Five Classic Management Mistakes (And how to avoid them)

There are some classic mistakes business owners and managers make on a regular basis. Mistakes that mean they are not getting the results they want and need from their people. 

Mistake 1: Only clarifying, and managing, ‘the numbers’

Leaders often tell us that they focus most of their attention on the ‘numbers’ part of their employee’s performance. They set objectives for producing the right amount of work on time, meeting a deadline, achieving the % increase in sales or the $ of savings. They monitor the numbers and, sometimes, they give feedback to their staff about their performance against those numbers. It makes good sense.

But what about the behaviors? What about; the way the employee manages their time, the way they build and maintain customer relationships, their ability to be solution focused, their ability to work in a team and so on? The difficulty is that managers often see these behaviors as subjective and unquantifiable meaning that they cannot be measured and managed.

But here’s the thing; Why manage behaviors? Behaviors are crucial to the success of your business. Can you be successful without your employees demonstrating the ability to manage their time, build and maintain effective relationships, develop practical solutions and so on?

Because managers also tell us they regularly judge their employees on their ‘attributes’ without being able to clearly define those attributes as behaviors. They say “he’s just not committed enough”’ or “she’s not a team player” or “he lacks creativity”. Without being able to define what ‘being an effective team player’ looks like in practice how can you help your employee improve in this area?

Identifying the Crucial Behaviors

The key questions to ask are:

What are the behaviors that differentiate us from our competitors?
What are the behaviors that contribute most to our success?
What behaviors must a person demonstrate to be successful in this job?

What do I want from the people I manage?

Of course you then need to share your descriptions of the behaviors you want and need with your employees – without making the next mistake.

Mistake 2: not helping employees to understand the bigger picture

We know from the research that employees want to ‘connect their efforts to the mission and purpose of the business’. In short, they want an answer to the question – ‘why am I doing this?’ The mistake owners and managers making is assuming that the answer to that question is obvious. Well maybe it should be, but often it isn’t.

Let’s take a look at how you can communicate objectives in a way that helps your employees understand their importance to the business. Let’s begin with the objectives that relate to the quantifiable parts of the job – the numbers element. There’s a simple process you can use to frame the conversation.

Communicating quantifiable objectives:

·        WHAT – the objective is

·        WHY – it’s important

Communicating behavioral objectives.

When you are communicating behavioral objectives it’s always a good idea to explain the ‘Why’ and ‘How’ and to associate the ‘why and how’ with a business imperative. This is because most people can relate to doing something new or differently when they can see it’s to meet a business need. It just makes more sense to them.

So it’s about explaining WHY – why we need the new behaviors and HOW the new behaviors are going to meet the business imperatives.

Here’s an example of how these principles could apply to behavioral objective for

‘Teamwork’

Example of a performance objective for ‘Team Player’

I will consider you to be an effective team player when you;

·  Explain the team objectives and your role in meeting those objectives

·  Identify when your team members need help or assistance and offer that help

·  Fully participate in team meetings and events

·  Identify ways the team can work together more effectively

·  Gain feedback that you are an effective team worker

Example of how to communicate the ‘Team Player’ objective

WHY it's important

·  Major challenges facing the business - in the current economic climate we’ve got to retain more customers.

·  Challenge to us – to improve our efficiency in servicing our customer so they stay with us and refer their friends and family.

·  Challenge for us as individuals – to maintain or improve our job satisfaction during these challenging times.

HOW the new behaviors are going to meet the business needs.

·   If we work better as team we’ll improve our efficiency and customer experience

·   Working better as a team should improve our job satisfaction

In short, if we work better as a team we’ll keep more customers and enjoy work more!

It’s all about helping the employee see the importance of their work to the success of the business.

Mistake 3: giving meaningless praise

The research shows that ‘receiving positive feedback and recognition for work well done’ consistently ranks highly as a motivator in employee surveys. Yet research also shows that most people don’t feel they get enough praise. So what’s going on?

Putting aside the fact that it’s likely that some of our survey participants feel they should be praised for just turning up every morning, my view is that business owners and managers are sometimes reluctant to give praise because they’ve had experiences of being praised themselves in ways that, frankly, haven’t motivated them at all. And, of course, they’re not over keen on having the same effect on their employees. It’s actually quite easy to deliver praise badly - praise that is seen as patronizing or manipulative by the employee. But done well, its dynamite.

