Category Archives: Leadership

Employees, Leadership, Personal Growth, Small Business Growth

7 simple rules of business that will help you succeed

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What are the real fundamentals of success? What are simple, small things everyone can do that will set the stage for larger success? In our technology drenched and dependent lives here are 7 non-technical, simple things that can help pave the way for true success.

1. Show up

If your job requires you to be in the office you should be in the office when you are supposed to. If you are required to be at a remote office, or call on a client or prospect then SHOW UP.   If you have an online webinar or conference call, SHOW UP.  Be there, on time, prepared and ready. As the old saying goes, “You can’t win if you don’t play”. And you can’t play if you don’t show up.

This also means being mentally engaged with your team, customers and company.  Checked out, isolated team members are worth little. They waste everyone’s time and don’t help row the boat. Show up fully engaged and ready to contribute, physically and mentally.

2. Be Nice 

Everyone in the company has work together. Make it a better experience by being nice to others. You need to  treat other employees, customers and vendors with courtesy, respect and decency. Treat others with the same courtesy and respect you want from them. It helps communication and improves the working environment and enhances collaboration. Some companies have a “no jerks” rule. Some companies use stronger language to say the same thing. Don’t be a jerk.

Being nice doesn’t mean you won’t have debate and disagreement. It doesn’t mean that issues are not confronted. It means you need to resolve those situations in a  civil, calm, mature and professional manner and move along. Anger, frustration, name calling, back stabbing, gossip, outbursts, tantrums, passive aggressive behaviors  and the like create more problems to solve, slow down communication and create resentment if they continue over time. Show caring and concern for your team, fellow employees and customers.

3. Follow the Rules

Rules are there to protect the individual and the organization. They help maintain order and define interactions, boundaries and expectations.

Image if everyone driving cars in a large metro area suddenly went anarchist with respect to the rules of the road. Can you image the mess? The wrecks, injuries, property damage and time lost? It just wouldn’t work. But with proper rules, traffic flows (usually) and people get to and from their destinations safely.

Every business needs rules. I know, sometimes the dress code or attendance policies may not be what you would design. If you want to be a rebellious cowboy, go work on a ranch. If there are serious problems with rules talk to your leader. Otherwise man (or woman) up and respect the rules. It will make the entire workplace flow better.

4. Do Your Job

We are all professionals.  We get paid to do a job. Do your job like a professional. Don’t leave problems for others to clean up later. Don’t do your job half way. Don’t finish late. Don’t deliver half the results. Your work products should demonstrate competence, excellence, and be professional in quality and implementation.  This includes your personal and professional growth and continued learning. Ultimately only you can control that.

5. Communicate

No one can read your mind. What you don’t say or communicate, your other teammates and employees can’t know. Talk. Write. Inform. Repeat. Ask clarifying questions. Over communicate. Effective organizations communicate well, clearly and continuously. When you have clear, consistent communication the team can move faster and provide better results.

6. Serve the customer

Serve the customer as if your business depends on it, because it does. Customers fund the operation of the business. Customers pay your salary.   Customers can help you sell and market. It doesn’t matter if they are Internal or external customers, you are there for them, and not the other way around. Always remember that. Customers can quickly tell if they are really cared for and are being served properly. They will move to businesses that show genuine care for them in a heartbeat.

7. Support your team

Always carry your share of the load. Slackers can move along. You should always promote an “I have your back” culture. Support your team with your help, assistance, learning, sharing and collaboration. Be a consistent example re-inforcing the behavior you want your team to replicate.

 

These are 7 simple actions that, if you implement as habits, will yield results and build the foundations for your success.

Employees, Leadership, Personal Growth

7 ways for remaining employees to move on after a layoff

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If your company has had a layoff, you know that can be a real drain on morale and motivation for those still working at the company.   Layoffs result in questioning the viability of the company and diminish hope for the future for those still at the firm. Layoffs alter the workload, add uncertainty, cause upheaval in working arrangements and can contribute to lessened commitment. In my previous post, I wrote about what leaders can do to help a company move on after a layoff.

But what about  those that are still at the business after a layoff?  What can you do?

Here are 7 ways for you to move on.

