What do your people need from you?

The digital world has changed the way we interact and communicate with each other. It has exponentially increased the information that we share with each other. Every day I am surprised to learn how many leaders out there don’t invest the time they should into the development of their people.

It is time for a paradigm shift!

Eric Thomas talks about how <a href="http://etinspires.com/tgim-winners-win-and-losers-lose/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Winners Win and Losers Lose.</a> He uses many examples of sports franchises that always win and some that always lose. He makes some very valid points about leadership and culture.

These 3 practices can help create a winning culture with your team!
<h3><strong>1:1s</strong></h3>
My article, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141104114657-83086959-the-unknown-motivational-factor?trk=mp-author-card" target="_blank">“The Unknown Motivational Factor”</a> got a lot of buzz around how 1:1s can act as a catalyst for motivation. 1:1s are an important part of the development of every employee. The fact that you take the time to sit down with them and have an impactful conversation helps with 2 of the 3 motivational factors: mastery and purpose. (For more on these motivational factors, I recommend <a href="http://www.danpink.com/drive/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Daniel Pink’s Drive</a>.

<em>The Setup:</em>

The meeting should be scheduled in advance.  The employee should build their game plan or playbook prior to the 1:1.

<em>The Conversation:</em>

Start with a personal connection. There is nothing worse than starting a conversation with business. We aren’t machines. We are humans with emotions. I absolutely hate when a person sees me for the first time that day and immediately asks me about results. As the guys on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_Night_Countdown" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Monday Night Countdown</a> would say:  <strong>“C’Mon Man!"</strong>

Ask them what they want to talk about. This doesn’t have to be about business, even though it turns to business sometimes, but the understanding should be that they can bring anything they want to the table.

Review their plan. Ask about their successes. Ask them why they feel like they have these successes. Ask them how they can duplicate the successes in others (this step is skipped too often). Ask about their challenges. Ask them why they feel like they have these challenges. Ask how they feel like they can overcome them.  Ask how you can help them achieve their goals and overcome their challenges.

Leave the conversation with commitments from them and give them commitments from you and the leadership team on how you will help them!
<h3><strong>Living the Culture</strong></h3>
Every employee on your team should know the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141013011535-83086959-are-you-using-the-right-v-i-c-e-grip?trk=mp-author-card" target="_blank">vision</a>. If you ask them, they should immediately be able to tell you without thinking about it. In order to live the culture, it has to be a part of what everyone does daily.

What is your team fighting for daily?  What do you all want to achieve? What is the team's purpose?  How do we achieve it together?  How do we have FUN while doing it?

In order for us to live our vision out every day and to scale it to 240+ employees, we establish many different outlets. GroupMe allows us to stay in contact with all 240 employees to send updates, collaborate on ideas and strategies, deliver recognition, and just have genuine conversations.

We have Culture Parties. We call them parties because workshops, meetings, and events are too bland and boring.  The District Leadership practices humility and being human. The last culture party we did, I got challenged to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBZTk48zuJ8" target="_blank">water war </a>in 40 degree weather. Let me tell you how excited I was about that! Ha! But it isn’t about me. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140328014244-83086959-are-you-serving-as-a-leader?trk=mp-author-card" target="_blank">It is about my team</a> and my team loved it!

We incorporate motivation, inspiration and purpose. We recognize our top performers! We deliver our purpose and the impact that it has had on our people and our customers!

We beef up our knowledge with games like Family Feud, Jeopardy, Taboo and Heads Up. Now what fun would these games be unless the winners got prizes? Well they do. They get to pick the song and the losers have to bust out their best dance moves or lip sync, karaoke style!

We build teamwork with Nerf wars, making products out of random items, and creating 30 second infomercials about them.

We tie it all together with our vision and what we want to accomplish together as one unit.

Remember, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” ~Aristotle
<h3><strong>Development Programs</strong></h3>
6 years ago, I was sitting in a Wild Wing Cafe talking about employee development with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-carman-9990a525?authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=GYpe&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=830869591455322562570&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=61&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A830869591455322562570%2CVSRPtargetId%3A86810949%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary%2CVSRPnm%3Atrue%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH" target="_blank">Rob Carman</a> who I was mentoring at the time. We talked about how the employee development programs were mediocre at best. We set out from that day to create and change the development programs for our people.

We wanted to teach leadership skills, study previous leaders, talk about how to inspire and motive people, why emotional intelligence is important, how to have tough conversations, how to run a business, how to tell a story with your results, why structure and processes are important and how to coach effectively. So we did!

Now there are development programs for all levels of my organization and from those development programs there have been over 70 promotions (30% of my team) in less than 3 years.

"If you touch 1 person a day for 5 years you will have touched over 1500 people and if those 1500 people have touched 1 person a day that is over 10 million people you will have left a mark on in 5 years." ~ <a href="http://www.robinsharma.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Robin Sharma</a>

How are you progressing careers, shifting paradigms and impacting others?

Always available to learn, share experiences, or help in any way I can. Feel free to message me.