Project Management – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Prioritizing Your Efforts with Strategic Filters

November 22, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

Strategic filters can help you prioritize your efforts based on the objectives of your organization.

Once you’ve created a list of initiates that you’re going to pursue to help you achieve your vision, you need to evaluate those initiatives according to objective criteria for comparing them to one another. Because ultimately you need to prioritize those initiatives. The ones you’re going to pursue are the ones that meet the majority of your objective functions.

I like to use a tool that I call strategic filters for doing this evaluation. These strategic filters are going to be based upon the objective functions of your organization and the goals that you find to be important. Once you’ve constructed your strategic filters, you’re going to assess every single initiative relative to that set of filters.

Let’s say our company is growing and we’re also trying to expand internationally and we really want to launch some new products. So we’re going to create two types of filters. The first filter set is going to be qualitative, the second filter set is going to be quantitative. So I may construct evaluation filters that look at things like, “Is the product new? Is it going to leverage our existing brand? Is it white label and non-branded? Is it going to help us be global or does it focus on domestic markets? And lastly, is the product simple or is it going to be complex to launch?”

Those qualitative filters will help me assess those products and those initiatives based upon my goal of taking my brands global. Once I’ve decided if they’re a fit with the qualitative filters, I also need to look at the numbers. I may have three sets of numbers that I consider as my financial filters. I may look at the net present value of the initiative. I might consider the internal rate of return of that initiative. So if I invest money, what’s the return I’m going to get on it? And lastly, I might look at the impact of that initiative on my total growth rate for the organization. Having this complete set of filters will enable me to evaluate initiatives and identify the ones that are going to drive the most objectives as well as rule out or deprioritize the ones that don’t help me achieve my goals.

So your set of strategic filters should be based upon the objectives of your organization. As you evaluate your initiatives against them, you’re going to decide whether it passes a filter or fails. You can use a high, medium, low as you evaluate each initiative against those filters. Having done this evaluation, you’ll be prepared to move into a prioritization process.

Want to learn more about building high-performing teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to build high-performing teams. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

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Balancing Your Team’s Workload

November 15, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

Consider these five criteria when distributing work to your high-performing team.

Another key task as the leader of a high performing team is how you distribute and balance work across the members of that team. It needs to be done fairly. Note, I didn’t say equally. Work allocation needs to be done fairly because you want perceptions of equality and you want people to work on things they’re good at but also that they’re excited by.

There are five criteria to think about as you think about distributing work.

First, for priority. Priority needs to drive everything. It’s based on the teams and the organizations goals. If a project is a top priority and somebody’s available to do that work they get that work, and you need to allocate it appropriately.

Second, consider the skill set of the people where you’re thinking about distributing the work. If they have the right skill set, you’re going to get a high quality result. This also prevents people from failing. You’re giving them something they can be successful with.

Next, consider availability. All things being equal in terms of priority and skill set, who is free to do the work? Who has the bandwidth? You should not be shifting resources from one project to another when you have available resources to pick up that new project. If you start shifting resources around between projects when you have available resources elsewhere, you’re going to lose momentum on that first project, and that project might fail.

Next, you have to think about the development opportunity this project might present for that person, because that’s how you’re going to take your team to the next level of performance.

The last consideration is, “Does somebody have an interest in it?” If someone is really interested and really passionate about a project, you should let them take it on. They’re going to be really motivated, excited to do it, and hopefully their performance will follow. One caveat here: Make sure people don’t just gravitate to the work they enjoy doing and they stay away from things that they’re not comfortable with because they’re going to end up getting pigeon holed and they’ll be very narrow in their focus.

If you think about all these considerations as you distribute work across that team, it’s going to ensure that you tackle the highest priority projects with the resources who have the right skills to do it. It’ll be balanced in a way where you’re going to execute the project and develop your people at the same time.

Are You Uplifting Your Team? 4 Ways Leaders Create Positivity

November 13, 2023/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Dr. Sam Adeyemi offers insights to business executives and C-suite professionals on creating positivity as a team leader.

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Sam Adeyemi, author of Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Here is something not every leader is ready to hear: You are the most powerful force behind the positivity in your workplace. If that positivity were the heavens, then you would be Atlas — or, at least one of his arms. So how do you cultivate positivity and find a healthy outlet for any dissatisfaction? You can start with these four step-by-step tactics for becoming a more inspiring and empathetic leader.

1. Look within yourself.

One of the most popular quotes from Carl Jung, noted Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, speaks to this exact issue: “Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.” You can find this quote all over social media and cataloged on websites promising a list of quotes that will “change your life.” And, while its surface-level message of finding peace within yourself understandably resonates with many, there is even more going on here than this small excerpt betrays to the reader.

