Search Results for “Appreciation at Work” – Shawn Stratton

15 Ways to Lead Proactively

Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:04:49 +0000

In the TEDx talk that I gave, I highlighted the power of teamwork during a recounted expedition that I led deep in the Indian Himalayas. On day 24 of the mountain expedition, a client fell down one of the slopes and suffered an open fracture of his lower leg. For 19 hours while we waited for help to arrive, we fought to save the patient’s leg.

I firmly believe that our team thrived during this period because of the proactive leadership our team of instructors displayed on the expedition up to that point. I was brought to tears with pride for our team once help finally did arrive in the form of a massive Indian military rescue helicopter. We had selflessly pulled together to manage the intense situation in a hostile environment.

You can use these types of situations as a learning experience. While carrying out your duties as a leader, there are a few questions to ask about your performance to determine whether you spend most of your time in a reactive or proactive role.

As a leader do you…

Find yourself putting out fires most of the day?
Dread Mondays because you have no idea what mess you are about to walk in on?
Feel like you are losing the respect of your team members?
Get behind in writing or conducting performance reviews?
Only think about doing a team building event when your team is not working well together or because you just haven’t done one in a while?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you probably spend more leadership time in a reactionary mode than you should. Leaders can end up dealing with either a major crisis or a thousand tiny crises that affect business on a daily basis such as late shipments, unhappy customers, missed deadlines or dysfunctional teams. In order to manage these situations in the most effective way, you should avoid both reactive thinking and reactive actions in the day-to-day management of your team.

You need to lead proactively to equip your team members with the resiliency, drive, and determination to manage crises. Proactive behavior refers to behavior that is anticipatory, self-initiated and often change-oriented. This means that you are able to anticipate needs in the future and to act on them today, as opposed to waiting and then reacting when they occur. It is about controlling the situation rather than being controlled by it.

“Quality leaders are proactive leaders!”

As a leader, there will always be crises to manage, but as a proactive leader, many of these crises will be mere bumps in the road on your team’s journey.

In order to become a proactive leader, you need to:

Prepare for Change: You need to effectively anticipate changes or crisis situations to lead effectively and create plans to meet the challenges that change often brings.

Meet One-On-One with Team Members Regularly: Everyone has different needs and desires. The best way to gauge the mood and anticipate brewing issues within the team is through regular individual meetings with your team members.

Execute Regular Team Building Events: Get the team together on at least a quarterly basis for some sort of activity in which the focus is team development. The more often you hold the events, the shorter and simpler they can be.

Express Appropriate Appreciation: Understand your team members’ Appreciation Language and show appreciation according to their preferences.

Set Clear Expectations: Each individual needs to clearly know what is expected of them at all times.

Create and Revisit a Team Charter: The creation of a charter is facilitated by the leader but has input from the whole team. The charter is posted for everyone to see and is revisited at least once a quarter. For an example check out my Team Recipe example.

Weed Their Garden Early: As the saying goes, “slow to hire, quick to fire.” Remove destructive team members as soon as it becomes clear that they are having a detrimental effect on the team.

Be Inspiring: Leading by example is to continually role model behaviors beyond what you expect from others.

Keep Small Problems Small: You Do not avoid or let unproductive conflicts fester. You have a system for managing conflict that adequately addresses the issue, develops a plan and allows the team to move forward.

Embrace Feedback: You Do not be afraid to change your behaviors and leadership style to be a more effective leader for your team.

Conduct Stay Interviews: One-on-one interviews with a manager and a valued employee. Its aim, quite simply, is to learn what makes employees want to keep working for you.

Encourage Professional Development: Support and suggest professional development opportunities for your team members that will enhance your skills.

Take Responsibility: When things don’t work out as planned, you take responsibility for both your actions and those of your team. You seek advice and help when required.

Get Personal: You Get to know your team members on a personal level. This can include their personal history, things in common, their strengths and their passions.

Never Stop Learning: Proactive leaders are continually seeking refinement in their own leadership skills through personal and professional development opportunities.

The best leaders spend their time thinking about how to manage their team and increase their team’s performance. Once they reach a high level of performance, they don’t coast. They keep close contact with team members, are constantly monitoring any bumps in the road and present opportunities to help them to continue to excel.