Here are five ways to do it well:

1. Prepare the praise

It’s interesting that many managers will spend some time preparing to give criticism, but only a matter of seconds (if at all) preparing to give praise. The result? A passing comment (literally) on the lines of ‘nice job Doug, keep it up’ Say what? Which job? The whole job? Keep what up? Not only is this type of praise confusing but, by and large, it’s not wildly motivating.

2. Be specific

Describe exactly what you are praising and why. Try the following method:

When you....

What happened was...

And the result is....

E.g. When I showed the client the research you had done on their business she said she was really impressed by the insights you had provided. The result is she wants us to make a proposal for a further piece of business. That’s a really good outcome for us so thank you and well done.

3. Show genuine interest

Ask questions to better understand what the employee did, for example, what preparation they did for a successful presentation, how they managed to design such effective presentation slides etc. Describe how you feel about what they’ve done e.g. pleased, impressed, excited (the hug and kiss might be slightly over doing it)

4. Let the praise stand alone

Don’t be tempted to mix the praise with criticism e.g. That was a great presentation. If only your written work was as good. Deal with the written work issue at a different time.

5. Do it quickly and time it well

Give your praise as soon after the event as possible – it has far more impact. Be careful not to give the praise at a time when it will appear conditional or a ‘softening up’ process e.g. just before you delegate a task or ask for the person to work late

Public or Private?

There’s an old saying ‘praise in public, criticize in private’. Though we wholeheartedly agree with the latter we’re not totally convinced by the former. Of course the principle is sound. We want other employees to hear the praise and understand what we are praising because we hope that they will want to copy those behaviors or achievements. But not everyone is comfortable being singled out in this way and some people find accepting praise in front of their coworker embarrassing.

Try delivering the praise in private. You can then ask the employee if they are happy for you to share the praise with their coworkers – say in the next team meeting - and take it from there.

What if there’s no praise to give?

Of course employees find praise motivational, who wouldn’t? A challenge is when there is no praise to give because the employee is not performing effectively. The answer is to give regular feedback rather than praise.

The best way to motivate employees to improve their under performance is to give them what we call ‘positive criticism’ – criticism that’s easy to understand and easy to accept because it’s clear, objective and fair.

Mistake 4: avoiding talking to your employees about their job satisfaction

We know that showing a high level of interest and concern for our employees results in higher levels of motivation and performance. One of the most powerful ways to do this is to have a conversation specifically about how to maintain or improve their current level of job satisfaction/engagement.

After all, who wouldn’t feel motivated by having a supervisor who cares about our satisfaction at work and who is happy to spend the time talking to us about this subject which is so close to our hearts? Some managers, though, are reluctant to hold these conversations in case they result in ‘opening a can of worms’ – more specifically in case the employee comes to them with a list of wants and needs they cannot meet.

Good point.

Mistake 5: Neglecting to set high standards and hold others accountable

This denies employees the chance to learn and excel. Employees do not want to be told, “Let me make your life easier by enabling you not to learn and not to achieve anything new.  A balanced combination of uncompromising standards and confidence-building reassurances sends a very clear and consistent message to your team: “I believe in you and I want you to win as much as I want to win.”

There are two strategies for dealing with poor performance: One-minute coaching-corrections and redirection. A coaching-correction works best with people who have “won’t do” or attitudinal problems. These people are winners and they know how to do it but for some reason they are not doing it. Redirection is appropriate for people with “can’t so” or experience problems.  There will be more need for redirection because things are changing so fast now in most fields that competencies to do a job is often short-lived.

Redirection

1.  Make sure they know that a problem exists. Be specific. Share what happened clearly and without blame

2.  The person being redirected needs to know the negative impact that the error caused

3.  If appropriate, the manager should accept responsibility for not making the task clear

4.  Go over the task in detail and make sure it is clearly understood

5.  Express your continuing trust and confidence in the person

Bottom line: Hold people accountable to high standards while allowing them to hold onto their dignity as human beings.

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 help your company create a coaching culture of high performance, accountability and trust? 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.

Companies & Leaders Who Practice Empathy Get Better Results

Empathy is not just about feelings, emotions and connecting more effectively with others, although that would be reason enough to take it more seriously. Empathy delivers real-world benefits to organizations and is related directly to societal and organizational success in measurable ways.

