Episode 96
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to the show. Today I want to talk about a question that makes me so sad [00:01:00] to hear from business owners and team leaders in the corporate world, which is, is it too late for my team? This is that feeling that you've tried everything, that you have really tried to boost motivation, you've tried to set clear expectations, you've tried to do all the things, and yet It works just not humming along like it used to be.
And when we feel this stuck perspective, I love to introduce the concept of reframing, which is the central theme of my book, Unstuck, which is looking at a place that we are feeling stuck and asking ourselves, what else is possible? What other perspectives can I try on? What can I do differently here?
And so when we're feeling like, ah, yeah, is it too late for my team? I want us to shed that perspective of believing that, yeah, we're out of options. And think about what else we can try and what we can try. That's what we talk about today now to explore this. I want to talk about what are some of the things that are showing up with our teams when we're feeling really stuck.
Okay. And one example is motivation is really low, right? Things used to be really people who were really excited about the work. They were you [00:02:00] know, they'd come into the lunches and the happy hours and they'd come Monday morning and bring ideas and they'd be sharing things. And now it's kind of like.
Oh, they show up right on time, or they're not, they're given one word answers, or those team lunches that you worked so hard to kind of get up and running are Have you ever only sparsely attended? And you're like, Oh, is this my new team now? Have I lost the team culture? Right. So when that question comes up, that's a signal that we might be feeling stuck and we need to try something else.
Another one is, is when you see folks aren't stepping up as leaders. And this is one that I have heard a lot from, business owners and folks in the corporate world of feeling like, Oh, Well, I gave my team members a lot of opportunities. I've tried to delegate. I've tried to really understand what their superpowers are and invite them to step up and they're not taking me up on it.
Do I have the right people? So that's another really stuck question of wondering like, I don't know if I have the right people on my team. Can they even be leaders? Another is when work's not getting done at the pace it used to be, right? We're in the beginning of the year where we want to be starting off really strong and we're looking around saying, well, Q4 ended kind of, kind of came to like a [00:03:00] grinding halt.
I, I don't know, we, had so much momentum in the middle of the year and now it's kind of fizzling out. Is, is my team able to deliver at the pace that I need them to? And another, if you're a business owner, revenue's flat. So you're doing all these things, you're trying to get people involved in the sales process, you're trying to get people involved in growing the business.
You're seeing revenue flat and you're like, well, is this it for me? Have I hit a plateau? So all of these questions where you've kind of come to an assumption or conclusion about stuff kind of not going in the right way, being in this stuck place that your team's not going to be motivated. You lost the culture that folks aren't the right people.
They can't step up as leaders that, you know, You now can't deliver at the same pace that you could, or that you've kind of hit this plateau in your business and you're kind of out of options. These are the stuck perspectives I want us to reframe today. And I want us to think about what else can I try?
And I want to talk about three areas that I think can be really game changing to get out of this stuck place. Now, the first is to set expectations with your team members. Whenever you are not seeing [00:04:00] work being done as you need to, this kind of leadership stepping up. folks really taking on their responsibility to grow the business.
That is a moment to reset our own expectations. And this means having a conversation with folks individually or as a team around, Hey, You know, it's Q1, we're hitting the ground running. Here is what the expectations are. Here is what bonuses will be based on. Here's the metrics. Here's what success looks like.
Really getting people rallied around it. Because I think sometimes when motivation is low, it's because, well, we don't really know what's expected of us, or we kind of think we got in this rut of doing maybe the bare minimum and we got to be rallied back around it. And so that pairs with the second thing that I think is one of the most important things we got to do, which is create accountability mechanisms.
And so this is a way to drive motivation because we know what success looks like when we feel accountable. We step up as owners, we bring this ownership mindset, which is proactivity to our work and we show up really differently. And that's a way to turn around things like, you know, work not getting done to the [00:05:00] pace we need to setting targets saying, Hey, this is what we got to get done this week or this month or this quarter.
Here's how we've load balanced across the team. what do you need? Does this feel like the right size plan? And then checking in on it regularly. And this is where accountability often falls short. We have like a great system going into it, it's all figured out, but then we don't check back in on it.
And if you have aggressive timelines and these things need to be met. Checking in before it's too late, asking for any risks, talking about mitigations, checking in, checking in, checking in, so that when you get to that deadline, you know 100 percent if it's going to be hit or not. And if it's not hit, your team is clear that they got to have an answer for that.
And that is something that's really, really important is that our teams don't feel like it's optional to get work done. Right? I mean, that's what really can weigh on you as that manager, as that business owner, when you feel like I'm the only person that cares about if this happens or not, and that's going to really drive that stuck feeling.
[00:06:00] So when you set expectations around what's got to get done, who's doing what really clearly delineate roles and responsibilities, really clearly talk about when you're going to check in, what the metrics are for success, all these things, this creates accountability for each person. And we ask them to step up as owners.
We say, Hey, you know, you're owning this project. You know what is what makes sense to be reporting on it. What do we want to be talking about when asking them to volunteer some of the metrics for it. Owning the metrics. Hey, one thing when we're asking our team members to report on something, [00:07:00] it's not just we give them a report on their team area and say, like, speak to these things.
