Category: #PeopleDevelopment

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How is your follow-up? Most get an F.

I have always prided myself in my tenaciousness and ability to follow-up and through with what I committed to saying I would accomplish. Is this hard to do? Not for me, as I consider it both an aspect of both pride, and a representation of how I build and maintain trust with others. There is also the aspect of having the nagging feeling or thought in my mind that I need to finish what I started, or committed to doing what I said I would do.

Committing and following through on doing something is a motivating factor for me, but I realize it isn’t for everyone. I also appreciate the fact that for some people, following through on doing just about anything can seem daunting to them. Although I would add that they likely put more energy into worrying about not doing something, and could easily transfer this energy into an accomplishment. Yes, part of this is certainly a mindset challenge, but I have always found it is worth the effort to complete what you committed to doing.

There is also the aspect of how disappointing another person or a team when you do not complete what you said you would do. Perhaps some people either have good intentions and simply forget to do something, or what I would consider worse, is that they simply don’t care about whether they honor their follow-up commitment. For me personally, this strikes me as an enormous, missed opportunity for both personal and leadership growth. However, I do realize that not everyone is focused on becoming a leader, but there will be times in their life when the ability and skill to follow-up will serve them and others well.

Something which fascinates me about other people is how unaware they can be about the repercussions of them not following-up on something they committed to. Particularly when the stakes related to what they were going to follow-up on were high (e.g., sending a thank you note after meeting with a prospective employer or sports coach whose team you want to be on.). Another dimension to my thinking about non-follow-up people is whether they at one point were good at this and decided either consciously or unconsciously not to apply this ability at some point. If this was the case, they are fortunate, in that they can more easily than others who never were practiced at following up, get back on the proverbial horse to do so.

If people realized that the stakes of not following up were going to be detrimental to their ability to progress professionally, or that it would be harmful to their personal or professional relationships, I’m curious about whether this would alter their thinking or behavior? Perhaps if someone had expectations of an outcome playing well in their favor and they didn’t follow-up to bolster and ensure this outcome, do you think they realize they set themselves up for a self-fulfilling prophecy? Again, there are likely unconscious factors contributing to why many people are sabotaging their own future outcomes by not following through. More importantly to consider, is whether there is something which would nudge them towards understanding how their lack of follow-up behavior is negatively contributing to their personal and, or professional life?

I firmly believe that having the ability to excel at following up is a skill and mindset that everyone can and should master. With this thinking in mind, I am offering some suggestions to either you, or someone you know who needs to stop receiving the grade of “F” in this category.

  • People who tend to procrastinate are at a higher risk for being poor at following-up. So, the first thing you will need to do is to understand why you procrastinate before you can become better at following-up.
  • Your attitude towards how you want others to perceive you may or may not have an influence on whether you will become better at completing what you committed to saying and then doing. If you don’t care enough about how others perceive you, this will be an area you will need to increase your desire to care that this does matter.
  • Have you ever had a time when you were proud of accomplishing something you committed to doing for either yourself or someone else? When you are rebuilding your skills in this area, think back to the positive feeling you had and leverage this to help you to finish what you committed to following up on.
  • The opportunities people are given when they do follow-up can be incredibly rewarding on a variety of levels. Is there an opportunity you either want to pursue or have been given the opportunity to pursue, but you dropped the ball on? If so, is it possible for you to ask for another chance to follow-through?
  • Can you seek out people who will be willing to give you a chance to follow through on doing something for them, with the intent of building up your ability to have a string of success in following up and through on your verbal or written commitments?
  • Visualize yourself as being someone who is well regarded for their ability to do what they say they are going to do. Now, think about the benefits that will come from being regarded as this type of person who others can depend on.

Since one of my pet peeves is engaging with anyone who doesn’t follow-up, I’m hopeful that if you are one of these types of people, that you will have a new appreciation for why and how to be able to do so.

TAGS: #Leadership #Leader #Business #Sports #Sportscoach #Teams #Teamdynamics #Motivation #Followingup #Tipsonhowtofollowup #Awareness #Selfawareness #Success #Mindset #Communication #Management

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Are there delegation secrets?

I have a vivid memory of the first time I was told I needed to delegate a project to someone on my team. Of course, I understood the concept of delegation, but at the time, I was in a new leadership position. So, the reality was I didn’t have much experience with applying what I knew from a textbook explanation. There also wasn’t much value I derived from seeing delegation applied from a bystander’s vantage point, but I needed to begin testing out this concept working with the tools I had.  

