A Powerful Tool To Help Your Team Rise Up During Another Spike In Covid Cases

 

Covid-19 cases are rising again impacting 42 states and territories with the number of deaths reaching record highs. Many people are experiencing "Covid fatigue." We may be weary but of course the virus doesn't get tired.  The latest spike of cases and deaths is another reminder that no one is immune until we get a viable vaccine but, most importantly, that we are not in control.

These are difficult times. We are facing an extraordinary problem. So, how do you help your people cope and even get stronger? Start by helping your team focus on what they can manage. They cannot control the crisis, but they can learn to control their response.

How people show up during challenging times is how we show up everywhere. One way to be resilient during the crisis is to reframe our relationship with it. 

Pause before you react
These are scary times. We live under the illusion that we have control over our lives, but we don’t. Now, the realization is more evident than ever.

It’s okay to feel afraid, anxious or stressed out. Emotions are a natural response to external events, especially when we feel threatened. What is not okay is to let our emotions take over. We must manage how we respond.

When we react to an external stimulus, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body, putting us in full alert. After that time, the body flushes those chemicals away. This means that for 90 seconds, you can observe the process happening — you can experience, feel it, and then see it how it goes away.

You can react to this chemical alert, or you can wait until it’s gone before you act.

The 90-second rule is a term coined by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in her book, My Stroke of Insight, to explain the nature and lifespan of an emotion. If you leave it uninterrupted by thoughts, you can quickly regain control of your response.

Next time you are experiencing an emotional reaction, pause. Practice deep breaths — you can stretch your body, too — during those 90 seconds. Enjoy that moment, and don’t let emotions dictate your response. How do you feel using the 90-second rule to regain control of your reaction?

Reframe your words
Words are powerful. The way we talk about the crisis has a direct impact on how we perceive what’s going on. Negative words create an adverse effect and the other way around.  As neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Newberg  explains, “The longer you concentrate on positive words, functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself.”

Use the chart below as a reference. For example, instead of using the phrase “social distancing,” use “physical distance.” Having to keep a distance of, at least 6 feet, doesn’t mean that we stop socializing with our friends or neighbors. That we work remotely doesn’t mean that we must distance from our colleagues.

The same happens when we replace "isolation" (that has a negative perception) with "protection." We are not isolated from other human beings; we are staying at home to protect ourselves and others.  

Become more aware of the words you use. Reframe negative ones into positive words.

Put the crisis in perspective
Every crisis is unique. This might feel the worst ever, but it’s not. Putting things in perspective will help you lower anxiety and regain control. As human beings, we have fought many crises before, and we were able to thrive.

Consider past devastating crises. Back in the time, everyone felt it was the end of the world, but people survived and bounced back.

The Bubonic plague killed 31% of the European population; 18 million people died in 1347. During the Spanish Influenza, 1 out of 20 inhabitants was killed in Spain. 9/11 put New York City on its knees.  Everyone got back on their feet, and humanity was able to thrive once again.

Think about your own crises. What were the worst experiences you ever faced? We’ve all lost loved ones or got fired from a job. Some people have to deal with severe health conditions. I’ve been very close to dying a couple of times, and here I am.

Crises put our characters to the test. It’s our choice that a better version of ourselves comes out of the storm.

All crises are survivable. We will survive this. Putting things in perspective will help you focus on what you can control. Take precautions — protect yourself — without overreacting.    

Reframe the event
Why do some people break while others thrive in adversity?

The answer is resilience — our ability to bounce back. Luckily, resilience is not an innate trait, but something that you can develop. The way you perceive an event determines how resilient you are.

“Potentially Traumatic Event” (PTE) is a term coined by George Bonanno, the head of the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab at Columbia University. According to the professor, an event is not traumatic unless we experience it as such.

Our perception of an adverse event can turn it into a traumatic one or not. Your mindset, your thoughts, and how you frame reality, define if you will be traumatized by a crisis, or not.

