Blog
Into The Label Maker We Go (WT777)
This week I’m sharing a conversation I had with a good friend and colleague. We’ll call him Andrew. Andrew was telling me about one of his team members. The team member was bemoaning his clients. “Rather than being grateful for the work or understanding of the needs of his clients”, Andrew said, “Into The Label Maker We Go”. He went on to explain. The team member would mention the client’s name, throw them in the label maker and then spit out any number of disparaging judgements and labels to describe his clients. Now, this shouldn’t be funny and yet I found myself laughing heartily at the...
The Law of Commitment (WT776)
When you say you’re committed to (fill in the blank), have you ever wondered how your body knows you are committed? This week I’ve been studying with Benjamin J. Harvey and he gave a mind-blowing explanation of the Law of Commitment. In fact, we are biologically designed to succeed if we follow the Law of Commitment. In your body, you have cells called Astrocytes. Astrocytes respond to two things. They respond to what's called increased impulse traffic where the impulses are travelling down the same neural networks over and over again as well as taking urgent action. With a couple of...
There’s A Better Way To Say It (WT775)
You know that one of my passions is communication. I’ve spent decades studying communication and am an accredited instructor for Thomas Gordon’s Leader Effectiveness Training and overall Effectiveness Training, both of which place a heavy emphasis on developing communication skills. So this week I cringed when a colleague shared with me, her dismay at receiving some feedback. These days I’m also cautious about using the word “feedback” because for most of us, it means something negative is coming or a criticism of some sort. Anyhoo, we’ll call her Jasmine. In a public forum, one of Jasmine’s...
Just Jump In (WT774)
You know animals can teach us a lot about life. It was Good Friday and Ross and I were relaxing in the loungeroom when we noticed three kookaburras sitting on the railing on the front verandah. They weren’t there long before they were joined by magpies, a currawong and a butcher bird. Now, ordinarily Ross and I would not feed birds because we recalled a sign in a Queensland national park when we were travelling that said, “A fed bird is a dead bird”. So generally, we won’t feed birds. For some reason, on this day, Ross had some left over meat and so he threw it on the verandah. The...
You Don’t Have To Believe What People Tell You (WT773)
Many years ago, a former boss of mine told me that I would never be successful because I didn’t have any vision. For some reason I believed him about the vision. It’s only been recently that I have experienced my own “Aha’s” around this limiting belief. As I’ve been coaching people recently I've observed how often I can see their business model and a vision for them and their business and have done so with my clients for the past 18 years. Doh! I’ve helped them gain so much clarity and then helped them to remove the resistance that is holding them back. Clients have been hitting goals that...
If You Get Nervous (WT772)
Before we get into this week’s thought, I just want to acknowledge the readers who answered the challenge last week and messaged me with the tasks they wanted to be held accountable for. Well done! All were completed in the week, so just to remind us of the benefit of having a coach, I call it the “BAQS System” because a coach, has your “back”. A coach can help to: Identify your Blind Spots Be your Accountability partner Ask quality Questions, and Provide suggestion on Strategies that you may not have thought of. Now to this week: This week I presented the first of 6 online presentations....
Let’s Talk About Accountability (WT771)
It always amazes me how themes seem to appear at different times. The past month or so, the theme of Accountability has popped up enough times to be more than a coincidence. As I prepared to present The 5 Pillars to Become an Effective Leader, I was reminded again and again to hold myself accountable. One of the pillars is “Support for Success”. If you look at all the successful leaders, sportspeople, politicians, business people, one thing they have in common is they haven’t gotten there alone. Many have team members to help them, and the majority of them have coaches and mentors. Why is...
The Way You Practise Is The Way You Perform (WT770)
I confess, up until recently I haven’t been someone who placed a great deal of importance on practise. I’d put a bit of effort into something and then “wing” the rest of it, often with less than optimal results. More recently I’ve gained a huge appreciation for practise and the reason for that is because I am understanding more about how our brains work. Practising increases the traffic in our neural networks. The more traffic, the quicker we act and the quicker we learn. I’ve been working with clients lately helping them to create new neural pathways, in other words, to rewire their brains....
What Is The Missing Link To Team Efficiency? (WT769)
This week I was working onsite with clients looking at their systems. Like many business owners, they were frustrated because their people were not being efficient. “How can we improve our efficiency? they asked. That’s a great question. What do you think the answer is? What do you think is the missing link? If you said “Role Clarity”, you are correct. “Role Clarity?” “How does that improve efficiency?” If you think about it, your people come to work to do a good job and feel good about themselves and the contribution they make. In order to do that, they need to know what they have to do, to...
He’s Not Getting The Job (WT768)
Recently we had some storm damage, nothing like Cyclone Alfred up north, but enough to have to get the bay windows resealed and fixed. We used Hipages to request quotes from qualified tradespeople. One man called straight away on the Friday. We’ll call him Jack. Jack quoted $850 to come and do the work the next day, (Saturday) which was forecast to be raining. We were a little surprised that: He quoted without looking at the job He could get there the next day. What thoughts would you have about a tradesperson who isn’t booked out weeks or months in advance? Anyway, Ross told him another...