Having someone take the time to explain the elements associated with what they were delegating to me, served as a good foundation for how I would approach being in the role of a delegator. I consider myself fortunate to have had some strong and thoughtful leaders who operated on the principle of always setting up others for success. Borrowing from this principle, I thought I could expand upon it. This took the form of making sure that when I was delegating to others, I would always intimate that I would never ask them to do something I wouldn’t do myself. Although I have a strong sense this isn’t universally applied.  

There are a series of factors that will contribute to whether whatever is being delegated is going to have the desired outcome. The first one is that the delegator needs to abide by the principle that there is commonly more than one way to accomplish something. This translates to not criticizing someone for taking a different approach to what has been delegated to them, and which has an effective result. Another factor which will take some time to adjust to, is being able to fully trust the person or team you are delegating something to. Most humans will inherently want to maintain control and not delegate based on this single reason alone.  

If trust isn’t something you have in the person or team you are delegating to, there are some steps you will want to take prior to the delegation process occurring. The first step is to appreciate the reason or reasons why you have not reached the level of trust yet? It’s possible you may not have worked with or lead the person or team you are delegating to for a short period of time (e.g., less than a week or month), and which would lead you to be reluctant to fully trust them…yet.  Another contributing factor which may hinder your ability to delegate may be your fear of the people or team failing at what you delegated for them to complete.  

Independent of time, trust and fear, there is another reason people have challenges with being able to delegate to others. The reason has to do with the fact they are not fully comfortable with their ability to communicate in an effective manner. Because of this, there is a high potential for them self-sabotaging the successful outcome of what they are delegating. For context, I have found that being able to communicate well with others is something many people feel they are not strong at doing. Why? Mainly because they have not put enough practice into having effective conversations with others. Not even doing so in situations where the stakes are much lower, and delegation is not part of the process. This communication practice applies to everyone independently of what decade of life and professional experience they have. Another negative and detracting contributor to this situation is because many people are reluctant to put themselves in scenarios where they may not know how to handle their conversations well. So, instead, they avoid having more conversations, and their communication ability either remains stagnant or doesn’t allow them to progress.  

For the sake of consideration, let’s agree that the ability to converse well is an “art”. Possibly, an art which is not being looked at, but should be factored into serving as the basis for effectively being able to delegate to others. With this premise, I am offering some possible ideas for increasing your ability to delegate effectively.  

* It’s perfectly fine to be nervous about delegating to others. In fact, during the first few times you are doing so, let the person or team you are delegating to know that you have some concerns about delegating to them. However, do let them know that the concerns are based on the fact you are new at doing so, and not because of them or their abilities. They will appreciate your honesty and will likely work harder to not disappoint you or the rest of the team.

* I mentioned practicing your communication skills, and I truly am supportive of you doing this. Not just saying you will practice becoming better at communicating with others, but intentionally putting effort into improving your skills in this area.

* Staying on the concept of practice, being able to practice delegating small tasks, and doing this comfortably is something I always find to be highly supportive. Consider the concept that there are different levels of delegation and work your way gradually up to more complex tasks or assignments/projects which you will need to delegate.

* Ask someone you know who is a strong delegator for some tips they can suggest to help you to ease into becoming more comfortable with delegating to others.

* After the delegated item has been completed, be sure to both follow-up, and let the person or team you have delegated the work to that you appreciate them successfully accomplishing what they achieved.

* If something you delegated didn’t go well, apply what is referred to as a post-mortem. A post-mortem entails going over the details about understanding why and where the project may not have succeeded. The main point of doing this isn’t to cast blame, but to understand how to course correct to eventually reach your desired outcome.

* Prior to any type of delegation, I always recommend putting the desired outcome of your delegation in writing, and making sure any required details about the work that must be accomplished is clearly understood before the delegated work begins.  

Although the ideas I have shared above may not be considered “delegation secrets”, they may be new to people who haven’t had much or any delegation experience. Although, I’m also optimistic even seasoned delegators may find one or two new methods they can apply to increase their own delegation level.

#Leadership #Leader #Leaders #Business #Delegation #Success #Teams #Sports #Strategy #Communication #Delegationtips
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Who gave you a chance?

I’m a big fan of thanking or acknowledging others who have supported me in some way. I have done this via conversations, written notes and being able to fortunately include them in the “shout out” sections of my book series. Learning to thank others was a trait or manner my mom taught me at a very early age, and as soon as I learned how to write. At first having to hand write thank you notes to people wasn’t something I fully appreciated the context and importance of, but overtime, I came to value and want to do this without prompting.

