a problem with passion that can erode your influence, your team, and entire companies.

Recently, Amnesty International was in the news for what might seem like a strange reason. The human rights organization lost five members of their leadership team following a report revealing a toxic workplace culture.

How does an organization with such a noble purpose as fighting human rights abuses around the world end up with a “toxic culture of secrecy and mistrust?”

It might seem strange, but it’s actually more common than you might think – and it’s not limited to charitable organizations. You can easily find yourself in the same situation if you fall into the Passion Pit.

The Problem with Passion

The Passion Pit is the name I gave to the strange contradiction of organizations that do good work but have poor culture – cultures that are caustic, toxic, and abusive.

You might think that for an organization like Amnesty International, the negative culture, burnout, and employee anxiety would result from the difficult work they do. Observing human rights abuses like torture would be emotionally draining and take a toll on anyone.

But that’s not the problem. According to the report:

“The stress, burnout, anxiety, depression … were more often reported to stem from their working conditions–challenging managers, mistreatment by colleagues, bullying–than from stressful tasks such as interviewing survivors of violence and torture.”

I’ve watched this same dynamic happen before. I’ve lived it as an employee and I’ve witnessed it as a leadership trainer and consultant.

The Passion Pit happens when leaders use people’s passion and commitment as a substitute for sound leadership and management.

If They Really Cared, They Would …

I was working with the CEO of a regional service organization who did amazing work but was having a horrible time keeping employees.

As I reviewed my initial findings with her, she said something that stopped me cold. Rather than address the organizational dysfunctions, the clearly abusive and bullying managers, and the lack of clarity that frustrated employees, she said, “If people really cared about what we’re doing there, they’d get it done.”

That’s the Passion Pit.

This CEO was sincere. She believed in their work, but she was blind to their leadership and management problems (and her contribution to them).

Her perspective was so twisted that she interpreted people’s behavior only as a sign of their commitment–not as the healthy indicator of major issues it was.

Diagnose Your Passion Pit

When you say, “If they really cared about what we’re doing here, they would …” carefully examine what comes next. If your next words would be something like:

• “tolerate that abusive or dehumanizing person …”
• “sacrifice their health or family …”
• “stop asking for clarity or priorities and just work harder …”

I invite you to consider that the person isn’t the problem. Passion isn’t the problem. These are powerful signs that your culture, processes, and leaders need help.

You’re asking people to swim against a powerful current. People can’t fight the culture every day just to do their basic work.

Solving the Problem with Passion

You’re a motivated leader and you care. (You wouldn’t have read this far if that wasn’t true.)

If you suspect that the Passion Pit is at work in your team, one direct way to solve it is to change your language from “If they really cared, they would …” to “If we really care about our people successfully serving our customer, we would …”

Here are some places to start: “If we really care about our people successfully serving our customer, we would …”

• Give every employee a trained leader who helps them to succeed.
• Ensure everyone knows what matters most.
• Ensure everyone knows what they need to do today to succeed.
• Give each person the training, encouragement, coaching, and challenge they need to grow.
• Hold ourselves accountable for keeping our commitments.
• Not tolerate bullying, harassment, or any other negative behavior that has no place in a great team.
• Structure intense work in ways that motivated people can sustain over time.
• Celebrate success–big and small.

As you implement these steps, you’re on your way to building a culture that supports and energizes your people. You’ll release their natural motivation and you’ll make it easier, not harder, to the work that really matters.

Your Turn

When the work is important, it’s easy to fall into the Passion Pit – that’s the problem with passion.

This is a short list to get you started. Leave us a comment and share one way you complete the sentence: “If I really care about my people successfully serving our customer, I will …”

The post The Hidden Leadership Problem with Passion appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

How do you build a high-performing, cohesive team when people are working on different schedules? Clarity is even more important as you get everyone working toward the same goals and it takes extra effort to build relationships with little face-time.

Best practices for leading a team working on different schedules

1. Clearly define success
2. Stay visible
3. Spread out your talent
4. Schedule team huddles on the overlap
5. Be deliberate about building trust and connection
6. Invite ideas through asynchronous brainstorming
7. Spread out the recognition

7 Ways to Effectively Lead a Team on Different Schedules

1. Clearly Define Success

You can’t have a high-performing team without a clear definition of what success looks like.  When people are working on different schedules it’s even more important to over-communicate what winning means.

Spread out your 5 x 5 communications (five times, five different ways) and checks for understanding to cross all shifts.

2. Stay Visible

When Karin first started her retail sales exec role leading a two thousand person sales team at Verizon, one of the best pieces of advice she received from her predecessor was “Show up in the stores during the times you would most rather be at home.”

