The Power of EmPowering and Empathy

Have you ever wonder why a team win matches or even better win championship under certain coach? Does the team member more important or the coach? Sometime you also see a strong team but can't win any trophy yet lead by the same coach for decade.

I want to take you all through this movie #CoachCarter that depict exactly all the points that I have mentioned above. He took up the job as the head basketball #coach at the school that he used to attend. The team is full of disciplinary issue and poor in academic.

Upon arrival to the school, Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) implement #rules and caused some #resistance in the team. He wanted to ensure the team not just play to win the #championship but held a noble character. Some of the players were so arrogant that they did not attend classes, speaking using foul language and disrespecting the school. In order to continue in the team, Coach Carter implemented few rules ie. Each offense eg. late for practice or foul language will end up with 500 push-ups or 100 suicides. If retaliate, the #punishment double up.

Coach Carter also suspended players from appearing in the match if they do not do well in their school grade. That has changed some of them to attend their classes and maintain their grade.

In the corporate, we have seen some employee refused to work on weekends while some are more than willing working through the late night. We have seen employee who refused to reply email, messages or answer calls after working hours that the manager needs to issue warning letter or email. On the other hand, there are employees who commit to all the above that their manager needed to remind them to take a rest and spend time with their family.

What are the key differentiation in the leadership that makes or breaks the team? Short and sweet answer is :

1. #EMPOWER
2. #EMPATHY

Ken Carter did not force them into doing anything that they don't want to. He just stating the rules that is if they want to continue playing in the basketball team, they need to do a) maintain 2.3 grade and b) attend the classes. The student can still choose not to study or attend the classes which means they are no longer able to play in the basketball team.

In the Corporate, how often do you know what your employee's #desire or #want? If you know what they want, you can relate that to what they need to do in their job in order to achieve that, you are simply empowering to make the decision themselves. Once they feel that they are making the decision by themselves, they own it and will take full #responsibility to do it well.

Ken Carter is strict and no nonsense but his heart is warm. There is a difference being #assertive and #firm vs #fierce and #vicious. Ken Carter celebrates his team #achievement, guide the team to #winning and #reward them but when they do not #perform or #behave, he will not hesitate to put them back in the straight line. He shows a lot of #care in his team to ensure they are not just a great basketball players but ultimately be a great person in life.

In the Corporate, how often do you show your# empathy toward your employee? Do you know the actual reason their #performance drop? Are you aware if they have any issue at home? Are you willing to go extra mile to lift their hand and head up to get them back on track?

Yes we can use #PIP (Performance Improvement Plan), #DI (Domestic Inquiry) or #Warning Letter but all those are just to instill fear so that they will do it. If we can use Empowering and Empathy, perhaps you do not even have to go to the first route to instill fear because when someone know that you care and concern, they will know how to respond to that with action.

There are quite a number of movies that show how the great teacher able to lead a group of students that were labelled as "#failure", "#hopeless" or "#rejected" to overcome all adversities and obstacle to become the brilliant students.

In life, it is easy to join a company full of superstars and then claim that you have been the great leader when the actual result was achieved by your team. If there is any non-performer, give them pressure and if not perform get rid of them. If this is the practice in the school, I supposed we have more and more students giving up on themselves faster than the clock ticks.

There is no one in life that want to fail in their life so when one is not performing, we as the leader needs to understand what and how to help them. It is truly fulfilling and purposeful if we can do that to an individual and that is how talent retention works toward the company favour.

DM me for a private consultation on how to lead a #HighPerformingTeam and #TalentRetention.