Action: In the next seven days incorporate one trait of a proactive leader into your leadership style that you are not currently doing.

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Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, endurance athlete, and a dad.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

8 Ways to Create Pride within a Team

Fri, 14 Jul 2017 05:15:36 +0000

Before I get to this weeks post I thought I would let you know daughter #3 finally did come into this world last Sunday, July 9. Here is Aspen Stratton in her 2-day old passport photo.

(Note – this is a 2017 summer addition ‘best of the best’ blog from the archive.)

When pride is present at work, it inspires individuals and teams to achieve more, communicate better, and build upon each other’s strengths. When it’s not present, it can get ugly, really ugly.

Most successful teams carry a high level of pride to the work they do and whom they do it with. But as a leader, how do you create pride within a team. Surely it is not a given any time a team forms to take on a significant goal. Pride for a team or organization has to deliberately be developed and massaged by the leadership. It comes from a conscious effort and genuine love of the team and its purpose.

Pride helps people enthusiastically do their job and get through hard times.

I always saw that developing pride within an expedition team was an integral part of my role as an expedition leader. During the extended backcountry expeditions I led, I would be getting my clients and students to regularly push their comfort zone mentally and physically while challenging their tolerance for adversity and uncertainty.

No, these moments didn’t happen every day but when they did come about I needed the team members to feel the pride in what they were trying to accomplish and who they were doing it with to launch themselves into challenging situations. It could have been have a 4am wake up to accomplish a long sea kayak day before the winds picked up at noon.

Or packing up wet tents in near freezing temperatures and hiking late into the night so we could reach the lake in time to meet the floatplane and re-ration our food. Without developing a sense of pride in the team, life in mundane doldrums of a workplace, let alone challenging situations, can be extremely demoralizing and not a fun place to be.

For a while, I sold outdoor clothing and equipment. It was a commission based sales job, I knew the products inside out and could tell real life stories to customers about using the stuff. I was good at the job and made good money for the SHORT time I did it. The job was not sustainable for me and one of the reasons why was I did not hold any pride for the team I was on or the organization.

The management didn’t do a good job expressing the mission, other than to reach the highest sales number possible, or sharing the WHY I SHOULD CARE factor. Other than financial gain, I had no other reason why I should be working for the company and that one reason wasn’t going to keep me happy and around for long.

Companies like Patagonia and Clif Bar do a great job in expressing how their WHY THEY SHOULD CARE goes far beyond just their financial success. Their employees have a great purpose for working there. Looking back at all the jobs I have had. The ones in which I had the most pride, I not only believed in their purpose but I could recite their mission word for word.

Here are 8 ways to develop pride within your team:

Clear and Compelling Purpose: Your reason for being a team needs to be short, memorable, believable, and worth caring about. As a leader, if you are not overly drawn to the large organization’s purpose or don’t feel it is clear enough; you can develop a purpose for your own specific team. You should be proud of the purpose – pride starts with purpose.
Celebrate Small Wins: Pride comes from achievement, so never underestimate the significant of accomplishments big and small in building pride with a team (Related: How to Motivate With Progress)
Plenty of Positive Feedback and Feedforward: Don’t wait until the end to lavish your team with praise. To sustain people through the journey and take ownership in what they do, providing specific and genuine positive feedback is essential (Related: The Ultimate Feedback Technique of Today’s Leaders)
Be Innovative: Try new stuff without straying from the purpose. People like to be on the edge of innovation. It could be a new style of meetings or reporting systems, or ways to show appreciation, etc. Being stuck in the same old ways does not inspire teams to try harder or develop pride.
Have Fun Every Day: There are unlimited ways to have fun at work. As a leader, you don’t just need to create occasions but more importantly, join in when others create fun opportunities. Come up with a team name and nicknames for everyone, play games, crack jokes, and have dress up parties, etc. The more shocking (within reason) and off the wall, the better.
Deal with Conflict Early: Be it an underperforming employee or an interpersonal conflict, there is nothing that can sink a team’s pride faster than unaddressed conflict. The sooner you deal with the unproductive conflict, the lesser it will fester and affect the team.
Give Back: Supporting a cause bigger than your own to give back to will enhance the team’s greater purpose. Find a non-profit the team is interested in supporting or find ways to support a cause the organization is already affiliated with. Financial contributions are always nice but contributing time and human resources is often more impacting and can also lead to a quality team building opportunity.
Invest in Your People: Constructively helping people stretch beyond their current abilities, knowledge, and/or level of self-confidence, will help them become more valuable to the organization and to themselves.

