Have you ever had an employee come to you with an idea or proposal to address a particular situation to which you answered with one of the following replies?

“That’s a great idea, but let’s shop this around a bit first.”

“I agree that we need to change this, but I’m not sure now is the best time.”

“It’d be nice if we could offer this, but I don’t think we can afford to right now.”

All of these responses sound understanding and appreciative of the employee’s input. And yet, notice how the use of “but” in each reply serves to effectively stop any further discussion or deeper examination of the proposal beyond this initial encounter.

Granted, there are times when leaders need to hold back eager employees because the measures they are suggesting might not be the best in terms of addressing a given problem the organization is facing. Unfortunately, such responses can also inhibit your employees’ sense of creativity and with it, your organization’s ability to innovate if the motivation behind this resistance is based on factors other than ensuring the collective success of your team.

With this in mind, here are four questions leaders can ask themselves to find out if they are letting their ‘buts’ get in the way of helping their team to succeed and thrive. Click here to continue reading »”Is Your ‘But’ Getting In The Way Of Your Team’s Success?”

As a gardener, I enjoy this time in the summer because you get to step back from your garden and appreciate what all that hard work you did in the spring and early summer has given rise to. This time of the year is also an ideal time to review how the plants are faring in your garden so you can anticipate what changes might need to be made in the upcoming fall or spring.

Walking by the various gardens around my house, I noticed how certain flowers planted a few years ago were now doing a great job filling out what used to be bare spots in the garden. At the same, I also noted which perennials would need to be transplanted in the fall given how they were beginning to outgrow their current place in the garden.

Now, it wasn’t always the case that we had a thriving garden full of multi-coloured blooms and various kinds of foliage. In the first few years when we started working on our garden, it felt more like a losing battle with nature given how many plants we lost to pests, problematic growing conditions and who knows what else. Although it was frustrating, those early years provided us with some valuable lessons about our garden, lessons we’ve since used to create a garden we could enjoy and admire.

After reviewing the steps I took over the last few seasons to get my garden to this point of abundance and sustainability, I noticed that there were some interesting parallels that could be drawn to the process of how to go about creating a strong and successful team. And so, I’d like to present these four valuable lessons I learned from my garden which can help you through the process of building and developing a successful team for your organization: Click here to continue reading »”4 Lessons On Team-Building I Learned From My Garden”

If there’s one thing that many of us share as a common goal or objective it’s to be successful in our endeavours, whether it’s being successful in our career, helping to build a successful organization, or being successful in our efforts to raise happy and fulfilled children.

Of course, while we all aim for success and get inspired from reading or hearing about the successes others have achieved, a recent conversation with a friend brought to mind thoughts about how we define what success means for ourselves and for those we lead.

Michael is the president of a small business company he started seven years ago after being laid-off from a company where he worked for almost a decade. As is the case with most entrepreneurs, he started up his company not only to put his skills and experience to full use, but also to answer the lack of opportunities present in his industry by creating such options for himself. Of course, like most small business owners, Michael has endured his own share of highs and lows, but now his company appears to be entering that sweet spot we often associate with a maturing organization.

We got together recently for a cup of coffee to catch up and share stories about our kids and work. During our chat, Michael told me about some of his team’s recent accomplishments and other developments underway after which I congratulated him for the successes his organization had achieved.

While he thanked me for the kind words, he seemed more distracted than satisfied and so, I asked him what was wrong. Michael said that although he was proud of his team’s efforts and happy that his organization had attained these objectives, he didn’t feel as successful as those around him were praising him to be.

He went on to tell me that while he wouldn’t want to go through the grief of starting a company again, when he achieved a goal or milestone in those first few years, he really did feel like he was successful. Now, though, he admitted that the attainment of these goals felt more like “part of the process of growing an organization” than something that would make you feel personally successful.

As we compared his past accomplishments with those made more recently, it was clear that Click here to continue reading »”Do You Have A Meaningful Relationship With Success?”

A few days ago, I decided to change a photograph that’s been on display for the last several years in one of the picture frames which currently grace my desk. The photograph was a picture I had taken of my girls several years ago on one of those days from summer which we tend to look back on fondly through a soft-focus lens. Of course, in the time since that photograph was taken, my girls have grown up and it seemed overdue for this photograph be replaced by a more recent memory of our time together.

Although the act of replacing this photograph was fairly mundane, I still found myself being much more aware of this picture frame’s presence on my desk. Naturally, my first assumption was that this was simply a result of the new image staring out at me from that frame. However, what I realized was that this greater sense of awareness regarding this picture frame on my desk had less to do with the image itself and more to do with the fact that it had changed from something familiar and consistent, to something new and different.

What’s also interesting is how Click here to continue reading »”Taking Another Look at Leadership and Change”