Creating a High-Performance Team

Culture | 0 comments

Creating a High-Performance Team

 

If you lead a team, are a part of a team, or want to increase your personal performance, here are the 5-main areas I’ve learned as a 27-year, five-time business owner that support us in working collaboratively, finding our creativity and increasing our performance.

1. Vision & Values: A Must For A High-Performance Team

Vision: Clarity precedes awareness, and awareness precedes making better choices.

Establishing a clear vision of where you want to go and grow your business or career is how you’ll know what to focus on, when, and WHY.

So often we feel we don’t have the ‘luxury’ to slow down and make sure where we’re heading is in fact, where we want to go. If you don’t know where you’re heading, how will you know what to focus on? How will you know what to have your teams focus on?

Values: Our Vision is where we’re heading. Our Values are what help us to get there.

Choose five specific values that embody the essence of the business or career you’re building. Take a look at where your values are present in, or absent from, your choices and direction of your business or career (…and relationships).

Ask yourself, how do you embody these value in your choices and actions each day?

Values hold us to a different standard for managing our time and achieving our vision.

2.Culture & Leadership: The Fuel For A High-Performance Team

An interesting statistic: 75% of employees say their boss is the most stressful part of their job. According to Gallup, people leave bosses, not companies (unless the company is promoting that type of leadership).

How you lead your team will impact their productivity, collaboration, innovation, and your bottom line.

Be clear on the culture and leadership style in your business. If you don’t understand your own culture, how will you know how to hire the right people to fit into it?

3. Time & Energy Management

So many people come to me saying they have difficulty managing their time. I’d say it’s right up there in the top 1-3 struggles that trip most people up on their way to success (..to be clear, success according to what it is for them, not what others need, expect or want for/from them).

I say it’s not time management; it’s priority management. We cannot go horizontal and vertical at the same time. If you have more than 1 or 2 priorities, you don’t have priorities; you have a to-do list (one that is probably not closely aligned with specific goals or your vision).

Having a clear vision helps you cut away the non-essentials and focus on your long-term vision which will minimize ‘issues’ with time management.

Be aware of how your energy is impacting your team, your clients, your environment in your business…and adjust accordingly.

 

4. Systems & Quantification

It’s about creating a well-oiled machine, not reinventing the wheel. Establish systems around what you repeatedly do so you can focus on what it takes to achieve your vision, and not feel like it’s Groundhog Day…again.

Once you have your systems in place, you can then quantify your efforts. Is that marketing strategy you have in place working, is there a glitch somewhere in the implementation of it? Does the system for onboarding new clients work efficiently, or is it missing a step?

5. Accountability & Implementation

Accountability is something many of my clients want (and need). Someone to hold their vision up for them to see, and keep directing them back to it with each choice.

Here’s the thing, we’re more apt to let ourselves down, but we are far less likely to let our team down.

Working together, collaborating, inviting conversation…moving out of our silos and into a community that supports us and holds us accountable to our vision, and the vision of the team is what motivates us to get into action, implement, succeed, and support each other.

One more thing, keep the Law of Linkage in mind…link ALL your choices, actions, and communication back to your vision and values of who you want to be and the business or career you desire to build, and you won’t go wrong.

I’d love to hear from you.  What supports you in creating a high-performance team?  Could you use some help clarifying your vision, establishing your culture and leading your team? Let’s set up a time to chat, I’d love to support you. Click Here to schedule a Clarity Call.

3-Strategies to Silence Fear and Amplify Success

Fear of Failure, growth, Self Growth, Self-Doubt | 0 comments

Fear of Failure

As a business strategist for entrepreneurs and business owners, one thing I frequently see is:

Our fear of failure is creating what we’re trying so desperately to avoid, failure itself.

I know this through experience.

I see this with my clients.

I hear it in conversations with friends, colleagues, workshops given, and conversations shared.

You want to reach more potential clients and know creating videos is what will gain you more visibility (and credibility) with your ideal client…yet you consistently busy yourself with other things because of the fear of looking ‘not so perfect’ on camera and continue to struggle with financial stability.

You cannot be a brand and be invisible

 

You have an employee that continues to do a poor job or has issues with boundaries. Yet you keep her on because at least you know where you need to pick up the slack with her… who knows what issues the next person might bring. (Say nothing about the fear of how long it will take to train a new person)

Not only does this create resentment and an unhealthy work environment, but it also reinforces the UGR’s (Unwritten Ground Rules) about what’s acceptable practice in your business.

You want to take your business in a new, more inspired and aligned direction, but fear keeps you second guessing whether you know what you’re doing, or if you have what it takes. So, you continue doing the same each week, feeling unfulfilled, exhausted and depleted at the end of the day.

Don’t fear failure, fear a lackluster life.

 

We’re always watching ourselves…SO much more closely than anyone else is, trust me.

My Shihan used to say “Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing or thinking, they’re too concerned with themselves to notice (for long anyway).

Here’s the thing:

Fear gets in the way of our joy, success, fulfillment, AND our profitability.

Fear will mess with your clarity and high-level thinking.

When your MIND is focused on keeping you safe, it takes away from your ability to be present, to focus, to stretch, to get things done, and to be strategic in your thinking (long and short-term).

How much joy and fulfillment (and success) can you experience in your work and life, if fear is the constant soundtrack running in your head?

People who have succeeded the most, have failed the most. Period. (I want to be clear here, success according to what each person defines as success for themselves, not what society, family, or peers have defined success to be)

Here are three things I believe about fear and failure in business (and in life, to be real):

Fail fast. Fail forward. Fail often.

As promised, here are my strategies for silencing fear and amplifying success:

  1. Recognize what triggers fear for you. Is it a person, a situation, a belief…is it a story from your past that’s no longer relevant or serving you? Get clear on the trigger so you can set structures in place that will allow you to see fear for what it is, a thought in your head (not the saber tooth-tiger waiting to attack). You can then make decisions from a more grounded and empowered place rather than fear.

 

  1. Be vigilant about monitoring your thoughts. Will your thought (fear) propel you towards your goal, or will it keep you safe and playing small? Which of these are more important to you? What is it that you want from this one big beautiful life, and will you allow fear to get in the way of that?

 

  1. Discern between legitimate concerns and what’s simply fear. Take a moment to play your fear out to the end game. Are your thoughts binary/ black & white, with no curiosity?  That’s fear-based thinking and should be challenged. Bring in some curiosity about what would need to happen. Instead of “I don’t have what it takes”, ask “what would I need to make this happen.”

 

What do you do when you experience fear? What tips and tools support you in seeing it for what it is (a thought), and navigating your way through it? I’d love to know, drop a comment below.