Sadly, some of the meaning and value of empathy has declined over the last several decades. According to research, people are becoming less concerned about the lives of others and are challenged to understand perspectives that are different from their own.

Alongside the decline for empathy in our culture and in our workplaces, however, is a desire for change. People are waking up to the fact that compassion is fading as a cultural value, and there is a great craving for a more empathetic approach from people in leadership positions.

People feel it in their hearts. Their intuition tells them that understanding is what is needed to make their experiences more meaningful, yet making the changes that would bring increased empathy to our culture and workplaces is not easy.

I believe one of the ways to address this issue is to describe the positive benefits that organizations can experience by instituting more empathetic cultures. Compassion brings clear, distinct improvements for individuals and organizations. When you can begin to see the connections between empathy and organizational success, you can begin to implement them effectively in your world.

What are some of these real, measurable business results? Let’s take a look!

Empathy Improves Productivity

Employees perform better when they can empathize with the people on the other end of their work. Humans beings have a tendency to work harder when they are made aware of the positive impact their labor has on others.

Studies have revealed this to be true in a number of cases. For example, when radiologists are presented with photos of their patients, they are much more likely to interpret test results with greater clarity and detail. Empathy researchers have also found that cooks are more likely to create tastier meals when they have seen the faces of their customers.

Connecting with other human beings brings out the best in everyone, so it should be no surprise that productivity improves when empathy becomes an essential part of organizational culture.

Empathy Boosts Organizational Growth

You and I know that business is all about people and relationships. Healthy organizations are those that are staffed with talented, hardworking, open-minded and positive individuals, and those people are not always easy to find.

When leaders create cultures of empathy, it makes organizations more attractive to the best prospects and the brightest minds. People want to work in places where they feel appreciated. A workplace culture built on compassion ensures that the finest employees are retained and that the best possible candidates for employment are interested in working there.

Leaders who institute this type of culture see the benefit in their engagement scores and in their bottom-line results. Great people do great work, and talented, driven people are attracted to organizations built on a foundation of empathy.

Empathy Makes Collaboration Easier

“Project Aristotle” was Google’s endeavor to learn what makes great teams within organizations. What the project found was that successful teams are not necessarily made up of the smartest, most brilliant people. Instead, Google discovered that empathy makes teams more collaborative and successful.

When employees are skilled at reading nonverbal cues and detecting emotional states of others, they are more likely to address issues that may be impacting their teammates. This type of communication is rooted in empathy, and it has been shown to strengthen teamwork, morale and engagement.

Additionally, when people practice compassion through the act of listening – rather than feeling the need to speak more – the intelligence level of the whole group rises, aiding collaboration and boosting productivity.

Empathy Brings out the Best Within Diverse Workforces

One of the great aspects of modern organizations is the way workforces have become more diverse. When different perspectives are brought together under the same organizational roof, everyone benefits. Unfortunately, unproductive conflicts sometimes surface, making it difficult for members of diverse teams to work together.

Empathy is one of the keys to unlocking the power of diversity. Using tools like the DiSC and the StrengthsFinder help employees to understand the different ways their colleagues prefer to think and behave – and appreciate it!

When an organizational culture values compassion and understanding, employees are more likely to embrace one another in more meaningful ways. They are more willing to find common points of interest that bind them together as individuals who are striving to achieve the same end goal. They are also more willing to value their differences and see them as sources of strength.

Empathy Improves Reputations

How is your organization’s reputation built? Most likely, it is constructed through human interactions. When your organization’s customer-facing personnel treat people with empathy, it has an amazingly positive effect on the public’s perception.

Take Ryanair, for example. In 2014, the airline instituted its “Always Getting Better” program, in which it strived to improve its public reputation. The company removed restrictions and made life easier for passengers. Essentially, they tuned in to the wants and needs of their customers on emotional, financial and practical levels. As a result, the company improved its reputation and also increased profits by more than 30 percent!

According to the candid words of Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, “If I’d only known being nice to customers was going to work so well, I’d have started many years ago.” The lesson? Don’t wait to make your organization more empathetic!

You Can Be the Driving Force of Empathy Within Your Organization

As you read through the above examples of how compassion benefits organizations, you probably began to wonder if you have what it takes to drive a rise in empathy within your professional world. Here’s the truth: you do have what it takes to be a more effective, empathetic leader and to build employees and teams that value understanding and compassion!