Reframing is a powerful tool to help you cope with stressful events. It’s more than turning a crisis into an opportunity. Instead of thinking, “Why is this happening to me?” think, “What can I learn from this event?” By reframing an incident, you recover control by shifting your role from “victim” to “hero.” 

Psychiatrist Steven Wolin defines resiliency as “the capacity to rise above adversity.” When something goes wrong, you must manage to stay in control rather than let the situation take over. Your thoughts — not grit — shape your perceptions and behavior.

No one knows how this crisis will unfold, but you and your team, can at least, manage how you deal with it.

Check out these two related posts:

Developing Resilient Team Members During the Global Pandemic

How To Strengthen Your Team's Culture During the "Cycles" of the Covid-19 Disruption

Stay healthy. Stay curious.

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

You Don’t Get to Look Good and Grow At the Same Time

 

Learning to Have Better Accountability Conversations

If you think about anything in your life that you've gotten better at, there are these periods, they're clunky, they're clumsy. We feel insecure, we feel like we're an imposter or fraud in some way. And that's, in particular, true about soft skills/ communication skills and especially when learning to have better accountability conversations with direct reports, peers, customers and other leaders.

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that as you're trying to navigate that territory of getting to know another person and getting close with them and creating dialogue -- it feels awkward, it feels weird, we don't feel like ourselves. 

When we translate over into the workplace. When we're in a leadership position, it gets even more problematic because you think, "Oh, I can't show these people that I don't know what I'm doing. I can't show these people that I don't have the answer." And in particular, if we have a technical expertise, if we're a good engineer or a good accountant or a good marketer or a good technician, and we've made a whole career out of having the answers and knowing how to solve problems, that makes it doubly difficult.

So this idea of really just accepting that when it comes to the people side of the business of getting feedback and becoming a coach and becoming a mentor and opening up dialogue and building trust, it's okay to feel like a beginner. In fact, if you feel like a beginner, you're probably on the right track. 

Accountability conversations, obviously enough, they're not things that only happen at work. They happen in our life. They happen in our relationships and if you think about the people who you've come to respect and the people that you've come to trust in your life, oftentimes it's those people who are willing to have that conversation with you or willing to engage with you and share with you something that they're seeing or something that they've observed or ask you a question about something in a way that might not be so comfortable. Right? 

Those are the people that we often call our best friends. 

That's what leadership is all about. Leadership is not about making the most number of friends. Leadership is not about being nice all the time. It is often about stepping into moments that other people would rather say, well, "I'm not going to go there."  

But you as a leader, because this is about you and your life and your values, to say, "You know what? I could avoid this conversation but I'm not going to, not just because this person needs to hear this feedback, but because that's who I am as a human being. That's who I want to be. 

I want to be somebody who enters into those moments who lives up to their values, who says, you know, I see something and I think that person could be doing better than they are and I'm going to say something about it and I'm going to lean into those conversations because that's who I want to be."

Accountability, if you think about it some more, it's not about work. It's not about tasks. It's not about the things that are in our inbox. It's about who we are. It's about the type of people that we want to be. It's about the relationships that, we want to have, where we can stand in ourselves, and look back on the moments that we are at this organization or in this relationship. And we can honestly say to ourselves, "Hey, I've been the best version of me that I know how."

Click here for a related post. How to Navigate Difficult Conversations

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business imperatives. 

To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build companies, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Four Keys for Building A Coaching Culture

   

In 2020, the evidence is clear that coaching positively impacts the workplace. When coaching is embedded in the organization it is a game changer that shifts the way managers and leaders work together and develop others.

Why build a coaching culture?

Coaching improves performance, increases retention, creates higher levels of engagement and provides tools and proven processes for developing leaders both in-the-moment and in the longer-term coaching engagement.

At the heart of every organization is its culture—its personality and identity. Today, people are putting more importance on company culture than ever before. Deloitte recently found that 94% of executives and 88% of employees consider a distinct workplace culture important to organizational success.

