During these challenging times, COREageous entrepreneurs and their teams:
• Put their thinking brain in charge of their emotional brain and make smart decisions. • Put politics, past transgressions and personal vendettas aside. • Spend time perfecting their product or service in preparation to come back. • Communicate frequently with vendors, customers and investors. • Build alliances with the community and companion businesses. • Cultivate skills through training and coaching that enhance teamwork, sales, communication and emotional intelligence and management skills. • Stay upbeat and positive. Find humor and share it with others.
Use this time to make your startup stronger and more competitive! Contact me for online help at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
If you’re dedicated and willing to make the sacrifices needed to turn your side hustle into a full time business, keep these COREageous tips in mind:
1. Is your side hustle something the market needs and wants? Or are you hoping to create a market for your product or service? Do your market research.
2. A 2019 Hiscox Side Hustle to Small Business survey (hiscox.com/sidehustle) showed that it takes 19 months of operation before you consider quitting your day job; 26 months before you could hire an employee; and 3 years before you can expect to earn an income similar to your day job.
3. Get some money management help to budget your expenses. The survey said to secure 6-12 months or more of living expenses in savings.
4. The survey recommends that you look into small business insurance to cover any liabilities you could incur in the process.
5. Are your executive functioning skills and routines solid enough to lop on a side hustle? That is your ability to get things done, done well and on time with as little stress as possible. You’ve got to be organized and disciplined to make the best use of the 20 hours or more a week you’ll need for a side hustle. If not, consider CoreCoaching to help you be the CEO of you! Contact me at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
In my last CE post I talked about coaching valuable, but problematic employees. I will refer to these employees as Ms. or Mr. X.
In hindsight, you may have noticed these problems (a haughty attitude, lack of cooperation,frequent complaining, etc) coming early on, but chalked it up to Ms. or Mr. X being “new to the team.”
You get busy, and in the back of your mind, you hope that Ms. or Mr. X will respond to peer pressure, conform and the problem will vanish. It’s highly unlikely.
So, the next question is − coach up or coach out Ms. or Mr. X? Prior to that sit-down conversation, prepare your talking points. What characteristics will make this employee coachable? Is Ms. or Mr. X:
open to learning? (Ask for examples.)
confident enough to accept their limitations? (What are they and do you agree on the problem behaviors?)
ready to listen and appreciate the gift of criticism (Ask for examples.)
willing to persevere to change (How will change become visible immediately?)
If “coaching up” is the decision, then create a plan to monitor these changes (daily, weekly or biweekly check-ins and by whom). Expect the employee to summarize in writing this meeting and the commitment to change. That is your documentation. Review the plan for accuracy.
You may think this process is a “bit tough” on the employee in question. Yes, they may pass on the challenge and quit. But, in fact, you are helping Ms. or Mr. X succeed in the workplace and in life. You are also demonstrating leadership and supporting your team by addressing the aberrant behavior head on.
Founders: Interested in learning more about building core leadership skills? Send along your queries and workplace conundrums to me at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
Lynn G. writes: In my quest for a creative project manager, one that could jump start my team and create a little “healthy competition,” I may have made a mistake by hiring Tina (name changed). She is highly productive, but abrasive. In the wake of her accomplishments, Tina is slowly eroding the morale of the team. How do I keep Tina’s behavior in check without losing good staff ?
This is one of the biggest challenges for a young startup. Careful vetting, a preventative measure, is often cut short when you need better numbers fast. Identifying gaps or dysfunction inyour existing team is another option to employ before hiring a diva to save the day. Have you clarified your team’s performance expectations and offered clear paths to achieving those expectations? Have you made clear in the hiring process, what behaviors will not be tolerated? In a founder’s haste to please investors and increase sales, it is often common to overlook the weak links in one’s management skills. Since Lynn did not specify behaviors unacceptable to the company from the start, I advised her to spell them out for future hires.
At this point, however, Lynn needs to determine if Tina’s downsides exceed her considerable contributions. Aberrant behavior can tolerated if the behaviors are seen as those in service of the company; it is often a high performer who saves staff jobs.
For now, what is Tina doing that is disruptive enough to justify a warning or an opportunity to change? Does Tina break team communications? Interrupt others? Does she lie, attack, harass or mistreat staff? Does she make people afraid to talk? Do you spend too much time correcting her and making excuses to staff?
Lynn answered “yes” to most of these questions. Lynn’s next steps? A warning? Dismissal? Or is Tina coachable? In the next CE post, I’ll share the qualities that make an employee coachable and some ways for doing so.
Need help in coaching up your diva or aberrant genius? I can help. Contact me at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
If you are starting fresh with your venture, or even if you’re knee deep in a startup, it’s good to ask yourself: How healthy is my business at this point? According to Patrick Lencioni, an organizational health guru and author of several books on the topic, organizational health is the single greatest factor in determining the success of your startup.
An unhealthy organization is a stressful place to work, mired in confusion and conflict, and under-producing. An organization cannot survive for long under these conditions. Lencioni claims that the health and the ultimate success of an organization rely on two main components: a cohesive leadership team and communication clarity. Does your leadership team:
1) engage in productive, unfiltered discussion and debate?
Or do they stay quiet, nod but secretly disagree, or fear reprisal for pointing out problems?
2) leave meetings with clear, specific and agreed upon next steps?
Or, do people leave meetings with unresolved issues, confusion or partial buy-in?
3) hold each other accountable to commitments and behaviors that reflect the company’s core values? (Have you established core values to behave by?)
Or assuming that you have established core values, do your team decisions and behaviors deviate from those core values?
4) put the company’s priorities ahead of their individual department’s needs?
Or do department heads compete with each other, establish goals that are personally expeditious versus company-focused?
A founder who builds a healthy organization looks first to his or her leadership team − whether it be two of you or twelve of you. It’s easy enough to hire smart leaders (experts in strategy, finance, technology, and marketing) than it is to change unhelpful attitudes and behaviors after they’ve seeped into the guts of the organization. When gossip, sham participation and confusion abound, exceptional (and expensive) talents cannot be fully utilized. Much time and money is lost in rehabilitation. In my experience coaching communication in companies, a healthy organization saves time and money allowing leaders to perform to their potential.
In the next blog post, I’ll address the second distinctive feature of healthy organizations −communication clarity.
Need more simple and time-saving ways to improve your company’s health. Send your comments and questions to me at Rebecca@MindfulCommunication.com
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If you’re dedicated and willing to make the sacrifices needed to turn your side hustle into a full time business, keep these COREageous tips in mind:
In hindsight, you may have noticed these problems (a haughty attitude, lack of cooperation,frequent complaining, etc) coming early on, but chalked it up to Ms. or Mr. X being “new to the team.”
Lynn G. writes: In my quest for a creative project manager, one that could jump start my team and create a little “healthy competition,” I may have made a mistake by hiring Tina (name changed). She is highly productive, but abrasive. In the wake of her accomplishments, Tina is slowly eroding the morale of the team. How do I keep Tina’s behavior in check without losing good staff ? 
If you are starting fresh with your venture, or even if you’re knee deep in a startup, it’s good to ask yourself: How healthy is my business at this point? According to Patrick Lencioni, an organizational health guru and author of several books on the topic, organizational health is the single greatest factor in determining the success of your startup.
"It takes more than courage to be an Entrepreneur, it takes CORE."