Our brains are hard-wired with an alarm system for our protection. When our brains perceive a threat, our bodies release a burst of hormones that increase our heart rate and raise our blood pressure. This “fight-or-flight” response fuels us to deal with the threat.

Once the threat is gone, our bodies are meant to return to a normal, relaxed state. Unfortunately, the nonstop complications of modern life mean that some people’s alarm systems are stuck.

How do you know if you’re in stress overload? Consider these symptoms:

• Emotional: easily agitated, frustrated, moody, feeling overwhelmed, difficulty relaxing, low self-esteem, loneliness, depression
• Physical: low energy, headaches, upset stomach, tense muscles, rapid heartbeat, insomnia, feeling ill, loss of appetite
• Cognitive: continual worry, racing thoughts, forgetfulness, disorganization, inability to focus, poor judgment, pessimism, procrastination

The good news is we can manage this stress if we make the deliberate choice to act with stress-relieving activities. Here are seven types of stress management techniques to incorporate into your life:

1. Communicate 

Find a trusted friend and share with them how you’re feeling. Show some vulnerability with your team, and tell them how you’re relieving stress. Your example will help others. Enjoy some downtime to connect with people who are friends. Even making plans for these connections can be stress-relieving.

2. Take Care of Yourself 

Build short breaks into your day where you take your focus off work. Go for a 10-minute walk. Use this time to practice mindfulness. Exercise regularly. Watch your food intake. Set short term, realistic goals for each day. These types of stress management activities will bring you great relief.

3. Keep a Reflection Journal

Designate 10 minutes each day to describe your stressors. What was your response to each? Rate your success or failure on a scale from 10 to -10. What actions did you take in response to the stress? Record your observations and patterns. This simple self-awareness activity will yield powerful results.

4. Do a Mind Sweep

I was first introduced to the idea of doing a mind sweep in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. When you have too many things to do and feel overwhelmed, take a few minutes and write down everything that’s in your head that you must do (personally and professionally). Allen teaches that the brain is great at thinking, creating, and analyzing. But the brain can stress us out at times because it’s not so good at storing and retrieving information. This exercise frees your mental energy to decide what to do next and allows the brain to do what it does best.

5. S.T.O.P. 

When you’re experiencing a particularly stressful moment, a popular mindfulness exercise known as S.T.O.P. can be helpful: 

• Stop: Pause whatever it is you’re doing, just for a moment.
• Take a breath: Inhale and exhale. Feel yourself breathe and be present in the moment.
• Observe: Make note of what’s going on inside and around you, both good and bad.
• Proceed: Finally, decide how you’ll respond to the moment. Then resume your paused activity with this response in mind.

6. Serve Others 

Move beyond your own concerns and stress by investing in a younger work associate. Or find an outlet to invest in others in the community. I find that putting my attention on others and serving them is a great stress reliever. 

7. Focus on Values

When you’re true to your values with your actions, you create congruence and resilience. The self-discipline of articulating your core values begins to guide your action. What do you value most in life? If I asked you to tell me your life story, what aspects of character and work-life would you hallmark? What do you want to be renowned for? Our core values help us weather the storms of stress in our daily lives.

If you find yourself feeling more stressed and overwhelmed than usual lately, know that you’re not alone. We’re facing unprecedented times, and while you may not be able to control the situation around you, you can certainly be mindful of how you respond to it. 

The seven methods outlined here are just a few types of stress management techniques that can help you calm your mind and refocus your energy. What other stress-relief practices have you found helpful over the last few months? Let us know in the comments below.

I hope you will find just one of these suggestions helpful. Relieve the ever-present stress and you will be happier and more productive. So, what fits you? What will you do?

You may be surprised to learn that there is no best leadership style. There are actually many good ways to lead. The key is knowing how to choose the most effective style for the situation you’re facing. The best leaders have this ability. Certainly, there are one or two leadership styles you’ll gravitate toward, but it’s important to continue to work on developing all styles.

Your best style of leadership should have many variables and context. You choose the leadership style needed at any given moment based on the context of yourself, those you are leading, and the work environment.

To discover what’s needed to lead — and lead well — you must know how to adapt. This begins with asking yourself a few questions. At first, this may take some getting used to, but over time it will become automatic. Soon you’ll easily fit leadership styles to situations without thinking twice.

Asking the Right Questions

So what are these questions you should be asking yourself? First, you must examine your own personality, motivators, and experience. How are you most comfortable leading and being led? What are your personality strengths, and how do these lead to your weaknesses when carried to extreme or frequency? What experience do you have leading and influencing others?

Second, what are the strengths and weaknesses of those who you are influencing and leading? What are their motivators? What is their work experience and competence? Are they learners or competent experts?