1. Be realistic

Usually many things conspire to create a situation where layoffs are necessary. There is typically no single thing or person to blame. It’s usually a combination of decisions, circumstances and market forces that combine to force the issue. So don’t waste a lot of time worrying about things in the past you can’t control. It happened. It’s over. Now the real issue is what you will do.

Layoffs most likely result from difficult business situations. These may situations not be rectified quickly. There may be additional pain before the business or market improves.

Remember the Stockade paradox and be willing to face the reality of where the company is but also express your faith that the company will prevail.  Part of facing the reality is figuring out what needs to be done to stabilize, recover, grow and improve.  Knowing the true reality but choosing to approach the task ahead with a positive mindset can help your attitude and commitment and improve your work atmosphere.

2. Assess your situation

After a layoff has occurred at your firm, it is a time to reflect on where you are in your engagement with the company and how that aligns with your larger career plans.

Assess the layoff in terms of your plans and goals. If the company is slowly shutting down the function you do then you need to plan appropriately. If you still see growth and upward advancement opportunity in future products and plans then it may be worth it to stay put and forge ahead. A layoff can narrow our focus to the company and our direct ability to get a pay check. However, a more thoughtful assessment of your overall career goals and how the current company helps you meet those is advisable.

3. Learn from what happened

Examine what caused the action to be necessary. Evaluate what your leaders say about the causes, mitigations and the future plans and strategies.

Ask key questions about the situation. What can you learn about the market or your product from what happened? What can you learn about your company from what happened? What can you learn from your skill set or your position or career from what happened? What can you learn about future potential and direction of the company and your function?

Learn all you can about the situation. Talk to your leaders and listen carefully to what they say. That helps you make more informed decisions in the future. Although painful, the situations surrounding a layoff should be viewed as a learning event for the whole company.  Learn, and act to avoid the situation in the future.

4. Realize where true job security comes from

Your true security does not come from a job or a company or a title or a boss or leader. All of those will let you down at some point, guaranteed.

Your job security is in YOU!! It is in your own talents and abilities. Your true job security comes from using your capabilities to learn, adapt, grow, solve problems, create solutions and bring value to a company or business. If you concentrate on that, and are always learning and investing in your development, you will rarely be in need of a job because you will always have one.

5. Evaluate the opportunity

Every layoff also brings opportunities for employees to step up, take on new roles and responsibilities and handle new job functions. Watch for opportunities that present themselves and be ready to step up if the opening aligns with your goals and objectives. Taking a new opportunity can be a time to stretch yourself, learn new capabilities and enhance your experience base.

6. Focus on what you can control

It is good to remember those things you actually have direct control of. Focus on those. Your job, your tasks, your effort, your attitude, your responsibilities, your behavior, your quality. Redouble your efforts to do your responsibilities with excellence. Worrying about what you can’t control just wastes time, makes you angry and increases the feeling of helplessness about the situation. Resist the temptation to mope around and discuss what you can’t control with other mopers.

The best antidote to the malaise of the after-layoff time, is to focus on actions you can do and get busy. By doing this you help maximize your chances of success.  To have hope for your future you have to amp it up. If your company has been losing the battle but you don’t amp up the fight you have no hope for victory. And if you do this, you will help influence others to do it as well.

7. Choose: renew your commitment or revise your resume

As an employees left at the company after a layoff you face a choice with three options:

  1. Stay and re-commit to work hard and do your part to improve the business
  2. Get out as quickly as possible
  3. Continue on in a zombie like state waiting for the next round

From my experience there are really only the first 2. At least those are the proactive choices.

If you decide that the circumstances warrant you to continue with the business then be all in. Re-commit to do as much as you can to move the business forward. Be an agent of change and improvement and influence others to do the same.

If you decide that you can’t continue there then don’t hang around and further stink up the place. Update your resume, find another job and move on. If you stay with a bad attitude, you will just pollute the rest of the folks with your bad karma, and slow down the whole recovery process for everyone.

 

Any way you slice it layoffs are tough.If you are an employee still at a firm after a layoff,  apply these 7 principles and it can help you get back to moving the business forward sooner.

 

 

Employees, Leadership, Small Business Growth

9 ways leaders can regroup the company after a layoff

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Layoffs are incredibly difficult on companies and the employees left behind. They sap corporate momentum and drain employee morale. They result in questioning the viability of the company and diminish hope for the future.