Was my adoption of handwriting thank you notes a habit? Yes, it certainly became one, and I’ve never broken this habit. In fact, what I find amazing is the impact my notes have on the people who receive them. An impact with the loveliest of consequences. What I mean by this is that the brief time I take to write my thank you notes, allows the recipients to know that I truly care about what they have helped me with. Of course, you can thank someone verbally, but putting in the extra effort to express your gratitude in writing is more impactful and can provide a last memory effect. An effect that in present day time, not many people are the benefactors of, as so few people take the time to thank people in writing.

My habit of thanking others via writing takes place both via an electronic method, but I am a firm believer that the handwritten method absolutely increases the impact and meaning behind your note. I also like how you can personalize your approach to thanking someone based on the type of note or card you are writing. Consider your note or card being part of your personal brand, and another way of expressing who you are, and want to project to others. You can have some fun with doing this, so don’t shy away from being creative with your actual physical note style approach.

When I was recently writing a handwritten note to thank someone last week, it got me thinking about how this isn’t a topic which regularly comes up on conversation. Although I think it should, hence why I’m putting a spotlight on it today. The impact from a handwritten note can far exceed the power you might think that it has, and I have seen this occur time and time again. In full transparency, I don’t write my handwritten notes to have them be other than a polite way of expressing my gratitude. I also don’t have expectations post writing my notes, but I have certainly been pleasantly surprised by how people have gone out of their way to thank me for sending them a thank you note.

There is a chance we might not always recognize another person who should be acknowledged for the help they bestowed upon us (e.g., a teacher, coach, relative, friend), perhaps because it was part of their job to do so. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t thank them for doing their job well, and it could simply be a verbal acknowledgement, but a written one is always better. When I have spoken to people about the power of thanking someone who has given them a chance personally or professionally, I often also hear excuses about why they haven’t done this, or that they are not strong at communicating their sentiments either verbally or in writing. Upon hearing these excuses, I point out that given the amount of technology we have access to help us with this, especially the written part (e.g., Chat GBT for one), I feel it’s a weak reason for not thanking someone. Alright, I’m going there…a bit lazy or perhaps selfish too.

Now to get back on a positive track, I would like to challenge you with considering whether there are people in your life who you should be either verbally or sending a handwritten thank you note who have helped you, or given you a chance? I’m certain there are, so let’s pause for a moment to reflect upon constructing a mental note of who is on this list. Now that you have this list, consider how someone giving you a chance may have changed the trajectory of where you are now. Does this person, or the people who have supported you to help you to navigate to where you are know you are grateful for their support? Independent of your response, below are some suggestions to consider your next steps forward in thanking others.

  • With the “mental list” you have come up with, consider taking this to the next level, writing down this information, and having it serve as a repository of who has given you a chance.
  • Having a list of who has helped you will be enormously supportive on days when you may not be feeling the “love”, or you feel as if no one is on your side. I assure you, there have been plenty of people who fall into this category.
  • Let’s think of logistics for a moment. Do you have a thank you card or cards you can send to someone? Do you know where to source them from? Do you have a stamp or stamps you can leverage to complete the process of mailing your thank you card if this is a requirement?
  • Your thank you note does not have to be a novel. In fact, keeping your note on the shorter side might be harder to do, but the important factor to focus on is being able to authentically express your gratitude for the support from the person who gave you a chance. Whatever your definition of this means.
  • Commit to a timeline for either speaking to or sending out your either written acknowledgement note of thanks. In the absence of this, you will find it too easy to procrastinate on doing this. A pro tip I have for doing this is to commit to spending 15-30 minutes a month with conveying your gratitude (e.g., in person, or perhaps via a micro video), sourcing your thank you materials, writing and sending your card out.
  • After crafting your list of who to thank, commit to coming up with a list of people you can give a chance. The length of the list is irrelevant, but it should be a “living” and on-going list that you keep.
  • Consider what your criteria is for what you can do to help give another person a chance. It doesn’t have to be a monumental opportunity or chance, as even minor chances that are given can have a seriously positive impact on another person.

Now that you have had an opportunity to reflect upon both being grateful and being proactive to thank someone who has given you a chance, remember that you will likely gain more joy and benefit from giving someone else a chance. So, don’t be shy with doing so, and be as overly generous as you can in this area too, as you never know what impact it will have on another person’s life or profession.

TAGS: #Business #Impact #Positiveimpact #Leader #Leadership #Sportscoach #Coach #Motivation #Strategy #Gratitude #Helpingothers #Management #Professionaldevelopment #Personaldevelopment #Achievement #Success

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What you could or should be doing.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my dad passing away. So naturally I am thinking about him. I’m also thinking about the memories we built, and about how knowing that towards the end of his life, we knew that he had only a certain amount of time to be with us. Yes, this significantly influenced my own and my families outlook on time. Time in terms of how we would invest it in spending quality time with our dad.