Third, what are the organization’s strengths and weaknesses? What are the crises? Where is change urgent? Where is the status quo acceptable? What does your company culture tolerate?

Choosing Your Leadership Styles

Based on your answers to the questions above, you can decide how to lead based on the situation at hand. There are many leadership styles to choose from. Here are seven of the most common:

Democratic: The democratic leader makes decisions based on the input of teams. Every person shares their point of view, and often the leader makes the final decision. This style can be effective because leaders can utilize the role to educate, secure buy-in, and problem-solve difficult scenarios. However, you may not always have the time for this process.

Autocratic or Directive: Autocratic leadership, also known as authoritarian leadership, is a leadership style characterized by individual control over decisions with little input from group members. These leaders typically make choices based on their ideas and judgments. This works well in a crisis but rarely leads to buy-in and commitment from followers later.

Supportive or Servant: Servant leaders focus on meeting the needs of their followers; they lead by example. Supportive leaders are other-focused and motivated to help others succeed. This unselfish approach requires integrity, authenticity, and a truly generous spirit. Therefore, this motivates others and leads to high morale among motivated professionals — some call this a coaching leadership style. This style is great for team and individual development but isn’t always efficient at getting things done.

Laissez-Faire: Laissez-faire leaders yield nearly all authority to a trusted team. The term literally means “let them do.” Some leaders view this as empowerment, but it can lead to a lack of direction and irresponsibility on the part of the leader. The development of others often lags under this leadership. There aren’t many positives for this style of leadership because it leads to a disconnected team and leader. Use this style sparingly and then only with accomplished colleagues for short periods.

Strategic or Visionary: Strategic leaders prompt change and improvement by being strategic in their thinking, actions, and words. They have a knack for pointing out new possibilities, seeing challenges as opportunities, and causing others to catch and share their vision. They provide focus to continually move teams and organizations forward.

Transformational: Transformational leaders motivate others to do more than thought they might otherwise have been able to. They propose aspirational thoughts of what could be and then point the way to change and improvement. These kinds of leaders challenge and ask people to achieve new heights previously thought inconceivable.

Transactional: Transactional leaders focus on the exchange of value. Followers get immediate and tangible results for following the plan. This style requires clear expectations and communication. Without clear feedback, the results and the transaction fail. This type of leadership style is good for speed and efficiency, but often doesn’t build trust or lead to team/individual development.

Leadership in Action

Remember, leadership styles are not one-size-fits-all. What works best depends on the situation you’re faced with. And if you’re wondering if there’s a worst style — yes. It’s the one you use all the time.

The best leaders are constantly learning. Great leaders lean into this and seek to educate themselves about their team and the individual team members. They understand the motivation toward individual and collective team goals.

Is this approach easy? No. It will stretch you. However, by continuing to develop new leadership styles, you will be more effective and your organization will be stronger.

Which leadership styles do you gravitate toward? Which ones do you need to work on? Leave us a comment below, and let us know which style is your favorite and how we might be able to help you develop the others.

Empathy is the ability to sense and articulate other’s feelings and viewpoints.  We begin to practice empathy when we demonstrate an active interest in others.  We are beginning to “walk in their shoes.”

Is it any wonder that in today’s world we need to cultivate the skill of empathy in business?  This is how we generate new business, engage employees, create effective change and the best solutions, and build loyalty.  With physical distancing and virtual meetings, this skill becomes even more crucial, and those who lack the skill will fall behind as leaders.  

We don’t learn empathy in a workshop.  These techniques and behaviors can be learned.  We build empathic skills by practicing these in the real world!  And we do so, not to manipulate or “fake it until we make it”.  We practice it because we know how important it is in our own lives when someone acts with empathy toward us.

Here are some ways we can learn the skills of empathy:

Get Out of Your Chair

As managers of people, we spend too much time in our chair or working alone as producers.  The old adage “management by walking around” is overused and abused when we use the concept to just make sure everyone is busy.  Instead, focus on learning what other people are thinking and feeling.  At first, our employees will wonder what we’re up to.  After some time, they will realize we are genuinely interested in them as individuals (if indeed we are).  As someone said, “we can’t walk in someone’s shoes if we are sitting at our desk.”  This method allows you to speak to individuals and draw out their ideas and concerns.  Demonstrate you care by your focus and non-verbal behavior.

Value Relationships

I usually learn the hard way (translation: by making mistakes).  So, as I reflect on my prior management history, I burned too many bridges.  Unfortunately, I did not value relationships like I do today, and simply focused on getting the work done.  I never stopped to consider that I needed these relationships to gain a new perspective, foster change, and create an enlivened workplace.  I hope you will learn from my mistakes.  We need each other.  We need trust to keep our business moving forward.  Our job as leaders is to support and care for our co-workers and clients.  Our service to these important people enlivens relationships that could span beyond our professional careers. 

