What are you sowing?

We’ve all heard the saying, “You reap what you sow.” A farmer sows seed to ensure a good harvest. But you can’t harvest what you haven’t planted.

Sowing is the hard part. It’s about work, trust, giving away… without that we can’t reap the rewards we desire.

Some leaders find it hard to invest themselves because they either don’t see what the results do for others or they think the results will happen on their own. (more…)

Are you available? It’s so easy to answer yes to this question. Our intention is to be available but many times we send signals that say something very different.

“My door is always open.”

An open door doesn’t represent an open mind. Keeping your office door open is nice, but it’s meaningless if engaging in conversation with you is difficult. It’s not the door that stops people from coming to you, it’s the closed mind, the I know everything mind, the non-listening mind or the I’m too busy mind. (more…)

This blog post is a follow up to the second topic we didn’t discuss in-depth on our recent webinar, The Strongest Team Wins: How to Build a Team that Gets Things Done. If you were unable to attend, click the link to view the recorded version of the webinar.

Does your team compete together or against one another? While encouraging internal competition may produce results in the short-term, in the long run it can create distrust and a “me first” mentality. So, how do you encourage healthy competition? You encourage your people to compete as a team. (more…)

You don’t need military experience for the words “friendly fire” to send a chilling and angry awareness through your spine. Someone was harmed but it wasn’t by our enemy – it was by someone on our own side, someone who was supposed to be fighting with us, not against us.

Friendly fire happens in business too. Someone on your team throws you under the bus. Someone on your team undermines you. Someone you trusted stole from you. Someone you partnered with is lying about you. Someone who reports to you just took advantage of your relationship.

Whether intentional or not, why does friendly fire occur in the workplace? (more…)

Have you ever been asked, “How are you doing?” only to have the asker already out of earshot by the time you turn to answer?

If we’re honest, we’ve all probably been that question asker at some point. We’re busy, and we have enough challenges to deal with in our own lives, so we exchange brief pleasantries to be polite. It’s not that we don’t care, but we also don’t really want to have to deal with the messiness of what’s going on beneath the surface. (more…)

I can’t overstate the importance of having one-on-ones. Yet, I’m familiar with all the excuses we (me included) can find not to have one-on-ones…we’re too busy, we already talk often, we meet as a team, and the list goes on. (more…)

Equipping doesn’t happen by accident; it’s intentional. And equipping yourself and your team must be a top priority if you want to develop and grow. As a business leader, I’ve found that developing others with me is critical to sustain the type of growth I want to see in my organization.

But how do we find the time needed to equip ourselves and those around us? Most of us collapse into bed at night exhausted, and we still didn’t accomplish everything we wanted to get done! Here are three “equipping” lessons I’ve learned along my leadership journey. (more…)

We all probably know one person at work who always seems to be caught up in some sort of personal or office drama. You know who they are, and you know better than to get caught up in their latest turmoil de jour.

However, while we refuse to allow ourselves to get caught up in obvious drama, we tend to overlook subtle ways we can create drama of our own. I’ve listed four scenarios that I’ve noticed tend to stir up drama that, intentional or not, distracts from the main thing, creates discontent, and slows momentum. (more…)

Performers hate being burdensome. Most will go out of their way to avoid feeling like they are inconveniencing or saddling their teammates or leader with problems or projects.

Yet, many times we make our teammates feel like they are a burden by unintentionally communicating that we are too busy to serve them or too important to serve at their level. (more…)

Making people happy. Sometimes that’s a leader’s ultimate goal, and it’s a nice one. What’s the flip side – an unhappy team? Nobody wants that! It feels good to know the people you lead feel good about their work.

But happiness? I guess it’s all in how you define it. I view happiness as an emotion, and emotions are so fleeting! A word of encouragement, an ice cream sundae, and a raise will all make your employees’ happy, but to varying degrees and for very different lengths of time.

If your scoreboard hinges on making your team happy, you’re going to have many frustrating days as a leader, my friend. Here are eight things I’d rather the people on my team experience beyond happiness. (more…)