In many ways and looking at a very sad scenario from a positive perspective, I consider us fortunate to have to be cognizant about not taking time for granted. As we know it is easy to do so, and to not make the most of our time each day. This wasn’t the case with our family, as we rallied to make sure we spent as much quality time with my dad when we learned about his fate. I’m not suggesting we wouldn’t have done this if his fate had been different, but being more mindful of his reduced amount of time with us did impact our thinking about time and the choices we would make.

One of the outcomes from my dad passing that related to time was that our daughter accelerated her wedding plans by one year. She and her now husband, made this decision so that her other grandfather and grandmothers wouldn’t have to wait for two years for this event to occur. The wedding occurred on a day when we were experiencing hurricane conditions in the northeast section of the US, but the most amazing thing was that we only had to contend with wind. Not the rain we were dreading. As the wedding guests were finishing up their dinner, we were graced by a gorgeous sunset, and that was the first time that day we had seen the sun.

Both the lack of rain and seeing the sunset I felt were wedding gifts from my dad that day from above. I felt his presence during the wedding ceremony and reception, and I know that although he wasn’t able to be there, he made his presence known by the magical lack of hurricane rain, and the gorgeous sunset. He was a huge fan of the weather, so I know in my heart he contributed to giving our daughter both a memorable wedding weather day, and one that she and her husband and our wedding guests could acceptably handle.

Due to the fact we were not certain the wedding would occur on the day it did due to the event requiring electrical power, the high winds certainly had us remaining optimistically cautious about whether the power would be knocked out. Again, the fact it didn’t get knocked out I felt was another gift from my dad, and this was truly amazing, as we didn’t exactly have a back-up plan in place. However, I needed to begin making some contingency plans the day before the wedding, but fortunately we didn’t have to put them in place. The only contingency difference was having to switch up our photo locations, which was easy enough to do.

Albeit not the greatest or most welcome gift, knowing that you are faced with having to think about time differently does have its advantages. Certainly, one of them is that if you were taking time for granted, it quickly jolts you out of thinking this way, and which led me to think about today what I could or should be doing differently.

Being mindful of time and how we invest in it isn’t something I feel everyone has a strong grasp of having mastered. Although I do believe it is a skill we can and should become more aware of exceling at. Especially since when we spend and invest in our time more productively, or thoughtfully, I feel like there are many intrinsic benefits from this approach.

So, if you haven’t taken the opportunity to consider what you could or should be doing with either your time, or the direction of your life or career, below are some suggestions I can offer.

  • Can you honestly say that how you invest your time daily is contributing to where you want to be, or strive to be?
  • Do you feel like you are simply going along in either your life or career and surviving and not thriving? Could this be because you haven’t thought about what you could do differently to change your circumstances?
  • We hear people referencing having a bucket list of things they want to do before their time on this planet is up. I think it’s important to have a list of things you want to do, but more critical is factoring in the timing and reality of whether you can accomplish them? Having an unrealistic list might be more harmful for some, while conversely it could be motivational for others. Factor in which side of this equation you might be on, and whether you can or want to change to the other side.
  • There are things we know we should be doing, but have you stopped to think about what is truly preventing you from doing them (e.g., eating healthy, exercising, helping others you could be supporting better)?
  • When was the last time you prioritized your time from the perspective of how you want to invest in it from a longer-term perspective versus having a day at a time approach?
  • Do you know what your motivational factors are which would be driving and influencing your thoughts about how you invest your time?
  • If you don’t know what your motivational factors are, what could you do to figure this out to your benefit?
  • Is it possible you are taking what I’ll refer to as the “easy road” and not wisely investing your time because it takes effort to accomplish this? Refer to the previous two bullets for potential insight into what might be contributing to your approach. Especially if you are at all inclined to want to invest in how you apply your time differently or better.

Time management is absolutely an element which is woven into the topic of what you could or should be doing, and we can agree that not everyone has mastered this element. However, I’m a firm believer that we all can do so, and I hope you will make an investment in yourself to accomplish this. Why? Because I can assure you it will be worth it, and I say this based on my credibly of having experience with this to back up what I’m suggesting.

TAGS: #Business #Leader #Leadership #Motivation #Timemanagement #Teams #Sports #Sportscoach #Personaldevelopment #Professionaldevelopment #Perspective #Strategy #Management #Success

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Ask hard questions.