Problems Are Opportunities

Whether we are working with clients or employees, there will always be challenges.  How do we decide between competing perspectives?  We must work together toward solutions.  Collaboration is pointless if we make the decision without empathically listening to all perspectives. By taking all ideas seriously and hearing them out, the team can often develop new ideas that no one considered before beginning.  And even if there is no great revolutionary solution, empathic listening demonstrates that we heard and care about all perspectives.  The added benefit to an empathetic approach is the buy-in that occurs when all sides are heard.

Suspend Judgment

Want to open the door to empathy? Suspend your judgments and built-in skepticism.  In so doing, we open the door to new ideas.  When we seek understanding, we listen instead of judge.  Talk less and seek to more completely understand.  Reflect the message back to the other person to ensure we have received the message correctly and it provides an opportunity for clarification of any misunderstandings. We amplify our understanding. This action alone will demonstrate your investment in the conversation and your commitment to understanding the person across from you.

Practice Humility

Stephen Covey often quoted this anonymous phrase: “No one knows everything about anything.”  Plato gives credit to Socrates for the quote: “I know that I know nothing” (though there is no record of the quote found in his writings).  Nonetheless, humility is a great emphatic tool.  The more we stay in a learning mode, the more empathic we will be with others.  Humility reminds us that we must explore and constantly adjust our knowledge.  As we think of the complexity of people and ideas, this is easy to see, but hard to admit.

Demonstrate Vulnerability

Be human!  Leaders do not make great superheroes.  Showing vulnerability demonstrates personal security and courage.  Authentic leaders build trust and loyalty by being transparent, admitting mistakes, and acknowledging weaknesses.  Employees see our weaknesses and mistakes.  We are all reassured when the boss can just admit to being human.  We don’t have to predict the future to express confidence that together we will make life better for all.  The more vulnerable we are the more likely your co-workers will follow our lead.

Analytical, technical insights are concrete and enduring.  This is why I trust the bridges, roadways, buildings, and dams that these fine professionals design and build.  However, analysis and concrete thinking can miss an infinite number of insights and wisdom when we ignore our respect and concern for the people we work for and with.  Insightful solutions and people engagement are critical business concerns. 

The CrossGroup works with smart and competent professions who are experts in their specialties. But when it comes to people — employees, clients, and partners — we are all learning.  We must be empathic to more fully appreciate and respect each other.  Ultimately, we will serve each other more effectively and arrive at more complete solutions in so doing. 

Families are the building blocks of our society.  Now, more than ever, we are able to focus on our loved ones.

Families look differently for everyone — some families have a mom, dad, and one child. While other families may include a single parent, step siblings, grandparents, aunts or uncles, or close family friends. No matter how you define family, we all have one. 

The following activities can help strengthen your relationships with those who you live with!

What makes your family unique?

Spend some time discussing and charting how your family is unique.  What do you value?  What brings you together?  What do you like to do together? There is no one size fits all when it comes to family.  If you’re not careful you will try to fit someone else’s mold or try to be like all families.  This is not helpful or healthy for your family, so really focus on what makes your crew special.

Develop a family symbol

Create a family emblem or a short family motto as an expression of your family’s unity.  Take your time and involve the whole family unit.  This can evolve over time and could be a picture, play dough sculpture, a placard for the refrigerator door or any other depiction you agree on.  Show your creativity.

Plan a family game night

Break out the board games or jigsaw puzzle that perhaps haven’t been out of the closet in a decade.  Enjoy a favorite family snack together and just have fun together.

Look at old family photos

What an opportunity we have to share our family history with the next generation.  Call grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles with shared memories.  Ask questions of the older generations, and learn from their wisdom, as many have lived through trying times such as these.  In fact, you could even pull some questions to ask from the list below.

Q&A Family Night

Develop four or five questions for family discussion.  These should move from light to some depth depending on family trust and the ages of the children.  Here are a few idea starters . . .

1. What is your favorite movie or television series?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your proudest moment?
4. What’s your life goal?  Or what do you want to do when you grow up?
5. What is your greatest fear?
6. What’s your role in the family? (Fixer, Nurturer, Talker, Quiet One, or some other role)
7. How do you respond when experiencing difficult feelings?
8. When you’re upset, who do you talk to?

Develop a one-month family goal

Given all that the frantic activity around us now, what do you and your family want to accomplish in the next 30 days?  Get everyone to contribute an idea.  Write them down and decide as a family what you can work together to accomplish.  Keep the family objective visible in a family gathering place in the kitchen or dining room.  Review your progress, assign small tasks, and review in brief weekly family meetings to stay on task.  Celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small, along the way.

