You Can’t Make Your Team Compete (WT475)

You Can’t Make Your Team Compete (WT475)

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by Shirley Dalton | 2 Aug, 2019 | Blog, Leadership

WT 475 You can't make your team compete

As a leader, it’s your job to get the best out of your team. This doesn’t mean you are a slave driver and that you crack the whip to milk every last minute of productivity. 

Rather it means that you help your team to reach their full potential. When they are actively engaged and enjoying themselves, productivity will naturally be high.

This week one of my coaching clients was sharing how she and her sister have been enjoying an exercise challenge.  She was miffed when her sister pipped her at the post before the deadline. She was also miffed when she had finished a workout yet didn’t receive the credit because the recording device had run out of battery. 

This story and experience opened up an entire discussion about how to engage your team. 

When I suggested creating a competition between team members, her initial reaction was, “You can’t make your team compete”.

Maybe the word “challenge” is more appealing as you set up a challenge to get a certain amount of work finished by the end of the month or attain a certain target. 

As we discussed it further, we both had examples where we had been engaged in friendly competitions at work. Winning a prize wasn’t always the motivator. At times it was simply knowing you had put in the effort and “won” that was most satisfying. 

When my clients used to meet me in my office, the first thing they often did was to share their success stories and get to “Ring the Gong”.   It was our favourite thing to do – to celebrate the wins. 

This week I’m challenging you (ha ha) to come up with some fun and interesting ways that you can engage your team. What friendly challenge can you give them that will have them run toward the finish line? 

Not only can you “make your team compete”, in many cases they will thank you for it because it just might be the thing that spices up the week or the month.

You’re Such an Idiot (WT474)

You’re Such an Idiot (WT474)

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by Shirley Dalton | 26 Jul, 2019 | Blog, Mindset

WT 474 You're such an idiot

Of course I’m not talking about you.

This is what I’ve been saying to myself the past few days; even though I know better than to do that. 

Sometimes my ability to criticise myself astounds me.

I’ve been working day and night to make sure I have everything ready for our launch today for the Leading Yourself and Leading Others Membership Site.

I have pushed myself to learn about 4 or 5 new software programs to make sure they all talk to each other.

I was setting up the member logins and wanted to simply add their details to the new site.

There was an action step that generated a Welcome email, which I did not want to send.

Without realising that I had duplicate automation sequences, of course I chose the one that included the Welcome email and away it went before I realised.

“Damn!” (Well I said worse than that.) 

“Quick, send another email to make sure the members don’t try and login with the details in that email.”

I quickly put together an explanation and again, hit Send, only to find, to my horror, that in my haste, I had forgotten to update the Subject Line which was announcing our next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience in August in Newcastle.

“Damn!” (Again!)

There was nothing I could do.

My Inner Critic had a field day.

“You’re such an idiot.” “How embarrassing?” “How could you have been so stupid?” “What will people think?”

On and on and on it went, until I screamed “Enough!” “Stop it!”

“Yes, I made a mistake. In fact I made two mistakes in quick succession. That doesn’t mean I give up. I’m learning. People will forgive me. Let’s look at all the things I’ve done right over the past few weeks to get this ready.” 

Does this happen to you, too?  Is your Inner Critic quick to judge and call you names?

If so, here’s a tip I learned from Jack Canfield a long time ago. He taught us to turn our Inner Critic into an Inner Coach.  The critic is there to help us improve, so we can thank it and let it know we’re aware of what needs to be changed or improved and we’re working on it. The name calling can stop.

Understanding that the critic only wants the best for us and for us to do well and achieve our goals makes it a little easier to bear when they can be so detailed with their improvement list.

I’m curious. What strategies do you use to silence your Inner Critic?

Have Faith – Take Action (WT473)

Have Faith – Take Action (WT473)

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by Shirley Dalton | 19 Jul, 2019 | Blog, Mindset

WT 473 Have Faith - Take Action

It was 1am. We were sleeping in a paddock (a free camp), with only two other caravans nearby.

We had stayed there the night before with about 20 vans and motorhomes and it was quiet and peaceful. We felt safe.

But not the next night. 

The locals had been partying all night and were starting to get unruly. Walking through the paddock they were singing, dancing, fighting and swearing.

I woke Ross. “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“There’s people outside and they sound like they’re drunk. I’m uncomfortable. I think we should go.”

