At the close of 2023, you may be elated, neutral or downright discouraged with your venture’s progress. This post is for those who find themselves more often in the last 2 buckets of “blah.” The more we stay in “blah” the more we strengthen that brain circuit of negativity.
What can you do to weaken that circuit of negativity and, instead, strengthen the circuit of doing and possibility?
Create your personal manifesto. It is a statement of commitment. Complete these sentences and post them in a place to reinforce your “WHY.” Visit your manifesto every morning to reinforce your intention to take action. Read it aloud or silently. You may record it and play it as you prepare for your day. Speak it aloud to others as a way of holding you accountable to your commitment.
My purpose in doing the work, including the boring, tedious stuff is to___________.
My mission is to___________.
I have taken on this challenge because____________.
I have to give myself credit for____________.
My response to the inner critic is to ____________.
I’ll be kind to myself by _________________.
I’ll reward myself for meeting today’s challenges by____________.
Before I go to bed tonight, I will assess my progress and how I can improve tomorrow. I will visualize my best self, working through tomorrow’s challenges with vigor.
Some people rely on external reinforcers to make big things happen. Others look internally ─ they pray, journal, or talk to themselves. Your personal manifesto is a powerful combination of all three. Give it a try.
Share your entrepreneurial conundrums with The COREageous Entrepreneur family of subscribers. Email me at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com. I will post my solutions.
Rick T. from Chicago wrote: In my startup I have five team members plus myself. Three of them meet their targets every week outperforming the other two. It creates conflict that’s affecting morale. They’re all talented and good people, but there’s a change I have to make. What say you?
Rick’s dilemma is a common one for new founders. Nick Saban, one of the greatest college football coaches in history, created many championship teams. As with many great coaches, his advice on leadership and team building ring true for businesses as well.
Saban claims that a big part of being a leader is the ability to communicate performance standards. During his team selection process Saban makes his expectations very clear from the start.
Team chemistry is important. Saban’s view is that mediocre people don’t like high achievers and vice versa. Mediocre people and high achievers don’t mix well. They won’t like each other.
Saban goes on to say, (and I paraphrase), that the team players on “your bus” (your team) need to be aligned to the performance standards you set. Getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus is one of the hardest jobs of leadership. But it’s got to happen.
An organization’s success is due to having team members committed to being personally accountable for meeting the standards of the org. Without everyone’s full buy in, you have no alignment, no success.
Bottom line: Know your standards for excellence. Communicate those standards. Hire team members who will hold themselves accountable to those standards.
Trouble creating, communicating and holding folks on your team accountable? We need to talk! Contact me at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
If you ask your staff, What are you doing to get more done?, you’ll get a some blank stares and some good answers like: I limit social media, filter email, turn off my phone, shorten conversations, etc. The follow-up question results in more blank stares: How well are those efforts paying off?
Because I’m known to be somewhat of a task master, when I say to my clients – Hey, this exercise will be fun! I get a few smirks. It has elements of surprise and learning that helps the bottom line, and makes for good group discussions, so it’s within the realm of “fun.” Here’s how it works:
Each staff member cuts out five 4 inch strips of paper. They write a day of the week on each strip, mix them up and put them in an envelope. For four weeks, at the end of the work week, each person closes their eyes and picks out one day of the week from their envelope. If they pick “Wednesday” they need to recall what they did for every hour on Wednesday. If they don’t remember, they can look back on their plan for the week (assuming that they had a plan!!) to see what work was accomplished or how they spent their time. At first, the reports are pretty dismal, the average report ranges from 30-40% productive use of work time.
This exercise has many advantages: It makes people more conscientious about how they use their time at work. It helps one see the value in making a plan for each day. Knowing that Friday is coming up soon, and not knowing which day will be pulled, improves the consistency of their efforts. It also helps one use the anti-distraction strategies more consistently and judge their effectiveness. This exercise also makes leadership clarify expectations for productivity.
I shared this exercise with three different companies. By the 3rd week, at all three facilities, productivity overall kicked up between 20-30%! Now, that’s fun!
Last week I consulted to a young tech startup near Boston. To my surprise, I walked into a party. The team of five employees were having a blast playing video-games, tossing popcorn around and drawing graffiti-like images on the huge whiteboard. I was there for four hours. I noticed relatively short breaks from the festivities when the team dispersed to their offices. After periods of about 30 minutes the party started up again.
I asked Ted, the founder in his mid 30’s, “Was this a celebration day for a project well done, a goal achieved? “No,” Ted reported, “This is what goes on in between their work periods. They work best in concentrated chunks of time with long breaks in between.” The founder’s concern was that these breaks seemed to be getting longer and work time shorter. The team generally knew what they were expected to produce each month, but oversight was lax. Ted was traveling often to drum up business, and progress reporting was spotty. Two of the investors noted dips in the bottom line and started asking about the team’s accountability.
Ted was stuck as to how to keep the work culture lively and hold the team responsible for meeting the expected results. “I want my team to enjoy working here – they are a brilliant, but distractible bunch. But I don’t know how to rein them in and keep the enthusiasm. There’s some pretty tedious, but essential work amidst the creative work that’s not getting done. It’s stressing me out the more I ignore it.”
To console Ted, I shared a study mentioned in the book Fixit: Getting Accountability Right by Roger Collins and Tom Smith, in which the researchers asked respondents to select one reason why they find holding people accountable difficult. These results accurately reflect the problems I notice in many small companies, and it could explain Ted’s reluctance to hold his team responsible for the outcome:
1) 12% I don’t like confrontation.
2) 14% I don’t want to lose rapport and make people not like me.
3) 16% No one else does it, so it makes me look like the bad guy.
4) 50% I’m not sure how to do it in a way that yields good results.
5) 8% Other.
Ted was torn between responses 1, 2 and 4.
I assured Ted that there are creative and effective ways to infuse “friendly accountability” in the group without risking morale:
The first step is to acknowledge the problem in terms of reaching “the numbers” and sharing this data with the staff. The reactions to how the company is falling short may reveal who is committed to the project and who’s there for a good time.
Clarifying targets and asking for ways to meet those targets enhances communication and fosters buy-in. Get employees’ input on whether it means stretching out the work day or flipping the duration of time spent relaxing versus working.
Assigning a peer as a team leader could keep the team on track when Ted is on the road.
I also suggested that when energy dips (around 3:00p.m) to schedule a brisk 20 minute walk to discuss progress or any problems affecting their ability to meet the targets. Some exercise and personal connection could ignite another couple hours of focus and productivity.
Ted agreed to have this conversation with his team and follow up with me next week.
Are you afraid of the “A” word? Let me help you and your team become more comfortable with accountability. Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
Rebecca’s CoreFour Coaching
"It takes more than courage to be an Entrepreneur, it takes CORE." Find out more.
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Rick T. from Chicago wrote: In my startup I have five team members plus myself. Three of them meet their targets every week outperforming the other two. It creates conflict that’s affecting morale. They’re all talented and good people, but there’s a change I have to make. What say you? 
If you ask your staff, What are you doing to get more done?, you’ll get a some blank stares and some good answers like: I limit social media, filter email, turn off my phone, shorten conversations, etc. The follow-up question results in more blank stares: How well are those efforts paying off?
Last week I consulted to a young tech startup near Boston. To my surprise, I walked into a party. The team of five employees were having a blast playing video-games, tossing popcorn around and drawing graffiti-like images on the huge whiteboard. I was there for four hours. I noticed relatively short breaks from the festivities when the team dispersed to their offices. After periods of about 30 minutes the party started up again.
"It takes more than courage to be an Entrepreneur, it takes CORE."