How To Stop Killing Plants At The Office

I came across this quote on some social media platform: “Did I kill a plant? Or did the plant not have what it takes to thrive in this fast-paced environment?” It is quite a comical statement.

It implies all these things of getting too busy, or that I got this plant because I had this goal to make my house or apartment beautiful and bring these green things in, but forgot this basic necessity of watering the plant or making sure it had enough sunlight.

It’s funny because again, the plant is incapable of doing that by itself. When you lock it in a little pot and you lock it inside a house it has no opportunity for rain or nutrients from the soil or anything like that.

Just like most things that I encounter, I start thinking about it a little bit more at a deeper level. It really dawned on me, we do that a lot with our people. If you are the leader, you may be doing this with your people.

You may be going to these employees that come into your world, that come into your sphere and maybe they are working out and you are getting them going, and then they just boom, you got to let them go because they are not performing or doing the task.

You make these mental excuses that they just didn’t have what it takes. They weren’t dedicated enough. They weren’t able to keep up with me or keep up with our organization or keep up with our number one salesman over there.

It’s easy to make those excuses and shuffle blame to that person that is not able to make it in your fast-paced environment. These are things that you really need to think about.

An indicator of that is: are your people leaving after a month or two? Are you having to let them go after a month or two? What is it that is causing that turnover? Are you the one making that hat excuse?

It’s easy to generalize especially if you are on the older side of the employment spectrum. It’s easy to blame the younger generation. We have heard all the excuses and we have probably thought them all at various points of that career.

Don’t forget, you were once that person. You were that person to our older generation. We didn’t have the work ethic. Is it a disease when you are young? There are a thousand other things we’d rather be doing, and not everyone has that future thinking process.

Certainly, the marketplace has changed as well as far as opportunities for that, but we will save that for another day.

Ask yourself how you are killing your employees. How are you killing their drive? How are you killing their motivation? How are you killing their willingness to even just show up?

Are you the one that’s creating this environment that is so stressful, that is so demanding that very few human beings on the planet could survive on it, let alone Jeff down the street who just graduated college?

Are you trying to run that Navy SEAL-type level of business and forgetting that Navy Seals, through their training program, have an ungodly attrition rate? They do it on purpose because they are looking for the nines and tens.

Through investment of time, investment of energy, training, mentorship and leadership, these young people can also become great.

You have to understand that yes, it can take time. You may have that lack of recognition that you yourself are a high performer. You have been operating at such a high level because you are so dedicated. This is your passion. This is what you want to do in your life.

As you bring people in to help support, you probably came to a realization that you can’t be phenomenal without other people supporting you. So you need to do that, but did you bring them in with the expectation of their repeats of you?

That they are willing to work 16–18 hours a day to make it happen? That’s just not the case, because they are not you. They are not necessarily the ones with that entrepreneurial spirit or that dedication to your mission.

That doesn’t mean that they can’t be good teammates or that they can’t be good employees. You just have to show them the way.

A quick way that we can kill those employees is we expect them to perform like us. We forget or we turn a blind eye to the fact that they don’t have our experience, they don’t have our resources and they don’t have our knowledge.

Are you providing them those resources or are you starving them of those resources and expecting them to just figure it all out on their own?

Maybe you weren’t given those resources. You had to figure it out on your journey. You didn’t have that mentor. Certainly, there is an aspect of them learning and figuring it out on their own.

However, you cannot starve them of the resources in order to do that, or the time or the energy. You cannot starve them of their journey to get where you are at or where you want them to be, and have them do it all in the dark and totally blind.

You are throwing blame at the plant, despite the plant having no ability, opportunity, or environment to succeed on its own. Sink or swim situations are never fun. You have probably been in that kind of situation too.

Be that type of leader that throws that life preserver to them. You are not out there kicking for them, you are not jumping in the water and saving them from drowning or anything, but you are giving them something to hang on to.

With that assistance, they can learn to kick and then eventually they learn to swim, and then eventually they become Michael Phelps.

People will surprise you once you start investing in them like that. Certainly you will get people that will take advantage of it, but that’s part of the process for you as well.

Don’t judge people too early, don’t judge people too widely. People are people and we are all different from each other, despite some stereotypes and some commonalities in certain areas.

Don’t be afraid to ask people if there is something that they are not getting from you to help them be successful. Ask the types of questions that help dig and find the true issues.

That’s your job to help them discover that and find that if you are a leader.

Have you ever had someone invest in you that helped you become who you are today?

The first step to becoming the leader you were meant to be is to join our VIP Leadership Mastermind. We offer weekly LIVE trainings on relevant Leadership topics as well as Sales & Marketing for your business as well as live Q&A (and maybe even a SPECIAL BONUS when you join!) Click (or copy/paste)?https://www.vipleadershipmastermind.com ?today!

Learn The Strategies To Build A High Quality Team Of?Self-Motivated, Dedicated And Growth-Minded Team Members?(So You Can Increase Your Client Acquisitions And Scale Your Business To The Next Level!)

Join?https://www.vipleadershipmastermind.com ?now!