Check out these posts for tips on how to practice empathy: 

Empathy: An Essential Leadership Skill

How Mindful Listening Can Expand Your Influence as a Leader


If you’re wondering how you can begin to create a more empathetic culture within your organization, I would love to talk with you!

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 help your company create a coaching culture of high performance, accountability and trust? 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.

Why one-on-one meetings are vital for your direct report's success (And by extension your own)

There's a good reason to prioritize one-on-one meetings on your calendar (despite your best attempts to reduce the number of meetings). The 1-1 is the best way for leaders and those who report to them to connect on pressing issues, create alignment, elevate commitment and competence, develop a strong relationship and ensure that employees feel like they’re working toward their goals – at work, and otherwise.

Without a proper framework, agenda, and mindset, however, the 1-1 meeting can become just another meeting in your day. Here’s a tactical game plan for making the 1-1 meeting your most important meeting, whether you’re a manager or individual contributor.

What is a 1-1 meeting?

A 1-1 is a dedicated space on the calendar and in your mental map for open-ended and anticipated conversation between a manager and an employee. Unlike status reports or tactical meetings, the 1-1 meeting is a place for coaching, mentorship, giving context, and gaining perspective The 1-1 goes beyond an open door policy and dedicates time on a regular cadence for teammates and leaders to connect and communicate.

1-1s are a time to make sure you and your team are aligned. Regular check-ins stop larger issues from festering, allow for immediate and regular feedback and promote open communication. But manager schedules are often inundated with meetings so it can be difficult to find a dedicated time and space for the 1-1.

To ensure you stick to a schedule, set aside 20 minutes on a weekly or bi-weekly basis with each of your team members. Don’t feel confined to a conference room: suggest getting out of the office for a walk or grabbing a coffee, tea or an energy drink.

Some managers prefer to have a day dedicated to 1-1s while others sprinkle their meetings throughout the week to ensure maximum mental presence. A benefit of having meetings on the same day is setting yourself up to find linkages between what is going on with your team. Figure out which works best for you and build out your schedule to give back the most to your reports.

Getting the most out of 1-1s

There’s no one way to organize a 1-1. In fact, many factors dictate the best way to structure your meetings for success; including the emotional needs of those you manage, your relationship, and the team member’s experience level.

The most important element in a successful 1-1 is creating a space where individuals feel comfortable to discuss the issues and concerns on their mind. These meetings are primarily for the employee and their participation is vital.

Make a private project dedicated to your 1-1. Contribute tasks and topics to discuss. Add sections titled: Goals, Discuss this week, Revisit later.

Pre-populating the agenda ensures you cover priority topics. Make a shared agenda to not only provide context prior to the meeting but allow both parties to take ownership of the meeting. Timebox the topics you know you need to cover.

Preparing for the meeting ahead of time allows you to eliminate spending time on background information and immediately get to the things that really matter.

The manager’s game plan

Begin your 1-1 with an open-ended question. This allows the most important and top of mind topics to surface. Here are some questions you might try:

• How are you feeling?
• What is on your mind?
• What are you most excited about?
• What are you most worried about?

"The key challenge of the coach is to listen without a filter. A filter is a certain attitude or bias the listener takes on that inhibits his or her ability to be present with the authentic experience of the speaker."                           —Conscious Leadership Group 

Most importantly, listen to what’s being said. An important aspect of being a manager is to make sure your employees feel heard, safe and empowered. Once you’ve fully heard them, help be a facilitator of solutions. Uncover what they’re excited about, how you can mentor them to be successful, and unblock them to do their best work. Here are some tactics to ensure you create a space of trust:

• Affirm their perspective first
• Disclose the places where you’ve stumbled and what you learned about yourself and the situation.
• Be unconditionally on their side/team, even (and especially) when giving them blunt feedback about opportunities for growth
• Respect them as a person, not just a performer of tasks.

Check in with your reports and yourself every few weeks to see how your 1-1s are going. Do you feel you’re successfully progressing through these blocks of time? If not, iterate your process as needed.

Not a manager? How to leverage the 1-1 to get what you want

1-1s are your time to express to your manager what’s on your mind, brainstorm ideas, and communicate your future goals. Use your time wisely:

• Set aside time prior to your meeting to organize which topics you’d like to discuss and add those to the meeting agenda.
• Feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, blocked or excited? Think about why you feel this way and outline any specific potential solutions you’d like to work through with your manager.
• Remain open to discussing what’s really going well and where you need your manager’s support.
• Ask for what you want in layman’s terms. Remember, no one can read your mind. Is it more responsibility? An opportunity to manage a junior team member? Discuss these things in specifics.

