In the end, everyone is looking for a listener.
You learn a lot from listening. People trust and respect you. By understanding people and their motivations, you are better equipped to help them or to communicate your opinion from an angle they can appreciate.
A teenager from a single-parent home, close to flunking high school, was asked by his mum to at least sit for the SAT exam. He did, and came back with a 1480/1600 score. His mum asked whether he cheated. He said no. He realised he was smarter than he thought, and decided to go to college. Eventually he graduated from an ivy league school, and went on to become a successful magazine entrepreneur.
12 years after that SAT exam which was a turning point in his life, the exam board sent him a letter to inform him that he had been sent wrong results. His actual score was 740/1600.
You may think that a clerical mistake changed his life. What changed his life was his own expectations of himself. When he saw himself as an achiever instead of a failure, he started doing what achievers did, and stopped doing what failures did. And that made all the difference.
If you want performing employees, make them believe they are achievers, not failures. Start with you.
A new year starts with new goals. We tend to be ambitious in January, we start having difficulties sticking to our plans in February, and we give up in March. Then the following January we find ourselves setting the same goals.
After the initial high, a daunting goal quickly leads to procrastination. Slow progress deteriorates our motivation, and soon we stop completely. Instead of focusing on the end goal, try looking at the small step you need to take today. Look at the one task you want to complete in the next one hour. Break a big chunk into small pieces, and every small piece will be much easier to do.
Some people rearrange the guy's work to reduce contact points with other staff, to minimise conflict. Some people build a new team around the guy who can work with him better, if he's really very good and valuable to the company. Some people fire the guy if he's causing more damage to the organisation than he's helping. Sometimes the problem can be with the rest of the team! The majority is not always right.
It is always easy for us to look at what others are doing and criticise. What we often don't realise is they have gathered the courage and committed the effort to do it, while we just think to ourselves we would have done better had we decided to do it. That's NATO. No Action Talk Only.
Stop thinking "I can do better than that".
Start doing.
There was this grandma with a medical condition who needed to take medication every day after dinner. Her family kept reminding her and nagging her, and tried various techniques, but she still often forgot. They consulted different doctors. Eventually they found a doctor who solved the problem with a very unexpected solution. The doctor simply asked the grandma, "What time do you prefer to take your medication?".
"I think it's easier for me to take it in the morning."
"That's fine, take it in the morning then. "
By giving her the choice, and letting her use her own way, the doctor had given her the ownership. He had empowered her. She made the decision, and felt responsible for following through with her decision. She was not being nagged or instructed. She wanted to do it. She herself decided so.
A motivated employee is one who has decided this is what he wants to do, not because you instructed him to do it.
One habit I have developed is to spend a few minutes every day writing down on a piece of paper a wish which I want to make come true. This may sound like just another feel-good exercise, but if you do it for 100 days, you will find that it is a powerful daily reminder, it makes you reflect and sometimes rethink your priorities, and it gives you clarity of purpose. I'm on Day 152 today.
Subconsciously we all think "forever". A better answer is "5 years". If she's good, and you want what's best for her, you encourage her to move on to greater things. Unless your organisation can give her these greater things.
When you want the best people, and want them to give their best, you too need to have their best interest at heart.
We waste time and energy agonising over what the truth is. Does my boss trust me? Do I have talent? Am I on the right career path? Will my team support me in difficult times? Will the market recover soon? We are paralysed by uncertainty.
Sometimes we can't know the truth for sure. Just choose to believe in what's HELPFUL. Not sure if your boss is confident in your capability? Why not just trust he will make the right judgement and spend your energy doing your best work? If he's fair your good work will not go unnoticed. If he's a poor manager you'll outgrow his team and move on to a better role.
You choose what you want to believe. Let it be something that makes you a better person.
I used to feel uncomfortable with the idea of business networking, because I felt I was meeting people with a selfish motive. I was greeti...