Layoffs usually happen in difficult business situations. Letting go of good people simply adds insult to injury during an already tough time. It is hard to say goodbye to friends and valued colleagues, especially when it was no fault of their own. Layoffs alter the workload, add uncertainty, cause upheaval in working arrangements and can contribute to lessened commitment.

So what can a company leader do to regroup and move on? Here are 9 things a leader can do to help regroup after a layoff.

Get the group/company together

Compounding the pain of  layoffs are the feelings of uncertainty, isolation and being alone. Silence from leadership now is deafening. As an employee, when you are isolated and alone you tend to worry more and make the situation worse, losing objectivity. And, in the absence of clear, proactive communications from leadership, employees will invent the reality that fits what they can see and feel. Leadership silence and isolation fuels the rumor mill.

It is important to counteract these feelings  in the remaining employees. It is important to communicate openly and clearly to keep the morale situation from getting worse.

Get them together. Have a state of the company lunch or a morning coffee together. Getting together and sharing food or drink can help sooth raw emotion, provide a venue for dialog, re-establish shared connections and begin the process of moving on.

Acknowledge the difficulty

Losing good friends and valued employees is sad and emotionally tough. As an owner or manager, acknowledge the pain. Its tough on everyone. The loss, the uncertainty, the anger and frustration, and the reality of more work for everyone left all make for a raw situation. Unless you are a leader with no feelings it is tough for you too. Let the employees know that. Oh and you can’t be a phony. Employees can see insincerity in a leader a mile away and it stinks, especially during a tough time like post layoffs. Not much can cause employees to write you off as a leader faster than insincerity during such a time.

Make an emotional connection

Don’t hide. Don’t be a emotional robot. Don’t read a prepared statement. Don’t pass the buck to some HR person. Don’t joke around and don’t ignore the issue. Stand up and be a leader. Your employees work for you. They need to see you as a real person connected to them in a real way. They need to see you working through this with them. Speak from your heart. By being real you can gain trust and begin to restore credibility with those employees who may internally blame you directly.

Express thanks and appreciation

According to Dan Pink in his book Drive, appreciation, acknowledgement of contribution and purpose are important motivators, in some situations more important than compensation. Thanks, acknowledgement and appreciation is like a spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Express genuine thanks for the efforts of the group. Appreciate them individually, publicly and sincerely. Acknowledge the hard work and sacrifice that has occurred and how important that will be to move forward.

Explain why

As the owner or manager you should be able to explain, in straight forward language, why this action was necessary. Avoid jargon, and veiled terms. No buzzword bingo here. Use simple language like “sales were off 2x our projections” or “we lost the Jetson contract” (or whatever is appropriate for your situation). This will help employees understand the bigger picture they may not be fully aware of. Discuss the other actions that leadership took to help mitigate the necessity of layoffs. Unless you just like whacking folks, there should a decent list of other actions the company did to try to prevent having to lay off employees.

Discuss the plans to move forward

A layoff is tough but can be more bearable when there is reason for hope. Explain the reasons the employees should hope in the company. Don’t rely on generic platitudes like “We have a good pipeline” or “the fourth quarter always picks up”. Give the specifics of the strategy to improve revenue, profit or expenses. Discuss upcoming product plans, launches, campaigns, key contracts or joint ventures. If you can’t spell out a reason for hope with the plans you have (or you don’t have any plans at all), then this will surely be a direct invitation for your employees to update their  linked in profile. Their attitude will be “why stay if there is no hope?” You must show tangible reason for hope.

Be positive but realistic

Don’t promise the moon or paint unrealistic possibilities for the future to manipulate emotions. That will come back to bite you. Employees have good memories. Be positive but acknowledge the work needed. Remember the Stockade paradox, be realistic, facing the brutal facts, but also express your faith that the company will prevail. You also have to believe your message. If you come across as shaky, doubtful, uncertain or absurdly optimistic you will send the rest of the folks running for the exits.

Make yourself available

While the group meetings are good, many employees may want to have individual conversations with the owner or manager. Support that. Sit down and take the time to look people in the eye, answer questions, explain, reassure where you can and connect. This will pay dividends in re-committment and hope if you do it in an honest and authentic way.