The ways in which the development of team pride gets accomplished is through establishing a culture of excellence and by taking advantage of every opportunity to show your love for the team and develop your people. Incorporating these strategies into your leadership style will yield excellent results and establish you as an effective leader.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, Ironman competitor, and expedition guide.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

How to Gain Influence Without A Title

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 01:50:20 +0000

I will never forget the time a client on a month long mountaineering expedition I was leading looked at me on the first day and said, “Aren’t you a little young to be leading us?” A little caught off guard, I replied, “How old should I be?”

He was clearly skeptical of my experience and leadership abilities on that first day. Four days later, after I set up his rappel system on a knife-edge ridge in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington State, he was pretty happy I was there to show him what to do as he was shaking in his boots.

Once we got into the mountains I could have used my position as his instructor to gain influence over him but I decided to let my expertise speak for itself.

Gaining Influence

I am often asked “how can I influence others when my position offers me little formal leadership”. My quick answer is “The same way as if you had a formal title”.

As a leader, you hold a certain amount of influence over a group of people. There are 5 main types of influencers or “power” as Tom Kendrick highlights in his book Results Without Authority.

Power Of Position
Power To Coerce
Power To Reward
Power Of Expertise
Power Of Personality

Influencing others through your position and coercion come with a position of formal authority but are the least preferred methods of any quality leader. Too often, people feel they need to lead from a position with a fancy title. They say things like ‘if I was in XYZ position it would be so much easier to get people to do ABC.”

Sure, the Power of Position and the Power to Coerce are strong-arm leadership tactics usually available to those with fancy titles but for exceptional leaders, they are the least used. There are many more tactics to use to gain influence than those only available to positions of formal authority. The three Kendrick noted in his book are the Power to Reward, Power of Expertise and Power of Personality. Let’s look at these in a bit more detail:

Power to Reward: Anyone in an organization can influence through this avenue by nominating others for rewards, praising people, and doing other things that appreciated. For more information on how to show the right appreciation, download this article I wrote titled: Are You Showing the Right Appreciation at Work?
Power of Expertise: This is an effective source of leadership influence for project leaders. Influence based on what you know is always effective with senior management and stakeholders. They did, after all, put you in the charge of the project. Within your team, expertise will help you gain respect and credibility. People like to know their leader has “been there and done that”. Storytelling is a valuable way to grow your influence through your expertise.
Power of Personality: Your influence through personality will flourish in the relationships you build with others. Investing in team building, informal communication, and establishing a basis for mutual trust can also provide a leader with a great deal of influence. This type of influence is particularly useful in times of stress and turmoil. Maintaining friendly, respectful relationships with members of your team is invaluable.

In a recent webinar I was delivering to 1100 project managers from around the world, I presented a poll questions asking which type of power they utilized most at a leader. I was not too surprised to learn the overwhelming favorite was Power of Personality.

Make Time To Build Relationships!

Managing the details of projects, divisions or companies is important work but managing should start with people. Over and over again, I am told by people in leadership positions who struggle with managing their team that they don’t have time to spend on team development activities in or outside of meetings. My response is usually that they need to shift priorities and make time if they want their teams to reach their full potential in achieving the high standards and goal you have set out.

By the end of the expedition, the concerned client at the beginning of the trip gave me one of the most glowing evaluations ever. When seeking influence, lead with your appreciation, personality and expertise.

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author and Ironman competitor.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

Near Miss or Good Catch – There’s A Lot to Learn!

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 04:07:01 +0000

Last week, I presented at a project management conference on leading a safety culture, a culture where near misses are seen as a significant learning opportunity and not as potential disasters that are swept under the rug for fear of reprisal or job loss.

A near miss is an unplanned event that did not result in injury, illness, or damage – but had the potential to do so.

It is safe to say that of the dozens of the minor and major incidents I was involved in over 15 years of leading expeditions, most, if not all, were successfully resolved due to past learning from documented near miss situations, everything from arranging and paying for an Indian military helicopter to perform a dramatic rescue at 12000 feet in the Himalayas, to managing challenging river crossings in the Yukon to encountering grizzly bears deep in the back country of Alaska.