Long term vs. short term goals

If you find yourself unable to get out of the weeds during your 1-1, schedule a separate meeting to discuss tactical issues or status updates. Or, try to alternate meetings that cover tactical questions and long-term topics.

Every few weeks, prioritize time to cover long-term goals outside of your regular review systems in place to address performance. The 1-1 should focus on long-term goals and ambitions. It should also ensure that nothing on a performance review comes as a surprise

Here are a few topic buckets you should cover, and some effective 1-1 questions you might ask:

Role questions:

• What’s your pie chart of what you are working on? What do you want it to be?
• How do you view yourself in your role?

Career reflection:

• If you were having the best work day ever in your ideal role, what would your schedule look like?
• Where do you get your job satisfaction from?
• Where have you been most successful in the past?

Long-term goals:

• What are your long-term goals? What skills do you need to achieve them?
• What obstacles will you need to overcome to achieve these goals?

There are endless benefits to the continuous and honest feedback given in a 1-1 both for a manager and team members ?

• What obstacles will you need to overcome to achieve these goals?

There are endless benefits to the continuous and honest feedback given in a 1-1 both for a manager and team members. Bringing out the best in your employees, eliminating unnecessary tension, improving workflow, checking your team’s energy level and making your employees feel valued are just a few reasons to find the time on your calendar for your next 1-1 if you’re in a leadership role. As an individual team member, the 1-1 serves as a place to share open and honest feedback with a manager to build your dream career.

You spend so much time finding great people, it’s worth it to help them grow to be the best they can be.

Check out these related posts:

The Single Most Expensive Mistake A Leader Can Make

Helping Managers Reap the Benefits of Becoming More Coach-Like

Four Things that Keep Managers Up at Night (And how to sleep better)

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? 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 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.

6 Ways to Help Your Team Focus in Today's "ADD" World

How often do you feel tugged in multiple directions during the day, driven by “something urgent?” How often do you succumb to the lure of the shiny object diverting your attention? Perhaps more importantly, how often is your team being diverted and losing focus? In the fast-paced, ever-changing, smartphone-infused, Attention Deficit Disordered world we live in, focus is becoming more and more important, and harder than ever to achieve.

Losing focus is like a low-grade fever – it keeps us from feeling great and getting things done, but after a while, we seem to keep going without noticing the harmful effects it causes. What is the cure? How can we help our teams (and ourselves) be less fragmented and more focused?

Here are six ideas.

Know Your Why

Call it purpose if you want, but when you know why are working, why your work matters, and why you care, it is far easier to remain focused. Consider that your most productive days are also probably your most focused days. Why? Because you know what has to be accomplished and why that is important. Yes, there is likely urgency associated with those days (the product has to be shipped today or my vacation flight leaves in eight hours), but the focus was enhanced by the why. Urgency helps but trying to live a daily adrenaline rush isn’t the best or healthiest way to create greater overall focus.

Continually Build Clarity

On those adrenaline-drenched days, clarity is also heightened. You know exactly the things you must accomplish to be successful. On normal days though, it is easy to forget or lose sight of those most important things. That is why it is important to continue to clarify your goals and purpose. Consider the cyclical effect of looking through a pair of binoculars. The more you adjust your focus to get the clearest image, the more you must redefine and refocus on your targets. Clarity is attractive. The more clearly you can see your destination, the easier it will be to stay the course and avoid distractions.

Have a Plan

You know what you want and why, and that picture is crystal clear. Now, what is your plan to get there? The plan makes things real and gives you something to do. I’m not telling you anything new when I say that. Whether you are talking about a project due in a week, or a bucket list life goal, without a plan your odds of achievement are reduced. But this fact impacts your focus too! A plan on paper is easier to focus on than a good idea and a big reason why. Your focus will be intensified, and you are less likely to be distracted when you have a solid plan.

Know Your Daily Two

The way to give your plan legs is to do something. Too many people have plans with big chunks, things that are very difficult to achieve in one day. When you look at a big task, it is easy to get diverted or to procrastinate. Writing a training manual? You might not be able to write a section today. But you could write 500 words, or outline the next section, right?