Plan to help someone outside your family

Nothing brings a family together more than serving others.   Pick another family, a senior adult, or a community project where you can work together to meet a real need.  Include age-appropriate activities for each family member.

Family and friends are important for all of us.  Use this time of physical distancing from others to bond your family together.  We share these simple ideas with the hope that they will ignite new ideas for you that fit your unique family.

What is mindfulness?

According to the American Psychological Association (APA.org, 2012), mindfulness is “. . . moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment.”  The goal of mindfulness is to pay close attention to your physical sensations, thoughts and emotions in order to see them more clearly, without making assumptions or making up stories.

In Lifehacker, Pinola (2014) suggests many synonyms for mindfulness: awareness, attention, focus, presence, or vigilance.  He reminds us the opposite is not mindlessness.  Instead, a lack of mindfulness is distractedness, inattention, and lack of engagement. Psychology Today defined the term as “a state of active, open attention on the present” (“Mindfulness,” n.d.).

Merriam-Webster sums it up quite well: “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.”

In short, we simply learn to listen to and accept the thoughts and feelings that arise within us. First we can practice noticing when we are having these unfavorable thoughts, labels, criticisms, judgments and feelings. Once we realize this, we can then stop them in their tracks by choosing to observe them rather than letting them run the show.

Stephen Covey credited the following quote to Victor Frankl.  This infamous quote reminds us that we can choose new and better responses.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Why is mindfulness important?

“There’s a reason companies are including this as a requirement for their teams: it works, in various ways for different participants. Mindfulness has been thought to help in a number of ways, but the most significant include reducing anxiety, heightening productivity, and contributing to a greater sense of presence.” – Forbes

The methods suggested below help by allowing us to improve our focus. When we constantly flit from one task to another, the quality of our work can suffer. By practicing mindfulness — simply coming back to the present moment repeatedly — we can train ourselves to become more focused.

Personally, I believe mindfulness allows to us to calm ourselves and make healthy, life-giving choices.  In our pause, we can choose new responses.  Here are some ideas.

How do you practice mindfulness?

When you are experiencing a particularly stressful moment, a popular mindfulness exercise known as S.T.O.P. can be helpful:

• Stop. Just take a momentary pause, no matter what you’re doing.
• Take a breath. Feel the sensation of your own breathing, which brings you back to the present moment.
• Observe. Acknowledge what is happening, for good or bad, inside you or out. Just note it.
• Proceed. Having briefly checked in with the present moment, choose your best response, and continue the task or conversation with this new response.  – NY Times

In meetings (particularly virtual meetings), the lack of focus on the present moment can create a huge waste of time.  To encourage focus and the sense of being present, you might encourage some simple rules for meetings:

• Turn off distractions (emails, texts, etc.)
• Keep notes visible and circulate the notes after the meeting
• Insist that everyone share ideas and call on those who are hesitant to keep everyone engaged
• End the meeting by seeking commitment to next steps by individual contributors
• Keep meeting brief and to the point

In personal conversations (particularly difficult ones), be present.  It is possible to listen to what another person is saying even when we disagree.  Rather than formulating our rebuttal to change the other’s mind, pause and create the habit of trying to understand.  Make your goal to first seek understanding, and then confirm what you’ve learned through rephrasing and reflecting.

You can control yourself.  Mindfulness is as close as your next breath.  When frustrated, confused, or procrastinating, take a deep breath. What are you feeling? What was the stimulus for this feeling? What stories are you telling yourself?  When your mind wanders, come back to the sensations in your body and examine your stories.  Pause and create a healthy response.

It’s as simple as acknowledging the distractions that pop up. Stop, breathe, and take a step back. Perhaps, ask a person to repeat what they just said.  Or with tasks completion, ask what’s the next most important step. 

One final suggestion is to cultivate personal gratitude and compassion for others. “A happy life is not a life that is free of negativity and irritation, a happy life is a life where negativity and irritation are not fed and strengthened rather they are graciously acknowledged and humbly accepted.” – Psych Central. Expressing gratitude enhances your well-being and allows you to accept the good and difficult times. Who needs to hear your gratitude today?

To lead with compassion and empathy, we must take our focus off ourselves.  Unselfish service to others creates this mindset.  Mindful leaders focus on those who are right in front of them.  Compassion prioritizes other persons first and demonstrates positive intentions towards them.  Leaders who ensure others know that you have their back build the kind of trust that encourages engagement, loyalty and performance.  Empathy puts you in their shoes.  We know longer just pretend.  We show them we really do care.

Cultivate mindfulness for yourself.  I think you will agree that this changes your outlook and your effectiveness.

This three-minute video from Travis Bradberry (co-author of Emotion Intelligence 2.0) suggests ten personal strategies for staying calm under stress – enjoy.