Jung was describing a war between the Self and the collective noise of your outside reality. Any growth you hope to facilitate starts with you, which means you can’t hope to succeed until you know yourself and recognize your own opportunities for growth. Your ability to manage sources of negative energy and uplift your team in the workplace begins and ends with your own inner strength. You must be willing to take an honest look at yourself as a leader, then grow accordingly.

Unfortunately, our natural reaction is to avoid problems and circumvent confrontation whenever possible — especially when we are confronting ourselves. After all, difficult conversations are difficult for a reason. They often force us into awkward perspectives or unflattering looks at our own actions. Still, these internal conversations are essential to preparing yourself to improve morale and sustain productivity among others.

2. Work at the roots.

There is a type of bamboo tree grown in China that takes five years to reach maturity. What’s most astonishing, however, is that the plant remains hidden underground for the first four years of its life. For over 1,400 days, the tree is watered and fertilized at its roots with no real signs of progress for its caretakers. Then, in just over a month, it erupts from the ground with almost frightening urgency and grows up to 90 feet tall.

The “roots” of something are its foundational center — what feeds and supports its existence. Alongside the heart, there is no better metaphor for the “core” or the lifeblood of a team. Yet these roots are not easy to access. Much like the roots of the natural world, they are buried underground and operate according to their own schedule.

When a successful leader is approaching a problem within their team, they must discover the root of the issue that’s causing the problem and only then actively work to provide a solution. Was there adequate direction and communication from the beginning? Were the expectations clear and concise? When and where did productivity break down? Once this line of questioning begins, the best leaders find an opportunity to empower other team members to offer solutions.

3. Don’t absorb negativity — redirect it.

You probably already know that magnets can either attract or repel each other. Depending on which “poles” of the magnet you are trying to push together, they might snap toward each other in an instant, or you might find it virtually impossible to connect them directly. In the world of magnetism, opposite poles attract each other while identical poles repel each other. Simple, right?

However, there is no magnet for attracting or repelling the sources of negative energy among your workforce — it’s just not that simple. And, even if it were, those sources of negativity would change on a daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly basis. For successful and empathetic leaders, maintaining positivity in the workplace begins with identifying the negative energy itself, then discerning what might repel that energy or even turn it positive. Dissatisfaction within your team is a perpetual drain on morale that will never go away on its own, which means your only recourse is to neutralize that negativity or transform it into positive action.

4. Embrace empathy and sincerity.

In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the wise and stoic Atticus Finch offers up plenty of advice to his young daughter, Scout. One of my favorites is that you cannot truly understand a person until you “climb into [their] skin and walk around in it.” This adage is repeated in countless forms, the most popular being to “walk a mile in a person’s shoes.” That said, I think the version we get from Mr. Finch is more poignant than all the rest. It is not enough to slip on someone’s shoes — we must think holistically. It is not enough to walk for a mile — we must walk until we achieve understanding.

Empathy is essential for any leader that hopes to understand and inspire their team members. Empathy is about caring and curiosity, which makes it the perfect jumping-off point for gaining traction within your team. Your empathy and sincerity are your first lines of defense against negative energy, helping alert you the moment any dark clouds descend on the workspace. The most successful leaders use this empathy to direct their personal touchpoints, keeping the skies sunny whenever possible.

Start Small. Start Positive.

As a leader, you have an immense (and sometimes daunting) power to cultivate or suffocate the positivity within your workforce. The entire process starts with you — with self-examination — and ends with a team that understands its own limitations and demands empathy for everyone.

Atlanta-based Dr. Sam Adeyemi (SAY: Ah Day yeh me) is founder and executive director of Daystar Leadership Academy (DLA). More than 45,000 alumni have graduated from DLA programs, and more than 3 million CEOs and high performing individuals follow him on top social media sites. Dr. Sam’s new book is Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership. He holds a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership from Virginia’s Regent University, and is a member of the International Leadership Association. He and his wife, Nike (say Nee keh) have three children and founded Daystar Christian Centre in Lagos, Nigeria. Learn more at SamAdeyemi.com.

Creating Chemistry Between the Members of Your Team

November 8, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

Chemistry and trust are what differentiates an average team from a high-performing team.

It’s great to have a clear vision and mission and a nice set of prioritized initiatives, and you’ve got all the right people. But what starts differentiating a team from a high-performing team is chemistry and trust between the members of that team. These intangibles are some of the most critical elements of building that team, but they’re also some of the most elusive ones to build and to capture.

You need to understand it’s about personalities and shared beliefs. Make sure everyone on your team is involved in the interview process because candidates will show different sides of themselves to different people. And sometimes, those sides can be unattractive detractors from what you’re trying to build.