Fortunately, most organizations I worked with had progressive cultures around documenting and learning from near misses. Unfortunately, not all organizations are like this. Recently, I have been speaking with some project managers who work in a culture of fear of disciplinary action for being involved with a near miss incident. This fear has caused them to not want to report near misses and minor incidents.

Alternatively, I know of several organizations that have rephrased the term ‘near miss’ to ‘good catch’. I know it is only semantics but in an area that usually conjures up fear, semantics can be important. One company not only expected to report ‘good catches’ on potentially dangerous situations but also have their employees report “good catches’ of positive incidents where employees’ actions showed great initiative in supporting the safety culture of the organization.

4 Ways To Encourage Employees Staff To Record Near Miss Incidents:

1. Show Them Why

By clearly demonstrating how their recording of near misses is actually used to help other in similar situations and create change in policy and procedures, employees need to understand that in most circumstances if the near miss happened to them it could easily happen to someone else in their position. If they feel the report will come back to negatively impact their career or be placed in a binder on a dusty shelf never to be read again, they are less likely to fill in the report.

2. Set Expectations

By reporting 4 or 5 (positive and negatives) good catches a month as part of their job description, employees will know it is a clear expectation. One company I researched mandated their employees to report 5 good catches a month.

Tents almost distroyed by a bear. © Shawn Stratton

3. Offer Rewards

Publicly reward people for going above and beyond recording ‘good catches’. The display of appreciation does not have to be costly, just fair and inline with how they like to be appreciated. (Related: Are You Showing the Right Appreciation at Work)

Healthcare Quarterly reported that each year Edmonton’s Capital Health Region selects the most significant Good Catches for special recognition. “Each staff member who is selected for recognition receives a Capital Health “Quality Matters” pin and a letter of recognition from the CEO and the Vice-President for their site or sector.” Once people notice others being praised for reporting near misses, they will be much more likely to report them in the future.

4. Role Model

It is widely known that cultural change needs to be supported by the most senior employees within an organization. Having these more experienced employees report their own near misses for all to learn from will have a tremendous effect on creating a safety culture.

If organizations put as much emphasis on reporting and documenting near misses as they do on incident reports from accidents they would have a much safer work environment. The lessons learned from near misses can help prevent countless accidents in the future.

Action: Make sure your team members understand the clear and compelling reason WHY they need to record near miss incidents and make it easy for them to do so.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author and Ironman competitor.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

7 Ways to Make Someone Feel Great Today

Thu, 12 May 2016 03:12:11 +0000

As I was backpacking around the world, leading expeditions in my 20s, my grandmother back in St. John’s, Newfoundland, was always eager to hear from me on how I was doing.

At one point, she actually told me to call her collect from anywhere, so I did. I called her from a remote village in the Himalayas, from an apple orchard in New Zealand and from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

She was shocked and thrilled each time I called. She would tell my parents how it made her day. The calls were short and usually revolved around the weather at home and where I was, but it didn’t matter. She appreciated the calls so much that each time I called, when I got back to my mailbox there was usually a $10 cheque from her saying thank you for the call.

Think of a time someone made you feel great. It probably wasn’t because they gave you a huge or special gift. Most likely it was a small gift or no gift at all, just an action or an experience.

Here are 7 ways to make someone feel great today:

1. Write random notes of thanks and support: We all love to be cheered on and we all love to be appreciated. An easy way to show encouragement and gratitude is by writing short notes expressing your feelings. This could be on a post-it note on a colleague’s desk or a well-written Thank You card sent by snail mail, it doesn’t matter. The act of doing is what’s most important.

2. Find out how they like to be appreciated and do it! Discover how they like to be appreciated. Do they thrive on words of affirmation or do they like gifts? See the post Are You Showing the Right Appreciation at Work to learn about the 5 Languages of Appreciation.

3. Drop by: The simple act of visiting someone shows you care about them. It could be spending time with a new team member to check in with them or it could be visiting an elderly family member.