According to a study by the Human Capital Institute and the International Coach Federation sited in an ATD article, organizations with strong coaching cultures report revenue growth well above their industry peer group (51% compared with only 38%) and significantly higher engagement (62% compared with 50%).

In the HCI – ICF 2014 Study on Coaching Cultures, of those organizations self-described with successful coaching cultures “nearly two-thirds rate their organizations as being ‘highly engaged,’ compared to only about half for organizations without strong coaching cultures. 

In terms of financial impact, 60% of respondents from organizations with strong coaching cultures report their 2013 revenue to be above their peer group, compared to 41% from all other companies. Based on these results, it becomes clear that coaching is more than just a way to increase employees’ skills and competencies; it can have a long-lasting systemic impact on an organization’s ability to retain talent and on its financial sustainability.

What is a coaching culture?

Culture shapes behaviors inside the organization and a coaching culture is one deliberately focused on growing and nurturing talent in order to deliver key results, strengthen leadership capacities, increase retention and deepen engagement. A culture that has cultivated a coaching approach to development often demonstrates the following characteristics:

• Giving and receiving feedback in the service of being at one’s best
• Focusing on opportunities to help members of one’s team grow
• Operating in teams with clear goals and roles
• Developing others when it matters most
• Asking and empowering more than telling and fixing

When coaching is embedded through all levels of an organization it creates a culture of employees who work and lead together with a common goal of building a best-in-class organization.

How does a coaching culture evolve?

Every organization will find a unique path to building out a culture that emphasizes a coaching approach. For some, it begins with using a few external executive coaches to work with specific leaders where high-stakes issues are at hand. In others, a single sponsor will instill coaching at the managerial level or others build out a small internal cadre of coaches to provide short-term coaching opportunities for mid-level leaders. As the impact of coaching is evidenced, organizations begin to develop a coordinated strategy across business units.

Ideally, a culture that fosters a coaching approach to developing people will utilize coaching at all levels of the organization— from the early manager to the senior leader. 

For workplace coaching to work and truly drive results for your business, it must echo throughout your entire company—at every level and in every conversation. One way that organizations can develop such a culture is through four steps called RLAA (pronounced “relay”): relevance, learning, application, and accountability.

1) Build Relevance from the Top Down

Organizations with robust coaching cultures are over 60% more likely to have senior leaders involved in their coaching systems. Leaders, if you want coaching to become your company culture, start with yourself. Make it part of every meeting agenda, strategic discussion, and water cooler chat. Illustrate the benefits of coaching—to the organization and to each individual—by talking about it and, more importantly, by doing it. And if you’re not the right leader for the job, find the person who is. Make that individual the spokesperson, and have him or her share enthusiasm regularly.

As senior leadership takes the reins, employees will naturally follow. However, to make workplace coaching fully relevant to them, pinpoint their motivation. Help managers, as well as employees, understand the value that coaching can provide them. Show managers how coaching can engage their people, increase team performance, augment their leadership skills, or add a credential/certification to their résumé.

2) Foster Learning on a Regular Basis

Every employee in the organization, regardless of role or level, should understand the basic principles of coaching and performance improvement. Organizations with successful coaching cultures were nearly 40% more likely to target every employee with coaching training than organizations with less pervasive coaching cultures.

Make coaching, training, and development regular opportunities by using classroom or virtual lessons. Then, like anything we want to excel in, it takes hours of practice. The more you coach, the better you become.

3) Help Employees Apply What They Learn

The adage is simple but true: Where you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You can’t create a coaching culture without developing an action plan and providing support to make the transition easier on employees. Establish a personalized follow-up plan that will work with your organization’s business cadence and structure. We’ve seen companies develop a master coaching class with follow-up small group sessions. Other companies use reporting systems and even online coaching platforms or apps. The point is, create a system that helps everyone apply what he or she learns, and check in on it regularly.

