Being nice is not enough.....

I briefly worked for a business in my twenties that constantly had “bad” staff. In fact turn over was so high some staff only stayed a month. I remembering asking the CEO about this and he said we just can not get the right people. After I worked there for three months I had my review. I was asked some very clear questions about my thoughts and I answer them honestly. Clearly this is not what the CEO wanted to hear. Sales figures are sales figures and they state a very clear picture to what is going on in the business.

The question for this CEO was is it the staff or is it the leadership ? If this CEO only took on 5 percent or even 10 percent of the responsibility what difference would this had make? If there is massive turnover in staff then the question needs to be asked “What is going on ?”

CFO asks CEO “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave? CEO answers “What happens if we don’t and they stay?"

Lesson number one here (and it may not be easy) is if you want to do well in business you must take one hundred percent responsibility for everything. You have to give up all your excuses. Every single one of them !

Everything you are experience today is the result of choices you have made in the past.

What if the CEO asked the first person that resigned “why?” And what if then he “listened” and took “action”

It could be that the HR Manager was not hiring with the right alignment to the company. It might be that the lines of communications were not clear. It might have been that the culture in the company was negative or it might have been no one liked the soup they served for lunch.

The turn over in staff made the CEO believe that it was difficult to get “good” staff. This is called a limiting belief. It suited him to think that as it was easier than looking for the underlying issue. The turnover of staff is a symptom of poor leadership.

Tim Farris said “People will always take unhappiness over uncertainty” I am wondering how unhappy you need to be to break the cycle ?

If you keep doing what you have always done you will keep getting what you have always got! You have to give up blaming and you have to give up complaining ! How much energy does that take? If you are unsure get on Facebook and read some of the negative posts. The most interesting thing is that these posts often get the most attention. The question is here what are you getting from blaming and complaining ?

If you have a complaint then who are you telling ? If you are telling everyone at the water cooler that your husband is spending too much time watching footy on TV how can they help change the situation ? The only person who needs to hear about it is the only person who can do something about it - your husband ! (You could call the cable TV company and cut off his access to footy - haha) In the end he can still spend too much time watching the TV he just might watch something other than footy.

You either create or allow everything that happens to you. Think about it We all do get “alerts” That gut feeling, clues, inklings and suspicions. Often we become emotional about a situation and push down the emotion. Every notice that these emotions then get stronger and stronger ? Your emotions are there as flags of awareness.

I recently did something I knew was not good for me. I did it because it was easier in the short term but in the long term it caused me more pain. Why did I do this ? For a few reasons, one is because it has been a pattern and two because I did not really think about it and it looked easier. I know I can be impulsive and I know that I find it hard to say “no” (I always think now that “no” to others is a “yes” to me) A friend told me once take a glass of water to every meeting then take a long sip before you say anything. As it is not yet easy for me to say “no” I have replaced it with “I will think about that” The glass of water gives me time and reminds me not be impulsive with my yes !

Pay attention....your results do not lie !

I worked with a man named John, who I knew socially and was a nice guy. I really like him and everyone really liked him. Our working situation was not great however. Each night I would come home and tell my flat mate how John behaved. We would both be confused and say but he is such a nice guy ! What I didn't know and what I learnt working with him is that he took responsibility for his situation but put no action behind it. In other world he did not walk his talk.

John would agree, understand, and take responsibility for the situation - it was all lip service there simply was no action behind it. Now you can fool some of the people for some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. When you work closely with another person and spend a lot of time with someone you see their true colours.

John always knew what to say. He did not know how to put the action behind it but more importantly he would not ask for help. He hid behind his "nice guy" smile. He was like a man drowning a meter from the boat refusing to admit he could not swim and needed help. It was frustrating to watch and annoying how many people he hurt by his refusal for help.

In other words saying “I take full responsibility for my situation” is very different than believing it and living it. How can you tell the difference ? Is there action behind the taking of responsibility. For example John would accept responsibility, he would apologise but that is as far as it would go. He never asked “what can I do to fix this situation ?” Nor did he fix the situation he created by following through with actions to support his words. After listening to John for a while I understood that the words had no meaning because they had no integrity, it was clear John has leant what to say.

There is a very simple way to apologise and I feel the same can be used for taking responsibility.

1. Acceptance - I am responsible / I apologise for the situation (leave all justification aside - and absolutely no “but” )

2. Ask the Question - what can I do to move the situation forward ?

3. Action - follow through with actions to ensure the situation moves forward

REMINDER HERE:

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Yoda - The Empire Strikes Back

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