4. Make a memory: Our fondest memories, the ones that make you feel good inside and bring a smile to your face, come from experiences. Every fond experience you have had, someone had to create it. It doesn’t have to be as grand as concert tickets to their favorite artiest. It could be a morning out of the office, working a meaningful volunteer project, helping others in need, or a spontaneous game of nerf dodge ball in the office, or taking someone to an event for the first time. (RELATED – Quality Leaders Make Memories)

5. Offer help: I believe the most powerful words that bonds teammates is “How can I help you”. To someone stressed out or in need, there are no sweeter words. By offering your help, whether they take it or not, it shows you care for them. Often times, people want to jump in and help someone who is struggling without asking what they really need help with. If you don’t know, just ask.

6. Practice the 30-Second Rule: John Maxwell, the prolific leadership author and speaker, suggests that within the first 30 seconds of a conversation, look to say something encouraging to the person you are speaking with. By doing so, you will give others the Triple “A” treatment: attention, affirmation, and appreciation. When you add to others, they will be drawn to you.

7. Give them food! We all love food. Find some way to get a person some type of food they love. You could pick up an extra coffee in the morning, or bake some homemade cookies, bring in take-out or give them a gift card to their favourite restaurant or perhaps one that you like.

Bonus: If you know someone with young kids, offer to babysit!

Part of your job as a leader is to help make people feel great. The better they feel, the better they will perform and become overall better people.

How has someone made you feel great? Share your story in the comments below.

Action: Try the 30 Second Rule with the next 4 people you have a conversation with.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author and Ironman competitor.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

8 Ways to Create Pride within a Team

Wed, 16 Mar 2016 18:22:39 +0000

When pride is present at work, it inspires individuals and teams to achieve more, communicate better, and build upon each other’s strengths. When it’s not present, it can get ugly, really ugly.

Pride helps people enthusiastically do their job and get through hard times.

Here are 8 ways to develop pride within your team:

Clear and Compelling Purpose: Your reason for being a team needs to be short, memorable, believable, and worth caring about. As a leader, if you are not overly drawn to the large organization’s purpose or don’t feel it is clear enough; you can develop a purpose for your own specific team. You should be proud of the purpose – pride starts with purpose.
Celebrate Small Wins: Pride comes from achievement, so never underestimate the significant of accomplishments big and small in building pride with a team (Related: How to Motivate With Progress)
Plenty of Positive Feedback and Feedforward: Don’t wait until the end to lavish your team with praise. To sustain people through the journey and take ownership in what they do, providing specific and genuine positive feedback is essential (Related: The Ultimate Feedback Technique of Today’s Leaders)
Be Innovative: Try new stuff without straying from the purpose. People like to be on the edge of innovation. It could be a new style of meetings or reporting systems, or ways to show appreciation, etc. Being stuck in the same old ways does not inspire teams to try harder or develop pride.
Have Fun Every Day: There are unlimited ways to have fun at work. As a leader, you don’t just need to create occasions but more importantly, join in when others create fun opportunities. Come up with a team name and nicknames for everyone, play games, crack jokes, and have dress up parties, etc. The more shocking (within reason) and off the wall, the better.
Deal with Conflict Early: Be it an underperforming employee or an interpersonal conflict, there is nothing that can sink a team’s pride faster than unaddressed conflict. The sooner you deal with the unproductive conflict, the lesser it will fester and affect the team.
Give Back: Supporting a cause bigger than your own to give back to will enhance the team’s greater purpose. Find a non-profit the team is interested in supporting or find ways to support a cause the organization is already affiliated with. Financial contributions are always nice but contributing time and human resources is often more impacting and can also lead to a quality team building opportunity.
Invest in Your People: Constructively helping people stretch beyond their current abilities, knowledge, and/or level of self-confidence, will help them become more valuable to the organization and to themselves.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, Ironman competitor, and expedition guide.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

How to Motivate With Progress

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 22:24:06 +0000

Of all the things that can boost inner work life, the most important is making progress in meaningful work, when a job gives them the opportunity to experience achievement.

Workplace Motivation Tips from Shoveling Snow

This is another post under the topic of Managing Underperformers in the lead up to my upcoming webinar and course under the same topic.