4) Develop Positive Accountability for Results

When it comes to accountability, we frequently put that responsibility on managers, but when done correctly, it looks completely different. The beauty of coaching is developing a workforce of people who feel supported in their abilities to make decisions and own their choices. An accountability system encourages employees to take ownership of their performance and encourages managers to take ownership of how they coach others.

What does this look like? First, make sure every employee at every level is experiencing coaching conversations on a regular basis. Second, establish transparency regarding coaching efforts in your organizations. Do you know who is coaching successfully? How many coaching conversations are occurring? Tapping into that knowledge will guide leadership on what needs to change and how to get there.

If your organization is already investing the time and money in workplace coaching, why stop there? Dig deeper, and change the identity of your company to one that coaches at every level and in every instance. As a result, you can expect better productivity, more engagement, and higher performance all around.

Click here to download information on how we can help you build a coaching culture.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how a coaching culture can benefit your organization? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com    or    Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, branches, distribution centers, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build organizations, food production facilities, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The Secret To Developing Team Members When the Clock is Ticking

 

Retailers and restaurants move fast. Long before open and well after close, the clock is always racing and every second represents revenue lost or gained. How efficiently and quickly an operation can prepare itself to serve customers on an hour-by-hour basis defines its sales -- and, ultimately, its success.

In these service industry organizations, speed equals revenue. But it creates a costly management problem: There's little time to conduct the kind of coaching conversations that engage and develop Team Members. Employee engagement and development correlate with profitability, productivity and retention -- but they take time.

This time crunch focuses managers on the very immediate, and it's usually what a team member did wrong: how they screwed up an order, forgot to upsell the customer on the warranty, mishandled food or made an angry customer angrier. It's an understandable managerial reaction, but it's also punitive and negative. Eventually, that kind of management can lead to an unwelcoming customer experience -- and research shows that it can create a disengaging employee experience too.

Disengaged team members either stay and do a bad job, which increases costs and decreases customer engagement, or they quit and require replacing. So managers get stuck running an operation with either too many rookies or too many low-engaged Team Members, losing money in the process and with little time for the coaching that employees need to learn and grow -- and to produce the kind of customer experience that generates profit and earns loyalty and boosts NPS scores.

According to Gallup research, food service has an average annual turnover rate of 103% to 150% (and an average 3% to 5% profit margin). Customer-facing retail's turnover is over 60%.

It seems like an intractable problem in fast-paced industries. It is not. It's a profit-sucking cultural problem related to perspective, not pace. And it can be fixed.

Why a Grow With the (Work) Flow Approach Is A Great Solution

A Grow With the (Work) Flow strategy is vital when there's little time for lengthy development and coaching conversations. Of course, managers can do a deep dive into theory and data, but it's not necessary for a working knowledge of how to lead, how to be heard, and how to best connect with their teams and guests.

The most powerful and valuable development experiences involve hands-on, in-the-moment learning. There’s no substitute for being confronted by and having to address real business challenges. And, given the number of challenges we face in business, the opportunity to leverage them is limited only by the imagination.

However, development activity is only that—activity—until it is properly unpacked to reveal its lessons. In fact, many Team Members become so engrossed in the experience that they don’t take the time to reflect on how they’ve benefited from it. Yet again, conversation becomes the key to genuine growth. And simple questions help you launch the dialogue.

Call it what you will: In the moment. On the spot. Context sensitive. Instant. Bite-size. On the fly. Impromptu. Nano-coaching. Stealth development. It works!

Growing with the flow means development isn’t limited to scheduled meetings and is less burdensome in many ways. It can be quick—as short as one or two minutes. It can be casual—right on the sales floor or hanging over a cubicle wall. It can be completely unplanned—no notes or agendas to contend with. Hardly sounds like work, right?

But in life, there are always trade-offs. When you grow with the flow, you save time and there is less planning involved. But you’ve got to be willing to give something as well. And that something in this case is a little more of your attention. When you help team members grow and progress you elevate their mental and emotional engagement. And engaged team members will engage customers. In order to do this effectively managers need to form new habits and increase their social and conversational intelligence.