Get Busy

Direct action is one of the best antidotes to fear. So make sure that the whole company is involved in the implementation phase of recovery. Discuss the strategy for improvement. Review the tactics. Make sure everyone is clear and working toward moving the boat forward. They need to see the leadership doing the same thing. This is the time to roll up your sleeves and push forward as a team. If the employees see you energetically working toward the new objectives they will get on board.

 

Conclusion

The actions, attitudes and interactions of the leader will make or break the turn-around effort of the company after a layoff. As a leader you set the tone. Employees will key off of your attitude and demeanor. They will make renewed commitments (or not) based on what they see and hear from you. So be authentic. Use this time as a rallying point for the future. These 9 ways can help move the process forward. If you do these things as a leader you have the potential to get everyone on board to go solve the real issues that still need to be dealt with in the business. Without this, well, you may get to do it all over again.

Employees, Leadership, Teams

How emotional immaturity is like a clogged toilet and what you can do about it

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There are few thing more unpleasant to deal with than unclogging a toilet. Over the years I have heard those famous and dreaded words several times, “Dad, the toilet is clogged, again”. I am not sure who decided it was Dad’s problem when the toilet clogged but I would like a re-count.

Thankfully, most of the time the remedy is quick and the problem is literally flushed away in a few moments. Sometimes, however, the problem is more serious, messy and in need of professional assistance.

The last time this happened, while I was correcting the clog, it occurred to me that this is exactly what happens in teams of people where emotional maturity is lacking in one or more of the team members.

Emotional immaturity creates situations where things that should be flushed away quickly hang around and clog up other normal interactions and operations. And, like a clogged toilet, if they hang around too long things get ugly and very unpleasant fast. And everyone notices.

I have found that in order to best deal with these situations you have to act quickly as a manager or leader. The longer the situations are left hanging in the air the more team chemistry can be damaged.

So what can you do about an emotionally immature situation?

I have found that a quick, low key dialog as close to the point of the issue or incident is best. Think Ken Blanchard’s One Minute Manager. Try to be calm and focused, directly pointing out the observed issue, and desired action. Before you engage with the person, mentally rehearse what and how you need to say and try to anticipate their responses. If I am calm and low key in my approach I have found that the employee or colleague is more receptive. In most cases employees respond well and the issue is ‘flushed away’ and things are better. Most employees want to improve and when presented with actionable opportunities they will work to improve.

But what do you do when emotional issues  don’t change?

Some people lack the emotional maturity to handle basic relational situations like clear, open or honest communication, confrontation, conflict, compromise, or forgiveness. In other words, they missed the day in Kindergarten when getting along with others was taught. Others  remain emotionally opaque and can’t have meaningful relationships while some are just plain mean, devious and vengeful. These are the kind of people that can really ‘clog up’ your team and company.

In cases where someone is in that situation they have to learn and choose to make different choices, let go of anger, forgive, adapt, grow and become more open. It’s not easy. That person has to have a recognition that there is a problem and a willingness to make changes. Some folks can do that, others choose not to. And here, sometimes a professional is needed.

It’s not me it’s YOU

At one point in my career, there was a team member who basically operated with the attitude that if you ever did them wrong (actual or perceived) you were written off and nothing would change that. That person chose to remain full of anger and resentment toward their perceived injustices which led to deep seated bitterness. Their actions and attitudes created a negative atmosphere and affected team productivity and cohesion. Coaching, closed door meetings or pleadings could not change their anger or resentment toward the situation or the other team members.  And, in that case, it only got better when that person was no longer with the company. In this case, I was a victim of the sunk cost fallacy. I had already invested a lot of time and effort in trying to improve the situation so I didn’t take the necessary action when I should have. The delay hurt the team, the individual involved and me.

Necessary Changes

As a manager or leader in this situation you have to decide how critical the issue is, how disruptive it is to the team and how that on-going situation affects the department or company. You have to decide if the contribution of that employee is worth the disruption. Most of the time it is not. When your threshold is crossed and other forms of redress with the employee have not worked, you have to act in removing that troubling employee, either by re-assignment, moving to another department or division or firing them altogether. Dr. Henry Cloud, in his book “Necessary Endings” lays out clear guidelines and methods for these situations. I highly recommend it.

On a team that is operating at a high level, one bad apple can affect the whole lot. It is better to deal with issues while they are still small than to wait until the mess is really bad and stinky later.

Now, where is that plunger????