Perplexing to many, I have always enjoyed shoveling snow. Besides the bonus of fresh air and exercise that comes with shoveling a driveway, I was mostly motivated by seeing continuous progress in meaningful work. Fortunately, progress is easy to see when shoveling (when it has stopped snowing) and sure it may not be the most meaningful work but the driveway does need to be cleared to get the car in and out and my family will be happy to have a clear driveway. That’s meaning enough for me…. When I have the time to do a good job.

As a leader, if you are struggling with unmotivated team members, take a close look at not just their roles and responsibilities but the actual work they do day in, day out. Are they able to see the actual progress in their work and how it is contributing to the project or team goal?

Perhaps they are unaware of the impact their progress has on the team.

When we think about progress, we often imagine how good it feels to achieve a long-term goal or experience a major breakthrough. These big wins are great, but they are relatively rare. If the progress of someone’s work is not clear to them, you may have to restructure their tasks so the progress becomes more obvious.

A way to do this is by setting key milestones for them to achieve and celebrating small successes along the way. For these people, it is important to acknowledge the milestones. For employees who show little motivation, it is even more important to see progress and know just how meaningful their work is in contributing to the overall goal, mission, project, etc.

Research out of the Harvard Business School noted that across all types of work events their participants reported, a notable proportion (28%) of incidents that had a minor impact on a project had a major impact on people’s feelings about it. Major accomplishments are achieved by climbing a series of steps. Many of these steps may be included in the mundane day-to-day work that needs to be accomplished to achieve a significant goal so they should still be recognized accordingly for their contribution to the team.

Leaders of teams and projects are often given the most credit and limelight for significant accomplishments but you know there is much going on behind the leader to achieve the goal. Everyone, from the janitor who kept the workspace safe and clean to operate in, to the engineer who designed the framework had milestones they achieved along the way and played a role in completing the project. There should be no job that doesn’t have milestones attached to progress to.

The next time you feel someone is falling down on the job or appearing unmotivated ask yourself how am I helping them see the progress they are making in their role and how am I celebrating their milestones of progress?

[RELATED – Are You Showing the Right Appreciation at Work]

For me, shoveling the driveway had obvious signs of progress. More and more space to park the car was opening up with each shovel full of snow. Depending on the amount of snow, I may celebrate a milestone by simply taking a short break to soak up the fresh air or run inside for a hot chocolate.

It is not the size of the celebration that matters: it’s the act of acknowledging progress!

Action: Highlight a team member’s progress by celebrating a milestone in some small way.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure!

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, Ironman competitor, and expedition guide.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

Don’t Make the Mistake of Treating your Team Members This Way

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 01:00:45 +0000

Life is not fair. How many times did you hear that growing up?

“People expect their leaders to help them to achieve the common task, to build the synergy of teamwork, and to respond to individuals and meet their needs” ― John Adair

I often get questions on how to deal with people in certain situations in leadership interacting or communicating with a team, such as what ratio of positive to constructive feedback to give people. The answer and with many questions in leadership is “it depends”. There are few hard and fast rules to leadership (Marshall Goldsmith highlights a few here) but many gray areas because you are dealing with people and people are different and ever-changing and thank goodness for that.

The answer to the feedback question is it depends on the person. Some of us need more praise than others for the feedback to be absorbed and applied and others need just a little.

Treating Them Fairly Doesn’t Mean Treating Them The Same.

How do you treat your team members differently without upsetting other team members? The answer is to treat them as individuals, not a generic group. As I discussed in this post, teams are built one relationship at a time. People have different needs, performance levels, personalities, work styles, motivations, and goals.

As a leader, you need to treat your team members the way they need and want to be treated to feel appreciated and empowered in whatever message you are conveying. Once you take this approach, the team members won’t be concerned about how you are treating others because their needs are being met.

The problem stems from leaders not taking the time to really get to know their team members, so they end up treating everyone the same and that is usually how they think they themselves would like to be treated.

Is there someone on your team who likes a different work environment than you, has different career goals than you, or a completely different hobby? Of course, there is, so stop treating people how you like to be treated and ask them what they like, i.e. how they like to receive feedback, how they like to be appreciated (see post on appreciation), and how they like to be supervised, etc.

Think about your family members or your teammates. Are they different than you? Yes, absolutely, so why should you all be treated the same? Too often, leaders are afraid to upset people if they do not treat everyone the same, when, in actual fact, effective leaders treat individuals differently but equally.