They should already have be actively checking in on whatever metrics are related to their role, right? So if they're doing social media, they should know about the engagement if they're working on business development They should know about lead generation and they should be telling you and that fuels a sense of accountability And that gets you out of this stuck place where you know revenues flat No one's really speaking to it where works not moving the pace where people aren't stepping was leaders They're waiting for you to hand on those reports, right and then giving feedback and this is what's gonna really hit on that motivation piece So I said setting expectations, creating a calendar, our third solution for the stuck place of wondering, Ah, is it too late for my team?
Is giving feedback. Because once you've laid the foundation of expectations, you now have something there that you can pay feedback back to. Right. And so feedback is a really tough one for a lot of us, right? We have a lot of baggage around. I talk about feedback a lot. I always say, you know, can I give you some feedback is the worst, most uncomfortable question [00:08:00] we can hear in the workplace and frankly in life.
Right. And it's because we have a lot of fears around. What is somebody going to say? Does this mean I screwed everything up, that they don't like me, that I am worthless, whatever. We have all this baggage around feedback. But when we don't get feedback, we don't know we stand, we don't know if we're doing a good job, if we don't know what success looks like, if we don't know how that project went, our motivation falls off a cliff.
Because people need to know where they stand, our team members need to know they're doing a good job, they need to know they're on the right path. So when we avoid feedback because we don't really know how to give it or we feel like, you know, no news is good news or we don't want to have a hard conversation.
We don't want someone to be defensive. We avoid it. We're making the situation worse. And that is if we do not give feedback, then yeah, it is going to be too late to fix your team because you're not telling them anything they have to do to fix it. Right? So feedback is going to be the real, the third piece to this.
And one of the most important is. giving positive feedback and recognition and appreciation and giving constructive course correcting feedback and the [00:09:00] positive feedback and recognition as I talk about often on the show. It's about giving specific examples about talking about the way someone approached something that really landed well so they can reproduce that and making sure they know that their work was seen and their work mattered.
Okay, so thanking them again for something specific, not just saying great job, but saying, Hey, the way that you handle that tough conversation, the meeting was really, you know, I was really inspired by that. That was awesome. And it allowed our client to feel really comfortable and, and, you know, coming to a decision.
now we've saved time on our project. Right. This is the way that we give positive feedback. Now with constructive we want to get specific as well And I love to tie constructive feedback to someone's bigger goal or something they're working towards and that's important to them Show them that I see you and I care about you and that is why I'm doing feedback Because this is going to make the feedback easier to action and it's going to increase that motivation because I say, Oh, I see my manager is in it for me.
They want me to be successful. So here's an example. You know, let's say a team member has been really wanting to present to [00:10:00] clients and or take a more active role with clients, whatever, face to face, whether that's you're in an agency or you're in a, some, a physical location where there's interaction with clients and they have an interaction and it kind of goes south, right?
Like it's not terrible, but you know, they're asked some questions and they don't really know how to answer them. So you got to get feedback, right? Because it's really important. You want to course correct that and saying, Hey, you know, I know you've been really excited to get more involved with clients and we've been really working to find opportunities for that.
And unfortunately in that last interaction, the client had some questions about our business that You weren't fully able to answer and, so we had to bring somebody else into the conversation and so, you know, knowing how important it is to you, I'd love to sit down with you and figure out like, what do you really need to learn about the business and pair you up with a buddy so that you feel up to speed, you know, whatever it looks like so that you can be successful next time, right?
Now, that's not a piece of feedback we need to avoid, but we have to tell that person. And when they feel, when that interaction went badly, that person knows it probably. They feel it. They're like, Oh man, I want, I was talking so much about how I want to interact with clients and I blew it. [00:11:00] Right? So if you show them, Hey, you know, we got to fix this, but we will help you fix this.
That is going to increase motivation. So that those are my strategies. Like when you feel like, ah, is it too late for my team? You know, people aren't really stepping up. It works. Not going at the pace. Revenue is flat. Motivation is low. Like what do I do? I think it's too late. I think it's the people. I think it's this.
Pause and reframe and ask yourself, okay, what else can I try? How can I be more clear? How can I bring more supporting? What feedback can I add? How can I help people feel more accountable? Because that's going to turn around every single one of those issues. And when you start to do that and you start to ask yourself, what else is possible?
Now you think of all sorts of other ideas. So the three things that I shared, that's not the only things you can do. But when you get out of that rut of thinking, well, I've tried everything and it's hopeless. Like when you shed that perspective. Now, you have an infinite amount of perspectives available to you to, to try and explore.
And with each one of these things, making sure we're really inviting our team into the [00:12:00] conversation, asking them for feedback as well, you know, asking them where you can be more clear. What do they need to feel supported? This is also going to help them get unstuck. Okay. So let's not ask ourselves that question.
Is it too late? No, it is not too late. Try these things. And if you're feeling stuck on a particular thing, I want to invite you to join an SOS call. So these are an hour session where you bring an issue, whatever thing is making you feel stuck. And in an hour, we talk about some concrete, actual strategy that you can try right away on your team.
So if you want to book that, head to leahgarvin. com slash SOS. Folks are really enjoying these. They give you that solution, that action plan right away. And it's just a way to be able to move forward and not feel like I got to figure this out alone because you don't have to figure it out alone. This stuff is hard.
So if you're stewing on it, if it's keeping you up at night, schedule that SOS call. I want you to be able to sleep tonight. I want you to not wake up at 3 a. m. thinking about how hard your team is to manage. Okay, leahgarver. com slash SOS. See you next time.
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