According to Gallup research, fully engaged customers represent a 23% premium in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue and relationship growth over the average customer. Fully engaged casual-dining customers make 56% more visits per month to their favored restaurant than actively disengaged customers do. Fully engaged fast-food customers make 28% more visits.

These higher engagement levels result from the emotional impact that employees invent fresh for every customer. That impact springs from engagement -- the disengaged won't bother -- and authentic talent. Talent can't be faked. Not well, and not for long.
Developing employees improves the team's profits and earns their loyalty. 

Grow with the flow based development also improves the brand's employee value proposition. That's what attracts and retains team members who exceed expectations and provide consistently excellent performance.

And when the clock is racing and every second represents revenue, those employees make all the difference. They decide what kind of experience their guests or customers will have. Coaching Team Members to know a to create an engaging customer experience is an extremely effective use of managers' time -- especially when they have no time to waste. 

Learn how Smart Development can equip retail and restaurant managers to coach employees to deliver an exceptional guest/customer experience with a Grow With the (Work) Flow development strategy.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how Smart Development can equip your store and restaurant managers to help their team members Grow with the (Work) Flow. We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, nonprofits, government agencies and other organizations create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

How to Combat "Zoom Fatigue"

Many people have been forced to work from home. It’s not perfect, but hey, there’s always Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and any number of webcam apps to help you stay in touch with your teammates. Then, just when people start using these tools and getting used to them, we learn about “Zoom Fatigue.” This is a perfect example of why, as my mother said, we can’t have nice things.

It feels like every time a tool is invented to make our life and work easier, people find a way to misuse, overuse, and just plain abuse it. 

What is Zoom Fatigue and is it even a real thing?

According to this article from National Geographic, it sure is.  And the reasons make perfect sense:

A benefit of webcams is you can see the non-verbal signals during communication that help us understand each other. The problem is that it takes more work to pick those signs up during a webcam call.

Similarly, seeing everyone in Gallery View (also known as Brady Bunch View, where you can see multiple people at the same time) is much more stressful on the eye than taking in a bunch of people at the same time in a meeting room in real life.

When presenting in person, we get constant feedback that energizes our brains. Smiles, nods, laughter, and other signs of engagement energize most presenters. Without that feedback, the information is flowing only one way. That is draining for the one pushing the information.

Constantly being under pressure to smile, demonstrate you are listening, and not appear sloppy or unprofessional adds stress we really don’t need, especially if we’re trying to take part in the meeting while keeping one eye on toddlers, dogs or needy spouses.

What are the alternatives or solutions?

Okay, what should be a useful tool is now draining our will to live. Does that mean we shouldn’t use Zoom, Teams or other webcam apps? Of course not. Webcams are a vital part of keeping a team connected and social. That said, here are some ways to be mindful about your team communication and avoid the dreaded Zoom burnout:

Keep meetings short and focused. Pre-Corona, the biggest complaint about the work place was too many, long, boring meetings. Guess what causes Zoom fatigue? The problem isn’t the camera, it’s the #Q$@%@#$%ing meeting! Pick your shots.

Short one-on-one conversations are better than long discussions.

Before WebEx, there was this thing called the telephone. It still works. Sometimes you just need to talk and not worry about what your hair looks like. You know that meeting that could have been an email? Use email. Choose the right tool for the right job.

During meetings, change the view on your screen so your eyes don’t work so hard. I like to see everyone at the beginning of the meeting when saying hi, but once we get down to business I like to go to “speaker view,” so that I only see the active speaker. That way I’m not constantly scanning the screen or getting distracted by what Alice and her cat are up to.

Email is both a great tool and the bane of our lives. Instant messaging is a great way to communicate in short bursts, and it’s a source of interruptions and annoyance. Webcams are the best thing to happen to remote teams (seriously, can you imagine getting through the last two months without using them at all?) But like everything in life, we have to use the right tool for the right reason in the right way. Don’t let Zoom Fatigue undermine your efforts to stay connected with your teammates.