Your action this week is to connect with each of your team members and ask them one way they like to be shown appreciation or like to receive feedback.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure!

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, Ironman competitor, expedition guide and podcast host.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

10 Ways to Lead with Influence

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 03:10:58 +0000

I was recently asked a question by a leader who was struggling with his team. He asked, “How do I influence team members who may not be at my maturity level, and not under my direction. They spend our time whining or deviating from the work at hand (distracting), even after we established principles.”

The simple answer: add more value to them. You see leadership is about having influence. Add more value gain more influence. Of course, the follow-up question would be “that’s nice, so how do I add more value to my team members?”

As a leader, there are many ways to add value to your team members. Below is a list of 10 surefire ways to add more value to your team. If you are struggling with the level of influence you have on your team, ask yourself at what level are you adding value to the lives of your team members? A good exercise would be to go through the list and grade yourself from 1 to 10 on each item.

Provide Learning Opportunities In And Outside The Organization – Invest in their education
Role Model The Behavior You Expect – Their respect grows as they watch your every move.
Maximize Their Strengths – Allow them to build on their mastery.
Provide Constant Quality Feedback With A Ratio Beyond 3:1 Positive To Constructive – The greatest learnings come from feedback, show them you care.
Trust Them – Allow them to make real decisions that are in alignment with their skills, training and experience.
Encourage Taking Educated Risks – Great achievements and discoveries are never achieved without risk.
Give Them Autonomy – Tell them what needs to be accomplished and get out of their way.
Know How They Like To Be Appreciated – The wrong type of appreciation can be a waste of time and money and can cause you to lose influence.
Take Interest In Their Life In And Outside Of Work – Regularly inquire about their history, families, and hobbies.
Listen To Them! – Ask questions and really really listen.

Great leaders grow their influence daily by constantly practicing these 10 value-producing actions. Once you score yourself on each action, focus on the 3 lowest and seek opportunities to implement them in your daily interactions with your team and I guarantee you your influence will start to grow.

Let me know in the comments below how you add value to your team.

Until next week… Embrace the Adventure!

Shawn

Shawn Stratton is an international leadership and team building consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, Ironman competitor, expedition guide and podcast host.

Click here to learn more about how Shawn can help your organization.

Catch Them Doing Something Right

Thu, 16 Apr 2015 12:26:39 +0000

Staying Above the Water Line

(Note to parents: this works with kids as well)

As a leader, have you had a team member or employee you found hard to praise or compliment because they were pretty average in their performance or were even struggling, or perhaps you butted heads with them?

It is natural to pick out all the bad things your team members are doing, when your main focus is staying above the water line. You have eyes like a hawk and are quick to react to actions that could cause the team to drop below the water line. You are the captain and you don’t want the ship to sink.

Mistakes are Obvious to You

The little mistakes that may go unnoticed by most people become glaringly obvious to you. Such as when you organize an event and you receive all kinds of praise from participants on a job well done and in your head all you can think about is the 10 things that didn’t go as planned and the moments when team members didn’t perform their tasks exactly as expected.

Perhaps you find that over the past while, every interaction with a team member seems to have a negative tone because you feel like you have to constantly tell them what they are not doing right or what needs to be different next time.

“catch them doing something right”

If you have ever found yourself in this position as a leader, I suggest you take on the approach of trying what I call “catch them doing something right”. Instead of having your blinder on and nitpicking the little things, try to shift your attention to things they are doing right or well. Look at these moments as small wins and build on them. This can take a bit of a mental mind shift for a leader but it can change your relationship with the team members and how they respond to you.

As I wrote in my last blog, Are You Showing the Right Appreciation at Work, leaders delivering the right kind of regular appreciation can have a tremendous impact on an individual, even if the appreciation occurs for something you “caught them doing right”. Your praise may start with little things they are doing right and grow over time. Appreciation and positive feedback/feed-forward can have a tremendous impact on a person, increasing their motivation, confidence, respect, and commitment to the team, just to name a few.

To be in a position to “catch them”, you will typically need to spend more time with your team and observe their behaviours. If you are a leader that likes to stay at an arm’s length from your team, this closer attention can be a good thing.

Have you tried this practice? If so, let me know how it went in the comments below.