I have a designer friend who accepted a job that she knew she could really own.  In the interview process, she was encouraged to hear that she would have the opportunity to (finally) utilize her talents to move the company forward in creative and innovative ways.

It’s been 6 months, and she’s more discouraged than I’ve ever seen her.  She accepted this job with an excitement that was missing in her previous role.  She saw an opportunity to make a difference and got the impression that her new team was looking for someone to bring change to improve the organization.  In those first few critical months, she began to realize that her lived experience was not measuring up to the interview.  Her ideas to improve processes were rejected by her team, and she found that her manager would often side with junior team members for the sake of maintaining the “this is how we do things here” mentality.

She quickly realized she did not have support from her boss to move the company forward, which is what drew her to the position in the first place.  Now, she feels like she’s a “nobody” at work, and therefore, does not feel motivated or creative in her work.

How should I encourage or guide my friend?

Life can be discouraging.  Our best-intended actions can be counterproductive.  My heart goes out to your friend as her situation clearly illustrates the importance of motivation in feeling satisfied at work.  It sounds like she needs your friendship and encouragement.  Perhaps you can add new perspective.

In reading your story, I found my curiosity directed towards the boss.  I wondered what he or she would be writing if asked to describe this scenario.  Perhaps he or she is also discouraged and by practicing counterproductive behaviors.  It’s all about perspective. 

We are all human. 

Bosses and employees share the responsibility of acknowledging when we make mistakes, misjudge intent and actions, or miss the picture entirely.  Our behaviors are well-intentioned, but our actions are often misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misguided.  The boss, the team, and your friend are all human.  There are no innocent victims here, and everyone plays a part and can become owners or “somebodies”.

Let me explain by starting with your friend.  You paint a picture of a victim who is trying to “own a job” instead of owning herself and her responses to some negative circumstances.  I find victim thinking always leads me to be reactive and those responses lead to ineffective action.  It is indeed sad when we allow these thoughts and reactions to shape our self-image.  Your friend feels like a “nobody” because she is choosing to think of herself this way. I believe she can change, but it will require an intentional shift in her approach.

The Importance of Motivation Shifts

What if she was to ask herself: “What’s the best action that I should be doing to make a difference in this situation?”  This simple question can lead to personal ownership, which highlights the importance of motivation and spurs us towards productive behavior.   For instance, one way to exhibit ownership is to make promises to your trusted confidants that you will (rather than should) take specific action.  Rather than expecting immediate change, over time, your friend will begin to learn about the boss, the team, and the organization.  She will develop a new purpose to better understand all the well-meaning humans (not enemies) that surround her.  This new purpose will pay off with feeling like a “somebody” who can know her surrounding cast and facilitate effective change within the organization’s culture.

How will this change her relationship with the boss? The boss will begin to understand her beyond the posing that occurs in all interviews.  With this newfound perspective, your friend will know the best communication approaches, the speed of change in the organization, and understand the boss’ purpose.  In addition, she will begin to give the boss the benefit of the doubt, allowing him or her to be a human with flaws and strengths as well.

How about the team?  We all resist change, particularly the ones imposed upon us.  What might be the outcome if she spent the next three months getting to know her team?   What if she asked them what is going well and what needs to be changed?  She could explore barriers and challenges.  She can ask about available resources, or the lack thereof.  In this learning, she will likely find ways she can support the team, and she will better understand how and when changes should be implemented.

What are the alternatives? 

She could leave and start over somewhere else, but I’m afraid she will face the same challenges and risk making the same mistakes.

Owners always ask:  “What can I do to be effective right where I am in an imperfect system?”  The answer to this question is often difficult because we all long for perfection within imperfect systems.  It requires a humble and courageous response, as well as a willingness to work on improving one’s skills as a leader. 

Often this response requires change personally in perspective and action.  I will leave you with this quote from Maya Angelou, which encourages me.  “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

I invite your comments and insight. How have you seen the importance of motivation – whether intrinsic or extrinsic – represented in your line of work?

Don’t get me wrong.  I love what I do.  At the same time, I feel that I am being stretched a bit too thin. When I try to do too many things, I feel as though I am unable to excel at just a few things.  Consequently, I fear I am becoming mediocre at many things. I’m going back and forth about whether I need to have this conversation with my boss asking for more resources.  What’s the best approach?  How do I have this conversation without sounding like I’m whining? 

The pressure to do more with less can be overwhelming.  We all experience this dilemma if we serve in management even for a short time.  It’s easy to lose our coping mechanisms over time, which causes the work to suffer along with the morale of the team. 

There are no simple solutions.  The stress your boss is feeling flows down to the rest of your team.  So, how do we cope and excel in a world of increasing demands and not enough time? 

I believe you can have an answer to this question and an effective conversation with your boss in four weeks if you follow these simple performance coaching strategies.  