“It’ll be fine. They’re just loud like Charlie used to be. They’re most likely harmless.” 

I did my best to go back to sleep without success.

“I can’t do it. We have to go.”

Ross sighed as he got out of bed and got dressed.

Within about 10 minutes we had elevated the bed, pulled the covers off the windows, packed up and were driving out of the paddock.

“I need to get fuel,” Ross reminded me.

We found a service station and the lady (who was working by herself) said we could have stayed across the road but there had been quite a lot of people walking around.

With nowhere to go, we just had to have faith and take action.

As Ross drove northward amidst the fog and B Double trucks carrying sugar cane, I checked the internet and we found another roadside camp about 40 kilometres away.

We arrived around 2:30am and just fitted into a spot off the road.

It was noisy and we didn’t care.

We were safe and our faith and taking action had paid off.

Your turn, what would you have done?

Would you have stayed or gone?

Can you remember a time when you had to act on faith and it worked out?

“Have faith” is something I constantly remind myself.

Accountability – Your Team Actually Want It (WT472)

Accountability – Your Team Actually Want It (WT472)

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by Shirley Dalton | 12 Jul, 2019 | Blog, Leadership

WT 472 Accountability - Your team actually want it

As a leader or supervisor, it’s our responsibility to ensure our team are on task.

When they lose focus, come in late or produce poor quality work, it’s up to us to find out what’s going on, and if necessary, have THAT conversation with them.

It’s often uncomfortable and something we put off and yet it is our job to hold people accountable.

The interesting thing though, is that people actually do want to be held accountable.

Why? Because it shows we care.

Secondly, people do want to achieve and they want to know you are watching and interested in their performance.

Thirdly, it’s often easier for us to be accountable to someone else rather than ourselves.

Talking with a client this week, she shared how she made sure that she did her homework because she knew “Shirley will ask and hold me accountable” (and of course I did). 

She also realised that she has her own cheer squad for some personal goals and this helps motivate her to complete her actions because she knows the cheer squad are watching and they will know if she doesn’t fulfil her commitment. 

As you read this you might be disagreeing, (as Ross did). “No, Shirley, my team hated me holding them accountable. They hated it when I confronted them and encouraged them to get back on task.” 

“Perhaps, however at the end of the day, if you asked them what sort of leader they would prefer and who they respected the most, I can tell you, it would be the one who held them accountable and helped them to fulfil their potential.” 

Grudgingly, Ross agreed. 

What do you think? 

Are you willing to step up and hold your team accountable to experience the difference or will you continue to be N.I.C.E. (Nothing In me Cares Enough to tell you truth)?

Are You Burning Energy? (WT471)

Are You Burning Energy? (WT471)

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by Shirley Dalton | 5 Jul, 2019 | Blog, Business

WT 471 Are you burning energy?

I’m guessing you’re well aware of the word “procrastination” and what it means?

Today I’d like to look at it from another angle.

I was talking with a client this week who was totally distressed by what he perceived as his “lack of achievement” towards his goals. (I can totally relate to that!) 

It’s not that he is lazy.

It’s not that he won’t take action.

It’s not that he’s not motivated and it’s certainly not because he doesn’t know what he is talking about. 

Indeed, he is totally frustrated because he can’t decide; he can’t choose the first step to take.

As we talked, I encouraged him to “simply lean into it” and just do something.

We burn so much energy when we waste our time trying to come to a decision.

Many of us need to see the perfect outcome before we can take a step forward.

The irony is, that life is not like that. We make progress by taking one step at a time.

Like my client, I’ve been stuck myself with making a decision about how to niche down my own business and who to attract.

I admit, it’s difficult when you have so many choices. Again, like my client, when you can serve many people with different solutions and you enjoy them all, it’s a daunting task to say “No” to some.

When you think about the energy you’re wasting, it becomes critical to stop procrastinating.

Simply make a decision, choose an action and take one small step towards it.

If you find you don’t like the direction it’s going, simply make another decision.

The only way to overcome “paralysis by analysis” is to do something.

A mentor of mine once put it this way, “Just pick a horse and ride it”.

Your task this week is to do exactly that.

If you’ve found yourself paralysed and burning energy, simply choose one small action you can take and do that.

Go on. Do it now. You can always change it.

Stop burning energy.

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