When I was a consultant, we were bringing in another consultant onto the team, and that person interviewed very well with the other members of the consulting staff. At the end of the interview process, we all got together in the team room, and we talked about this candidate. And all of us were very excited about hiring him. And then we stopped and we asked our front desk receptionist what she thought of him. She said, “He was incredibly rude. He spoke down to me. He acted like I didn’t matter.” That individual did not get an offer of employment from us. And he’s probably still wondering why.

To assess what people are like, you can use some standard tools out there like The Myers-Brigg Type Indicator, Personalysis, and other standard evaluation tools to help people understand each others’ personalities and their styles and their preferences. Don’t just do it for candidates. Sit down and do it with the entire team. It’s not critical for people to have the same personalities; actually, it’s quite detrimental. What matters here is you have to help the members of your team understand and respect the other person’s personality and how they like to work with others. Some people may have shared experiences, or they may have a shared ethnicity or geography that they’re from. Help them find some point of commonality that they can build from.

Once you’ve figured out the chemistry of the team and you have people with the right fit, you need to start building trust between the members of that team. Trust is about shared experiences and predictability. Shared experiences show people how others perform and react during stressful situations. You may look at putting them on a big project together, where people can share in experiences and build stories together and feel like they accomplish something with one another. The impact is people start feeling like they can rely upon one another to achieve the goal. They start feeling responsible for each others’ well being and looking out for each other.

Now, the second element of trust is that predictability. I want to know how my colleague is going to react in a certain situation, because then, when they tell me they’re going to do something, and I’ve seen them behave in a manner that’s consistent with that in the past, I am much more likely to trust what they’re telling me they’re going to do. And if I understand that person’s values on top of having that predictability, well, that’s a really strong bond between me and that other member of the team, because then I really start believing what they tell me they’re going to do because it’s consistent with their beliefs and their past performance.

So, if, as a leader, you’re able to step back and look at the team and assess who’s going to be a good fit, how to get the right chemistry between the members of the team, and then get them trusting one another because they have shared experiences, and they’re predictable to one another, that team is going to gel very quickly and start functioning as a team instead of as a group of individuals.

Recruiting the Right People for Your Team

November 1, 2023/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

One of the most exciting aspects of building a high-performing team is recruiting people to be members of that team. Follow these three tips to improve your recruiting process.

One of the most exciting aspects of building a high-performing team is recruiting people to be members of that team. There’s nothing better than finding that really talented person who wants to come work with you.

As you think about doing this recruiting and finding the right people, you need to understand how to create role descriptions based on the team’s skill needs. Experience-based role descriptions might sound like, well, “The individual must have five years of experience on a small business credit union underwriting team working at a small mid-Atlantic community bank with multiple branches.” That’s a really specific description and there are very few people who probably meet those requirements. So you’ve shrunk the recruiting base that you can find somebody in. Instead, write skill-based job descriptions. Think about the initiatives you’re pursuing and the skills this person has to have. For example, “The individual must have the ability to perform complex financial analysis and combine those results with judgment to make effective decisions.” Those skill-based job descriptions open the applicant pool. It’ll enable you to get those new people in faster.

Next, in terms of hiring, once you have that skill-based job description, think differently in terms of where you go to find people because different perspectives and different experiences are going to bring new ideas into your organization. Additionally, by looking at nontraditional sources, you’ll probably have less competition for that great talent. So instead of recruiting from Harvard Business School where every organization in America is trying to hire those graduates, perhaps you look at different schools where you have less competition. Maybe try and pick off the top two people at the Ohio State University’s Business School.

Last, when you hire this person, don’t just hire for the role that you want them to do. You have to give them head room to grow into. People want to be excited and challenged. They want the opportunity to build their skills, which builds their personal marketability. When you hire them, make sure they can do 70% of the role you’re hiring them for, and they’re going to need to learn 30%. Because when you hire somebody who has 100% of the skills required for the role you’re bringing them into, that’s a very safe bet for you as a recruiter and as a leader, but think about it from that individual’s perspective. If they can come in and do all elements of that job on day one, it’s going to get pretty boring, pretty quickly. After about six months, they’re going to become disenfranchised and frustrated, and start looking for more challenging opportunities. Most people, especially ones that are going to gravitate toward the high-performing team you’re trying to build, are looking at that career path and thinking about how they can grow because that’s a very strong source of personal motivation for them.

So again, as you’re writing these job descriptions and going out and recruiting that talent, think about skill-based versus experience-based role descriptions. Look in nontraditional places for the people who have those skills. And when you hire them, think about their growth path ahead. Make sure they’ve got room to grow and develop as individuals.

Creating the Right Mix of Skills on Your Team

October 25, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

By understanding the technical skills, the functional skills, and the role-based skills required to deliver on your team’s mission, you’re going to be able to create the right mix of people with the right skills that will help that team succeed.