Examine Yourself 

The first question you need to discern for yourself is, “How can I say “no” or ask for more help?” Start by examining yourself, your workflow, and your habits.  Make a two-week study of the flow of work and your own use of time.    

The key to powerful performance coaching is using objective data to inform a subjective experience. Be ruthless here. Don’t make excuses. Examine the facts.

Performance Coaching Exercise

Begin by keeping a log of how you spend your time.  Each day record your activity in fifteen- or thirty-minute increments.  At the end of the day (or early the next day), briefly reflect on your log and record your insights. 

If you are a manager, I suspect you will find plenty of interruptions and emergencies.  Remember these are a part of your job.  Simply record and categorize the interruptions.  Your categories may include the following types of activities: 

• Meetings  Regardless of your position, you will likely find plenty of meetings.  Identify how you and your team benefitted and how you contributed in these meetings.  Which meetings did not require your presence?  What could be streamlined?
• Investing in Others  How much time are you coaching or training your staff?  How much time are you away from your desk managing by walking around and dialoguing with your team?  How much time is spent delegating important tasks or following up with these delegations? 
• Individual Work  You are likely an individual contributor as well.  What tasks are you doing?  How might someone else benefit from learning these tasks? 

Next, examine the data that your company uses to measure your success and the team’s success.  Record where you are now to develop a baseline of objective facts. 

As you reflect on the two-week experiment, what did you discover?  How often were you able to invest time in the most important tasks?  Define what is most important by three criteria:  your role responsibilities, your values, and your boss’ priorities.  You may find some time wasters to eliminate as a result.

Lastly, prepare to share your ideas with your team.  Plan to be vulnerable, admit your mistakes, and the tentative solutions you have gathered.  

Team-Focused Performance Coaching 

In many ways, you and your team members can provide performance coaching for each other while on the job. Begin by asking your team to do the same exercise described above for one week. 

Perhaps ask them to record their activities in one-hour increments and summarize their findings at the end of the week to simplify experience.  Ask them to be careful to make this summary a proactive solution-based summary that avoids excuses, blaming, and complaining.   

Next, meet again in the following week and collaborate. This session may take a few hours.   Facilitate this meeting in a manner that leads to practical solutions.  Call on each team member to share the individual findings.  Where you hear complaining, ask for solutions that are within the control of you and your team.  Then record the tentative solutions on a flip chart or marker board. 

There will likely be duplicate solutions.  Find the one (or maybe two) “low hanging fruit” solutions that you and the team can address immediately.  Seek their commitment to follow through.  Write this up in practical, behavior-based goals that can be reviewed at every team meeting for the next three months.  Ask the team to be mutually accountable to help everyone follow through successfully. 

Finally, record additional solutions that you can bring back to the group for future evaluation and development. 

Now you are ready to speak to your boss. 

Share Your Findings with Your Boss 

You have likely uncovered issues and solutions that are beyond your control and influence.  Hold these ideas for later in the discussion. 

Talk to your boss about what you and your team have committed to undertake to make sure you are serving him or her and the organization more effectively.  Share the specific goals that you have developed with your team and ask for concurrence.   Explain how you will follow up to make sure you and the team are developing better habits and efficiency.  Promise to report back in three months on your progress using the goals and your baseline data. 

Then, suggest ways that your boss can help you succeed using his or her influence within the organization.  This may include permission to hire a new team member, added resources, cooperation from another team or peer, or whatever your perceived need.  Your boss will appreciate your preparation and proactivity. 

These simple steps could be game changers for you and for your team.  Turn the stress into the energy that is required to excel.  I hope you will let me know what you discover and how we can support you in creating change within your organization. 

Some of the greatest leaders in history experienced failure. The reason they are in history is because they didn’t let that failure define them. We can learn from their example in that we should embrace failure and let it guide us. As Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

We know that failure is a part of growth, so what does an effective leader do to make sure a failure is a milestone along the way to success?

First, we must admit it.

No one recovers from a failure that is not identified. The first step in learning from your mistake is to see it and admit it. Otherwise, we are living in our own excuses and the fantasy of our own perfection. Leaders are humans and humans fail more often than we are willing to admit.

Own your failures and learn from them. What emotions are you feeling? What went wrong? What assumptions were made? What were your behaviors and thoughts? How will you self-manage to prevent future letdowns? When you’ve had a setback, it’s very easy to start thinking that you will always keep failing in this area of your life. You might even be thinking that you are a failure. Don’t let this false and destructive talk get to you; you may have failed but you are not a failure.

It’s difficult, but I think you’ll find that once you admit the failure and your part in it to yourself, you will feel relieved. Sitting with this knowledge will help you work through failures much easier. Then, articulate it to those who were impacted by your mistake. Don’t make excuses or place blame on others. Express your apology and move forward with positive, corrective actions.

