Coach Train Learn

Be There For Your People When It Matters

“The worse the news, the more effort should go into communicating it”
Andrew Grove, CEO, Intel Corporation

It’s just the thing to do, hide in your office when there’s bad news out there – NOT!

When there is difficult communication to be given out there in your business, your place is out there, hunting around for ways to help people out and keep in touch.

In their thinking; in their emotions; in their information seeking; in their pain and worry.

To get the very best results when news is bad – like layoffs, short hours, takeovers etc. – make yourself (and your management team too) available, open and willing to listen.

That’s what your people will be desperate for right now and you can make the difference to them.

And, amazingly, that will make all the difference to the outcome of this challenging time.

Even when the going is tough, you can make the difference, not only to the issue in hand, but also to every one of your people that you help.

Girls’ Education – A Great Investment

“If you educate a girl, you educate the whole family.” – Usha Acharya, Little Sisters Fund.

Checkout http://www.sendgirlstoschool.org/

Handling Deep Roots

It’s been a bit of a gardening weekend this weekend.

You know, the sort where you realize that the wet gloves you left in the shed last November would have been much better had you dried them, what with all that green fungus stuff to scrape off:-(.

Still, the weeds seem to thrive in the time you took off, whatever the weather. So, With the able help of my other half, we’ve been attempting to lift a few of the trickier ones that have literally taken root.

Most of these problems, with a little encouragement and nurturing, are willing to let go of their new home. They are shallow enough still to be unable to persist there.

We caught them soon enough.

With others, maybe we missed them last year and they are thicker, deeper rooted and really pretty impossible to shift, especially with all the chaos of where they are growing – stuff all around impeding access to them.

What to do?

With these, the only solution is to chop them off at ground level, hoping that this will be a deterrent for them and they will just go away. Maybe we might pour something on them to finish them off.

I’m hoping that you see the analogy here for when we have tricky issues with employee behavior.

Deal with it early and it becomes easier to resolve, with little pain.

Indeed as they say, ‘a weed is only a plant growing in the wrong place’ – so we could even have transplanted if we wanted.

Leave it too long and bad behaviors get too deep-seated and cannot be safely or easily resolved. And then needs surgery, which is disappointing for all.

Sometimes, we fail to tackle issues early, when we could. Then it was manageable and solvable. The situation was redeemable.

Other times, we serve no-one because we failed. We have to seek and destroy then, which is no use to anyone.

Maybe we avoided challenges when they were easier and now, they aren’t easy at all.

Takes Just a Moment

Ever wondered what you could do to make someone’s day?

Say something nice; something that shows them you care; that you acknowledge them for the super person they are.

It only takes a moment – and costs nothing at all…

Make Your Day – Say Thanks!

Receiving goods and services from suppliers, whatever shape or form they are, still means some human interaction, most of the time.

Yet we are becoming much more demanding as customers.

We demand more from those who provide to us and because we are frequently in roles which deliver goods and services ourselves, we are on the receiving end too – of complaints, frustrations and generally poor behaviour.

Why is it that when we are on the receiving end, we miss the fact that we ourselves, when we hang up our service-provider-hat at the end of our shift, often end up as ‘customers behaving badly’ too?

Why do we take our own frustrations out on others, the way it has been taken out on us?

Why do we sometimes become the Hyde from our normal Jekyll?

So, when someone goes the ‘extra mile’ to say ‘Thank you’, or appreciate the actions you have taken, what do you take from that and how do you react?

You feel good, I guess. Indeed, very good.

So you have the opportunity to ‘pay forward’ when your leave your place of business and be on ‘the other side of the counter’.

But do you have to wait until you have a good experience? Or might you overcome bad experiences you’ve had yourself by reacting differently – by being more appreciative in the moment with others?

How does it feel when you give praise, say thank you, show gratitude? How much control have you over the warm glow it gives you inside when you do this?

The answer is that you have complete control over your behaviour to others, whatever the temptation to be harsh. And, the key here is that you can decide to be nasty or nice, whatever the provocation.

It’s a choice!

And you can move on from what might have been a challenging day for yourself, knowing that you’ve made someone else’s day better – and move on yourself.

Kind of ‘being nice to others makes my own day’ therapy!

Business Performance Good? Think Again!

Today, I want to tweak your thinking!

You see when things are all going well, it’s really easy to miss things. Some parts of your business seem to be running smoothly, yet it’s something that your senses are missing, because everything seems so good!

We all have areas of our business that need particular attention, so that’s what we do. We take time to smooth things in places where the going is tougher.

And it’s right to do so, as long, of course, that the rough times have an end in sight!

Take a moment or two to consider those parts of your business you’ve been paying less attention to, because all is going well. And make the effort to spend some time there.

Use the time to listen to the great people there who are doing a great job and show them that you care and that you notice.

While you are freed to spend more time in the tricky areas, remember that you have to do a little maintenance as well where everything is going well.

And sometimes it’s all to easy to leave those just for the very reason that they are doing OK.

After all, you wouldn’t want those little fires to start spring up in those very areas that you thought were safe now, would you?