The logic being, the employees working those shifts would ALSO rather be at home.

When you show up on a Sunday at 11 am, or Friday night at 8 pm you gain credibility and build trust with the team.

3. Spread Out Your Talent

When schedules are chosen by seniority or performance, the least desirable shifts often fill with lower-performers who can drag one another down.

Find creative ways to recruit great talent for your tricky shifts to raise the bar. If this is a challenge, look to non-traditional segments of the workforce, offer part-time work, or pay differentials to help you ensure you have high-performers on every shift.

4. Schedule Team Huddles on the Overlap

Nothing beats face-to-face communication now and then. Schedule at least a brief overlap of shifts and make the handoff with a well-structured team huddle. From time to time, increase the overlap for a more strategic staff meeting.

5. Be Deliberate about Building Community and Culture

One of the biggest complaints we hear from team members working different schedules is that they miss being part of a cohesive team.

This is challenging when team members feel isolated on an overnight shift. How can you create a virtual watercooler? A private Facebook page can be a great way for team members on different schedules to get to know one another as people and to have fun.

6. Invite Ideas Through Asynchronous Brainstorming

One of the biggest challenges of leading a team on different schedules is that it’s hard to pull people together for a quick brainstorm. With just a little extra effort you can tap into the power of asynchronous brainstorming.

It can be as simple as a few easel sheets hanging in a designated place with a question of the week that employees respond to at the beginning of their shift. Technology like Basecamp, Microsoft Teams threads or slack can really help.

Some of our clients like to leverage our learning lab technology to ask and collect answers to strategic questions via text, or to conduct a quick poll to gather input.

On our own team, we have an I.D.E.A.s section on every project where we encourage team members to leave their ideas and thoughts on how to make things better for our clients or to improve productivity for our team.

7. Spread out the Recognition

In pretty much every focus group we’ve done on a night shift, we’ve heard this common complaint, “We just don’t get enough recognition.”

Sometimes this is because performance is just not as good (see number 3), but mostly it’s the out-of-sight-out-of-mind dynamic.

Be sure you’re around enough to notice the good happening on all the schedules. Recognize it.

Having your team work on different schedules is tricky, but not impossible. Communicate more than feels necessary, show up when you can, and stay curious about how you can best help.

Your turn:

What are our ideas to make it easier to lead teams on different schedules?

The post How to Lead a Team on Different Schedules appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

You want to develop your people but sometimes there’s just not enough time. In this article, we share a quick method of giving people the development they need most. And, how to hold deeper development conversations when you just don’t have enough time– an Asking For a Friend interview with Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Katrina paced back and forth as she described her problems with customer service and employee retention. “I can’t improve either one, but I don’t have time to develop people.”

“I know I should, but it’s a constant crisis. We’re backed up, missing deadlines left and right, and any time I take for development conversations is costing me on our KPIs.”

Ticking Away

You’ll never have enough time. It’s a fact of life – you can’t do everything. I’ve never met a manager who has extra time. It will never happen. The number of things you could do today will always exceed the time you have available to do them.

Mistaken Thinking

Even so, developing people tops the list of your leadership responsibilities. When leaders claim they don’t have time to develop people, it usually means they’ve misunderstood their responsibility. Here are common errors in thinking:

• I’ve got to take care of the customer now so I can’t take care of the employee.

These aren’t mutually exclusive. Take care of the customer with your team member – not instead of your team member. Investing in your people will help them take care of future situations without your direct help, giving you more time.

• HR can handle staff development.

This is a common mistake. Your Human Resource team can support you and your team, make training available, and coordinate grow opportunities, but as a leader, you are the only one who can help your people to grow right now, where they are. There’s no substitute for your leadership and you can’t outsource your team’s growth to someone who isn’t a direct part of their journey.

• Developing people takes too long.

Many well-intentioned leaders make this mistake. You might feel like you need an hour to have a deep coaching conversation, but you don’t. You may want to take a couple of non-existent hours to put your thoughts together in a rousing motivational speech that will fuel your team’s performance.

But that’s not how the real world works.

Winning teams aren’t built by a stirring halftime speech; they’re built one micro-engagement at a time.

One Secret to Developing People When You Don’t Have Time

It’s true. Your time is limited. So you’ve got to be laser-focused and make the most of every opportunity. It’s amazing what you can achieve in 30 seconds or less when you’re prepared. This is the secret of micro-engagement – consistent short development wins every time.

Start by knowing what your people need. Use the Confidence-Competence Model to identify who needs encouragement, coaching, more challenge, or training. Don’t waste your time or their attention encouraging someone who needs a challenge or coaching someone who needs encouragement.

click image to download the confidence-competence model

Once you know what they need, be on the lookout for a chance to share it. Keep it short, keep it focused – that’s the magic of micro-engagement.