Then we can learn from it.

Some see admitting to failure as weakness. Instead, your co-workers will see it as strength if you truly learn the lessons and apply corrective personal behaviors. Failures become weaknesses when we don’t see them or don’t admit them. Your colleagues see your mistakes, so admitting them and learning from them encourages your team to do the same.

Express your regret, but don’t stop there. State your action plan for correcting the failure and then move forward. Sometimes it is helpful to allow your team to communicate additional steps that could be corrective. This promotes team openness and vulnerability.

I’ve heard it said that anyone who wants to do things of value in life will fail. While most of us often only hear people’s successes, we must remember that the path to these successes have many setbacks. These setbacks are where success is born and nurtured.

Lastly, it’s important to move forward.

Moving forward without dwelling on your failures can be formidable for those of us who are perfectionists. Sometimes it helps to seek coaching or mentoring if you find you continue to “beat yourself up.” Private encouragement and suggestions can help you see the bigger picture and capture your strengths instead of reliving the mistake. Talking with your mentor or your boss will help you see your contributions to the team when you may only see your failure. Allow others to support you in your growth.

Most importantly, especially as a leader, allow others to make mistakes.

Teach what you are learning to your team. Allow them to be human and learn from their own mistakes as you are. Take them through the lessons you are learning. Teams that struggle, learn, and grow together build natural trust. Being open about your mistakes encourages others to do so, and helps everyone feel seen as a person, and not just an employee, when they are at work.

My best learning takes place in the crucible of failure. I’m a better consultant and trainer because I am also flawed. The more we can see ourselves in this way and allow others the same benefit of the doubt, the better leader of people we become.

Because he is one of my favorite leaders, I conclude with this Churchill quote: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

Spontaneous vs. Planned Conversations

There are two ways to meet with your employees. One is a casual, unplanned conversation where you could drop by their desk to see how their weekend was or if they need additional help on a project they asked you about last week. The real relationship-building happens in these small, frequent meetings. This is where you show you care about them personally and professionally on a consistent basis.
 
We recommend that you have one of these short 5-10 minute meetings with each employee at least once a week. You may find that you have more in common with some employees over others, so it’s easier to chat with those employees. Therefore, it’s important that you keep track of who you’ve talked to and make sure to give the same amount of time to everyone.
 
The second meeting style is a formal one-on-one quarterly performance review. These meetings should be held every few months, so you and your employee can discuss how their goals are progressing, correct course if necessary, and have a general discussion about how the year is going. We recommend multiple performance reviews instead of the one yearly review so that employees aren’t surprised by your feedback at the end of the year. Instead, this provides them with constant feedback and encouragement that they can use and act one. Your employees want to know where they stand, where they’re doing well, and where they can improve. Having these regular meetings give them the feedback they need but may not feel comfortable asking for.
 

Planning one-on-one performance reviews

Maintain a regular schedule

Even though you have your own work to do, remember that your primary job as a manager is to manage and support your team. Your role has shifted from task-oriented to people-oriented. Keep this in the front of your mind and it will be easier to organize your many to-do’s.
 
We recommend that you plan your meetings around the same time each quarter so employees know when to expect them . Send the meeting invite a few weeks in advance to give your employee plenty of time to prepare. Some managers schedule these meetings on the same day so they don’t have to shift in and out of this performance review mindset. That could be a good tool for you as you manage your time.
 

Design straight-forward meetings

Keep employees comfortable with the regular meetings by maintaining the same structure in each one and make it fun. We recommend providing the following outline to employees and requesting that they send this to you the evening before your meeting. This gives you time to review and prepare anything in advance.

Regular One-on-One Meeting Outline

1. Follow-ups from previous discussions
   • Accomplished tasks, something interesting or funny that has occurred, anything that hasn’t been addressed since the previous meeting
2. New Items to discuss
   • New projects the employee may have questions on
   • Obstacles that are preventing the employee from moving forward
3. Manager Feedback
   • Report on what you have done on their behalf, team progress, team challenges, interesting developments in the organization, specific praise on a job well done, areas of improvement, etc.

 
At the beginning, these meetings may take 45 minutes. Items 1 and 2 should take about 30 minutes and be solely employee-driven. The last 15 minutes are for the manager to give constructive feedback. Be sure to keep this positive and discuss ways to improve, if applicable. During these meetings, don’t unload everything the employee has been doing wrong in the last few months. Instead, corrective feedback should be given as incidents occur so it is applicable and timely. If you end the quarterly performance review with a list of mistakes, the employee will start to see these meetings in a negative light instead of how productive and team-building they can be.
 
If some employees need less time than others, you can shorten the meetings to 30 minutes. The key is to make the time meaningful and effective for each individual. Honor their time and try to keep the meetings substantive but brief.
 