To your greater success and health,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business imperatives. 

To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build companies, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

5 Ways To Foster Collaboration On Remote Teams

Just because people are working from home, doesn’t mean they are an effective remote team. In fact, even if your team was successful and cohesive when you were all in the same workspace, doesn’t mean that you have great remote collaboration now. What can you do as a leader to promote, encourage, and nurture remote collaboration? I’m glad you asked.

Here are five specific things you can do to stimulate collaboration on your remote teams.

Keep Goals at the Forefront

For a variety of reasons, when people are working from home they can lose sight of the big picture for both their work and the overall goals of the organization.  As a leader make sure you continue to connect the dots between people’s individual work and the work of the larger team. The more people see how their daily work connects to something bigger and how it helps others on the team, the more likely they will be to collaborate with their teammates.  While always an important part of the leader’s work, it takes a higher priority when leading a remote team.

Maintain Interpersonal Relationships

Everything else being equal, when people know and like each other, remote collaboration is more likely to occur. And the longer your team works remotely, (especially as you add new team members who never worked together in-person) the harder it may be to maintain interpersonal relationships.  For these reasons, as a leader you must promote, encourage and find opportunities to allow relationships to grow.  Yes, you need strong relationships with your team members, but you need to encourage everyone to stay connected to each other.

You can do this through planned activities during meetings, supporting and encouraging people to make time to visit with each other online (why can’t you have virtual coffee, much like you did in the office?). Model and reinforce the need and value for interpersonal connection and you will support better remote collaboration.

Nurture Trust

Like relationships, trust can wither in a remote working environment, but it doesn’t have to. Give people more chances to work on things together – trust will build along with the collaboration. As you keep the whole team on a common purpose (back to our first point) you build trust as well. These are just two examples of things you can do as a leader to nurture trust, and therefore improve the environment or remote collaboration.

Expect Engagement

Just because people are working from home, doesn’t mean you can’t expect them to engage with each other.  One part of the collaboration puzzle is to make it a part of the job expectations.  When people know that you expect them to engage, work together and collaborate, you improve the chances that they will.  Again, even if people naturally want to collaborate, when they work inside their own four walls and never see the other members of their team, they will naturally become more insular in their focus.  Your clear expectations that work success includes collaboration will help overcome that tendency.

Use Technology More Effectively

Much could be written here too but let me share two specific points. Get people using their webcams, and not just when they are on a team meeting. Seeing each other on a webcam isn’t the same as being across the table in-person, but it is the next best thing to being there. When you work on your webcams you improve relationships and trust too. Ensure that everyone on the team is using the same tools for the same purposes. Every technology adds friction to collaboration (when compared to being in the office and having face to face conversations), so make sure people are using the available tools well and you will be supporting remote collaboration.

Remember that if people aren’t collaborating currently, it doesn’t mean they can’t or even that they are resisting collaboration.  When you do things like we’ve discussed here you help facilitate the collaboration naturally.  While you may have to work at it harder, you can create remote collaboration to rival any in-person team.

While these ideas may seem obvious, the question is are you applying them to build the cohesiveness of your team? As Confucius said, "Knowing and not doing isn't really knowing."

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business imperatives. 

To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build companies, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The Last Taxi Cab Ride

 

By Kent Nerburn

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes, I walked to the door and knocked. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knick knacks or utensils on the counters. 

In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.'

'Oh, you're such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?'

'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly. 'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice. 'The doctor says I don't have very long.'

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. 'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds.

She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. 

Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said,

'I'm tired. Let's go now'.

We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were Solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. 'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse. 'Nothing,' I said

'You have to make a living,' she answered. 'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said 'Thank you.' I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut.

It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought.