When time is tight, encouraging and challenging competent employees are often the first behaviors managers abandon. You get more of what you encourage and celebrate, so take the time to do it. You always have 10 seconds to look someone in the eyes and tell them they did well.

Encouragement:

“You had fantastic empathy and patience with that customer. I know it’s not easy when we’re this busy, and you did a great job. Well done.”

“I appreciate the dissenting perspectives you shared – that keeps us thinking and makes sure we don’t make dumb mistakes.”

Challenge:

“You did a masterful job bringing that project in on time. Would you be willing to start our next team meeting with a five-minute overview of how you did it? Some of the newer team members could really benefit from your wisdom.”

Coaching:

“I noticed that you didn’t follow the client’s request on the design specification. What’s going on there?” Assuming it’s not a justified reason: “Okay, rework it to spec and bring it to me by four this afternoon, please.”

Training:

“Can I show you a faster way to find that information and solve that problem?”

How to Hold Deeper Development Conversations When You Don’t Have the Time

Your Turn

Effective development conversations happen in the work, not apart from it. Don’t wait for the next retreat, offsite, or performance review to give your people the development feedback they desperately need. Help them grow through the daily interaction you already have.

You don’t have time not to.

Please leave us a comment and share how your favorite way to invest in your people when time is tight.

See Also:

9 Creative Ways to Develop Your Managers

Developing Leaders of Tomorrow

The post How to Develop People When You Don’t Have Time appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

The intent behind your open door policy is good: a door that is figuratively always open to encourage transparency, open lines of communication, a standing invitation for your employees to bring you issues that affect them or their work.

The intent is good, but the reality is more complicated. In fact, your open door policy may be causing your team more harm than good and limiting your leadership.

3 Problems With Your Open Door Policy 

1. Your Door is Literally Always Open.

An open door policy doesn’t mean you are constantly interruptible. Constant interruption prevents you from thinking deeply and serving your team in the ways only you can. If you allow a constant barrage of “Gotta minute?” to obliterate your day, you won’t be able to lead your team anywhere.

An open door policy doesn’t mean your door (if you have one) is literally open all the time. We helped one senior leader overcome this challenge by defining 90 minutes of deep-think time in the morning and again in the afternoon where everyone committed not to interrupt anyone else unless it was an emergency.

That may not work in your setting, but the principle is important. How can you give yourself and your team the space to focus?

2. You Don’t Get All the Information You Need.

Your people know things you need to know. They can spot problems before they spin out of control. They know what irritates your customers. They’ve already created micro-innovations to be more productive and better serve your customers. They’re your greatest asset – but only if you hear what they have to say.

Problem-solving innovation isn’t going to walk through your open door. [Tweet This]

Most of the information that will walk through your open door are complaints. There’s nothing wrong with this necessarily. You need to be aware of problems – especially those that create a hostile workplace.

An open door policy isn’t enough. Occasionally, you’ll have someone walk through your open door with a great idea. I’ve had it happen. But most of the great ideas will stay locked in your employees’ minds.

To get the information you need to make the best decisions, you’ve got to intentionally go ask for it. Most employees are busy doing their jobs. They may not even realize they have experience or wisdom worth sharing. If they do have insights, they may believe you’re not interested in hearing them, no matter how many times you talk about your open door policy.

Take the initiative and seek out the information you need. Regularly ask your team how things are going, how you can help them to do their job more effectively or serve the customer, or what’s getting in their way. Ask them to teach you how they do their work.

3. You’re Not Strategic.

The final leadership problem with an open door policy is that it puts you in a reactive mode. You’re not thinking strategically about what will move your team or the business forward. You’re waiting and responding to the issues that come to you.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t respond to problems that people bring to you. Rather, if you’re leading strategically and moving things forward, you are more likely to have surfaced and solved these issues long before they surface as complaints or distractions.

Most employees aren’t asked to think strategically in their normal work, so the problems they bring you won’t be strategic either. To help your team think strategically, give them the information they need to make strategic decisions. Help them understand how the business makes money and impact and how they’re work contributes to the bigger picture. Facilitate Own the UGLY discussions to help find the game-changing opportunities and challenges long before they would walk through your open door.

Your Turn

Your open door policy can be a foundation for trust, transparency, and communication, but there’s a danger if you let it make you passive and reactive. Leave us a comment and share How do you maintain a strategic focus for your team and solve problems before they become bigger problems?

The post 3 Problems with Your Open Door Policy and What To Do Instead appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.