Set expectations for follow-up

Make commitments of specific items you will do and record what they will do before the next check-in (or other deadlines). Set a reminder in your calendar. If you’re working with an employee you know well who doesn’t need reminders, let the time flow to the check-in. If you’re working with a new employee or one who is not timely, create interim calendar reminders for yourself. This will make sure you catch any miscommunication before it becomes a problem. Follow up questions like, “how’s that task going?” or “how can I help you?” are low-key ways of touching base informally.
 

Keep your open door policy

If consistent informal or quarterly performance review meetings are new for your team, it will take some getting used to. Make sure you let them know that you are still available on a daily basis and that they can always approach you with questions or challenges. These new meetings are to set aside more time for longer discussions.
 
 
Do you have regular meetings with your employees now? If so, what are some of the benefits you are seeing from them? If not, I’d love to hear from you after you implement these ideas in your own creative way.

What will I do when I fail?

“How much are we paying you anyway?”

That was the response I received from one of our Leadership Academy participants a few months ago. After I guaranteed they would fail to carry out their commitments in the months ahead, we all had a laugh at the spontaneous response and my prediction.

At the same time, we all knew it was the truth. When first thinking about changing a behavior, many don’t know that they should expect some failures. The transformation path is littered with failure. The question is not, “How do I prevent failure?” Instead, the question is always, “What will I do when I fail?”

Will I dust myself off and redouble my efforts with the resolve needed to try again? Do I have a recovery plan in place? Am I at peace with the fact that transformation is a long-term process?

It would be nice if we could wake up, decide to change something about our behavior, and have that change in effect by dinnertime. Instead, there’s a process involved in both personal and corporate change. First knowing the process and then understanding where you are in it will help you take the necessary actions to move forward.

Knowing We Failed

Knowing we failed is the first step in the change process. Before we start, we likely see our old ways acceptable. We often say, “That’s just the way I am,” or “That’s the way we do things here.” We may even have reasons for the behavior that make perfect sense to us. Because of this, we accept the behavior as normal and acceptable.

But then one day, whether it’s from taking a leadership development class, reading a book, or our own self-discovery, we know differently and have alternative and better responses. We now have different behaviors that we know are more effective, and we can create a plan to change towards those. While creating this plan, we need to build in the knowledge that failing at least once is part of the process. Truthfully, we will probably fail many times. Failing reveals more to you about what deserves your attention and energy moving forward.

Make the change specific and measurable

The temptation is to start with a big and usually vague goal such as:

• I want to be a better manager
• I want to be more generous with my praise
• I’d like to share better feedback

These are all good goals, but how will we know if we are accomplishing them? When my students present these to me, I often ask, “What does that look like? If I were to follow you around with a video camera, what specific behaviors would I record that demonstrate this goal in action?”

We must determine the specific, and sometimes small, actions necessary to improve our performance. At the end of the month, I want to be able to see progress and be able to measure and evaluate the improvements myself. It is in measuring that I can know where I am in the process and tweak my plan if necessary.

Start with Small Steps

Break your larger change process into manageable steps. Smaller steps are more manageable to accomplish, and they demonstrate that real, lasting change occurs over time and takes effort. We can’t change everything, but we can change in small ways that add up over time. Change is never just one step. It is made up of many connected steps that create a pattern of different behavior and leads to truly effective and lasting change.

Use a System to Support Change

We must find support to sustain change. What are the tools you need to keep moving forward? Whether digital or analog, there are tools out there for everyone. Someone might benefit from an app that reminds them to do something at a certain time every day until that action becomes a natural habit. Another person may benefit from reflecting in their journal at the end of every day, where they can see their behavior patterns and plan for change.

Often, we may need learning support found in books, articles, or seminars. Additional tools can include software, checklists, apps, sticky notes, pictures, etc. The list of tools is endless. Find support tailored to your needs for measuring and tracking your change effort.

Make a Commitment

A private commitment will likely be short-lived. Tell someone or a peer group what you are doing and why you are doing it. Make it public and ask for support and regular feedback. You are on your way toward transformational growth when you are courageous enough to go public with your change effort. You may also find that one of your peers is on a similar journey and you have inspired them to share their efforts as well. Being open with others about ourselves and our desired change builds trust and community; it improves the world around us while we improve what’s within us.

Personal growth and change are worth the effort. Easy? No. But worthy of our sustained effort. The people I most admire are on the journey of transformational growth. In their own way, they are changing the world around them by creating and sustaining change in themselves. This kind of humble growth is contagious and attractive to those who are observing us.

Have you been successful in making a change in the past? If so, how? I love to share success stories with my leadership development groups as it inspires them that they can make big, lasting change too!