I’m always amazed when someone has an opportunity to ask a question and they pass on doing so. In some respects, I look at doing so as being granted a gift, but I feel I am in the minority with this type of thinking. Which brought me to thinking about the reasons people don’t pursue something which I believe offers them so many advantages.

One of the most helpful things I learned when one of my professors was to ask what is referred to as the five W’s and one H. The W’s cover who, what, when, where and why and the H covers the how. If you were to apply asking any of these six topics in any given scenario, I would like to believe it would naturally lead you to want to pursue the other five topics. The first question would be like an appetizer to queue up the person you are speaking with to warm up to additional ones. This is independent of whether you start with the “who” and establishing the main character you will be conversing about.

When you are the person who is asking questions, consider an additional benefit you gain from being in this position. You get to practice your listening skills. A skill from my perspective which is highly under rated, yet an extremely valuable one to master. In some ways, I liken listening to being a bit of a lost art, and this was brought into sharp focus for me this past week. The focus of being a good listener was something I was repeatably hearing about. This is in the context of people noting to me that they found it difficult to be a good listener. This didn’t surprise me, but it did present me with a fabulous opportunity to ask them why they found listening to be difficult to do?

The responses I heard in terms of why listening was difficult to do had a wide range of reasons. A few of the reasons included finding it difficult to remain present and to intently listen. A second one was that they were easily distracted and a third one was that they wanted to interrupt when they knew they should continue to listen.

Another reason which came up to support why people don’t ask hard questions, is because they are afraid to do so. They are also fearful they will ask the wrong question, or make the person feel badly with the question they are asking. This reason was followed people expressing the possibility of not wanting to hear information they would rather not know. In probing to learn more about the prior reason, a number of people expressed that they believe they might not be able to handle either responding to, or knowing how to process knowing the information conveyed.

Instead of asking a hard question or a series of them, I have witnessed that some people will do whatever possible to avoid doing this. Most of the time this isn’t going to benefit them, although in their minds they think it’s their best option. However, avoidance is going to add to making any scenario unnecessarily more stressful. Why? Because of the choice or perceived strategy to avoid doing so isn’t going to make many circumstances better or different. I’m also certain you can think of one or two examples yourself when you chose to avoid asking a hard question or series of them.

One of the numerous responsibilities people who are in a leadership or sports coach positions have is to regularly ask others hard questions. Questions which often begin with “Help me to understand why…” Asking this type of open-ended question seems simple enough to ask, but as I mentioned earlier, sometimes people don’t want to know the “why” explanation. Consider this a situation of the concept of “ignorance can be bliss”, but I believe having more knowledge and an understanding and appreciation of a situation is far more valuable. This is independent of how difficult it might be to queue up the initial “hard” conversation to occur. For me personally, I have found that one hundred percent of the time having a “hard” conversation and asking difficult questions was entirely worth it.

If you are wondering how to pursue more comfortably asking hard or uncomfortable questions, here are some examples to help make your approach to doing so easier.

  • The saying “timing is everything” is a factor you will want to think about, as there will be far more ideal times and places to have a difficult conversation with someone. For example, if someone is emotionally charged, you will want them to become less so. Also consider having a conversation in a place that affords privacy and will not embarrass them.
  • Make sure you have a person’s full attention when you intend to have a serious conversation with them, and or a quiet place that will have fewer opportunities for distraction.
  • If possible, write down ahead of your conversation the questions you want to ask the person.
  • Providing someone with an opportunity to know ahead of time that you would like to have a serious conversation with them can help them to get into the mindset of being ready to respond to your questions. Although conversely, it can also be anxiety provoking, so ideally let the person know that the conversation you are going to have with them is intended to be beneficial for them. It usually is, but there are exceptions.
  • Practice asking the hard questions before you do so. This might seem like over engineering, but I can assure you that doing so will put both of you more at ease because you won’t be hearing the hard questions being stated audibly for the first time.
  • Preface your conversation by letting the person know you are asking the hard questions that your intentions are not to be punitive, but to help you to better understand how you might be able to support them as a leader or sports coach differently.
  • By asking hard questions, you can also gain the benefit of hearing a perspective from the other person you might not have considered. Having additional information from asking hard questions can serve both of you well.

When you get to a place of having mastered being able to ask hard questions, it will help to support your growth and leadership journey, and it will allow you to be a more effective and impactful leader. Perhaps even a touch more empathetic too, when you hear the “why” and other supporting facts following the questions you are posing.

TAGS: #Leadership #Communication #Sportscoach #Motivation #Business #Professionaldevelopment #Sales #Management