Start each day with your daily two – the two things you must accomplish today. Then, whenever you are tempted to get diverted or lose focus, ask yourself. Are my daily two completed today? If not, the question will likely refocus and re-energize you.

Just Say No

Let’s face it, the more things on your list, the harder it is to focus on any one of them. When we can’t say no, even to something that is good, we can’t maintain the focus we need. Don’t give in to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). I know saying no to good things is hard – until we acknowledge that sometimes we must say no to the good in order to achieve the great.

Start with Yourself

All of these ideas apply to us as individuals and as a part of a team. I promised in the title to give advice to leaders – and while the other five points apply broadly, this last one is critical. It’s simple to say and hard to do: If you want your team to be more focused, be more focused yourself.

When you stay focused, you are sending less new things to them that will divert their attention. Your actions will be an example of the focused behavior you want from them.

We can create more focus for ourselves and others. Following these pieces of advice is a serious step in that direction.

To your greater success and fulfillment!
Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability while improving focus and productivity? 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 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.

A "Blessing" for Leaders by John O' Donahue

John O' Donahue and his beloved dog

John O'  Donahue was an Irish teacher and poet. O'Donahue explains "blessing" as a way of life, as a lens through which the whole world is transformed.

                                  A Blessing For leaders

MAY YOU HAVE THE GRACE AND WISDOM TO ACT KINDLY,
LEARNING TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN WHAT IS PERSONAL AND WHAT IS NOT.

MAY YOU BE HOSPITABLE TO CRITICISM.
MAY YOU NEVER PUT YOURSELF AT THE CENTRE OF THINGS.

MAY YOU ACT NOT FROM ARROGANCE BUT OUT OF SERVICE.

MAY YOU WORK ON YOURSELF, BUILDING UP AND REFINING THE WAYS OF YOUR MIND.

MAY THOSE WHO WORK FOR YOU KNOW YOU SEE AND RESPECT THEM.

MAY YOU LEARN TO CULTIVATE THE ART OF PRESENCE IN ORDER TO ENGAGE WITH THOSE WHO MEET YOU.

WHEN SOMEONE FAILS OR DISAPPOINTS YOU, MAY THE GRACIOUSNESS WITH WHICH YOU ENGAGE BE THEIR STAIRWAY TO RENEWAL AND REFINEMENT.

MAY YOU TREASURE THE GIFTS OF THE MIND THROUGH READING AND CREATIVE THINKING SO THAT YOU CONTINUE AS A SERVANT OF THE FRONTIER WHERE THE NEW WILL DRAW ITS ENRICHMENT FROM THE OLD,

AND YOU NEVER BECOME A FUNCTIONARY.

MAY YOU KNOW THE WISDOM OF DEEP LISTENING, THE HEALING OF WHOLESOME WORDS, THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE APPRECIATIVE GAZE, THE DECORUM OF HELD DIGNITY, THE SPRINGTIME EDGE OF THE Insight-Generating QUESTION.

MAY YOU HAVE A MIND THAT LOVES FRONTIERS
SO THAT YOU CAN EVOKE THE BRIGHT FIELDS THAT LIE BEYOND THE VIEW OF THE REGULAR EYE.

MAY YOU HAVE GOOD FRIENDS TO MIRROR YOUR BLIND SPOTS. 

MAY LEADERSHIP BE FOR YOU A TRUE ADVENTURE OF GROWTH.

I like to say that leadership is not a role; leadership is a practice. One does not assume the role of doctor, attorney, CPA, engineer, artist or musician. One practices medicine, law, accounting, engineering, art or music. Great leadership is the result of great practice.

If the poem resonates with you, I'd recommend the following simple daily practice that I call "JUST BE IT" (My apologies to Nike 😃)

[Print out a copy of the poem and keep it with you.]

Before walking into the office or your work area:

Cue: Turn off ignition

Routine: Be intentional about being more [pick one of the leadership qualities from the poem] with others (“Today I will be…”)

Before driving home:

Cue: Turn on ignition

Routine: Rate yourself on a scale of 1(low in exhibiting the quality) to 6 (High)

Reward: Do something (Or say something) nice for yourself because of the effort and/or progress you made.

In the words of George Elliot, "It's never too late to be what you were meant to be."

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? 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 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.