For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

                                              

Click here to see a 5 min video version of the story

What Geese Can Teach Us About Leadership and Teamwork

 

I feel fortunate to live in the Pacific Northwest. It's an outdoor person's paradise. One of the many delights of the Fall season is hearing the beautiful call of the Canadian geese which alerts you to look up in the sky. The first image of the skein (or flock) of geese reminds me of a floating black ribbon or the tail of a kite. 

The Autumnal airspace is alive with ribbons of geese gracefully swooping and looping sometimes bearing left and sometimes right. These maneuvers seem to give the stray birds time to catch up to the throng. 

When you watch the flock closely you realize that the geese are all leaders and followers each taking a turn. Alternately leading and following creates a perfect rhythm which enables them to get to their faraway winter destination. 

I believe there are several lessons in shared leadership and teamwork that we can learn from the goose. Geese are intriguing creatures and while considered pests in certain situations, they also have an incredibly strong sense of family and group loyalty. Probably one of the most phenomenal geese facts is that their desire to return to their birth place every year is so strong that they will often fly up to 3,000 miles to get there. 

Lesson #1: Empowering Others to Lead

When the lead goose in the front gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and allows another goose to take the leadership position. 
  
The lesson here is to empower others to also lead. It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. 

As with geese, people are interdependent on each other’s skills, capabilities, and unique arrangement of gifts, talents, or resources.

Lesson #2: Staying Committed to Core Values and Purpose

The geese migration routes never vary. They use the same route year after year. Even when the flock members change, the young learn the route from their parents. In the spring they will go back to the spot where they were born. 
  
The lesson to learn here is to stay true to our core values and purpose. 
  
Strategies, tactics may change in order remain agile, but great organizations always stick to their core purpose and values, and preserve them with vigor

Lesson #3: Offering Support in Challenging Times

When a goose gets sick or wounded, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. 

They stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then, they launch out with another formation or catch up with the flock. 

The lesson here is to stand by each other in difficult times. It’s easy to always be part of winning teams, but when things get difficult and people are facing challenges, that’s when your teammates need you the most. 

Lesson #4 Encouraging and Recognizing Other’s Contribution

The geese honk to recognize each other and encourage those up front to keep up their speed. The lesson here is to make sure we praise people and give them the recognition they deserve. 
  
Lack of recognition is one of the main reasons employees are unsatisfied at work and quit. 
  
We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. 

In groups where there is encouragement, the production is greater. The power of encouragement (to stand by one's heart or core values and encourage the heart and core of others) is the quality of honking we seek. 

Lesson #5 Sharing a Common Goal

As each goose flaps its wings it creates “uplift”, an aerodynamics orientation that reduces air friction, for the birds that follow. By flying in a V-formation, the whole flock achieves a 70% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone. 



The lesson we can learn here is that people who share a common direction and goal can get where they are going quicker and with less effort because they benefit from the momentum of the group moving around them. 
  
Make sure your team is aligned towards a common goal. 

Lesson #6 Having Humility to Seek Help

When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the friction of flying alone. 
  
It then quickly adjusts its mistake and moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it. 

The lesson we can learn here is to be humble to admit the challenges we face and to seek help as soon as we get stuck. 
  
This humility will enable you, your team, to move faster and achieve more. 

A Story About Geese 

A flock of wild geese had settled to rest on a pond. 
  
One of the flock had been captured by a gardener, who had clipped its wings before releasing it. 

When the geese started to resume their flight, this one tried frantically, but vainly, to lift itself into the air. The others, observing his struggles, flew about in obvious efforts to encourage him; but it was no use. 

Thereupon, the entire flock settled back on the pond and waited, even though the urge to go on was strong within them. For several days they waited until the damaged feathers had grown sufficiently to permit the goose to fly. 

Meanwhile, the unethical gardener, having been converted by the ethical geese, gladly watched them as they finally rose together and all resumed their long flight. 

--Albert Schweitzer 

 

To your greater success and happiness,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business imperatives. 

To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build companies, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.