As the leader of a high-performing team, you’re personally responsible for making sure your team has the required set of skills to succeed and execute against all the initiatives that you have on your prioritization list. You need to evaluate your team’s mission. You need to look at the key initiatives. And then, you need to map out the skills and capabilities required to succeed. You have to assess your existing team and see which skills you have, which ones you don’t, and which team members might be detractors from what you’re trying to achieve.

You also have to think about and understand your team’s culture, which is driven by the vision of what you’re trying to achieve, as well as the broader organizational culture and figure out, do you team members fit within that culture? We’ve all seen people who are great performers and can get the task done, but they don’t work well with the other members of the team. Your job as a leader is to either help them fit in, or find resources who are going to be more appropriate fits for the broader team.

You have to think about several types of skills that are required as you build this high-performing team. First, technical skills. Perhaps it’s coding, or doing analysis, or writing, or creating documents. These are technical skills required to turn out the products and services your team is responsible for.

The second type of skill is functional skills, things like problem-solving, strategic planning, decision-making, communicating, and presenting. These are soft skills that people need to bring to the table, again to execute against the initiatives on your prioritization list.

The last type of skill is a little bit different than we traditionally think about, which I call role-based or cultural skills. These are things like, is this person a leader? Or can they fulfill the role of being the devil’s advocate? Are they your team optimist, the cheerleader?

Once you’ve identified the different types of skills you need, you then need to assess your team. List out what each of those people bring to the team.

Next, look at some of the skills or characteristics the person might bring that are detractors from performance. For example, if you have a creative team that’s trying to churn out a bunch of new ideas, but you have a balance that is focused more on those task masters who are saying, great ideas, but let’s focus and let’s get stuff done, the team might be out of balance with that set of skills. Those things can be detractors that will prevent that team from being high-performing.

Last, look at that list of required skills, going back to the initiatives you’re pursuing, and figure out which of those skill sets you have. Then identify the gaps. Your job as a leader is to identify the types of people you need and then go out and recruit and hire them.

How to Move From Managing to Leading

October 18, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Spend less time on administrative tasks and more time helping the members of your team grow.

One of the most critical resources that your teams need are access to you as their leader. And we forget a lot of times that they need that access. We get wrapped up in the day-to-day operations or the meetings that we’re attending, or emails and voicemails, and we as leaders are not spending our time giving that critical resource to our people to give them the guidance they need.

A lot of times, we follow that sequence that I just went through in terms of slotting our work. We start with the simple things, like administration and email and documents, and we end up spending less time on the feedback, the coaching, and the development. These are old habits that we learned as individual contributors because many of those tasks, like admin, email, project planning, and budgeting are individual contributor activities. Those are habits that we’ve built over time. But now, as leaders, we need to step into the broader responsibilities of thinking through relationships, problem-solving, and providing feedback to the members of our teams. We have to stop managing and start leading.

As you think about the work that you do, let’s look at two aspects of that work. First, consider the amount of time that you spend on something, from very little to a lot. Then, think about the impact that that has on the performance of your team, from very low to very high. I’ll bet if you look at your calendar, you’re spending a lot of time on administration. I think we’d all agree that has a pretty low impact on the performance of your team. Next, you probably spend a little bit less time on project planning and budgeting, and it has a slightly bigger impact. All the way up to providing feedback and development and coaching, which could have a very large impact on your people, but we’re probably spending very little time on that.

What I’ll ask you to do as a leader is flip that view. Let’s think about how we can spend less time on administration because it’s really low-value stuff, and start spending more time on problem-solving and generating ideas, and even more time invested in developing our people, coaching them, and building relationships with critical stakeholders in the organization. By reversing that mindset and putting more of our time on the tasks that really matter, your team is going to perform much better than if you’re holed up in your office doing email.

As you think about where you’re allocating your time as a leader, you need to be deliberate in terms of, “What’s my investment of time?” and “What’s the return I’m going to get on that time?” Hopefully, you can shift away from those day-to-day activities like email and project meetings, and spend more of your time with the members of your team, helping them develop, helping them grow. Because that’s what’s going to enable you to have a broader impact on the organization, versus answering a few emails.

Building a Resilient Team: A New Way to Look at Psychological Safety

October 16, 2023/2 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

Unlock resilience in your organization through psychological safety. Forge a strong workforce, thrive in modern challenges.

Today’s guest post is by Joshua Berry, author of Dare to Be Naive: How to Find Your True Self in a Noisy World (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

In a small, dimly lit workshop, a skilled blacksmith once molded raw iron into finely crafted tools. With the ringing of his hammer against the anvil and the heat of the forge, he created pieces of exceptional quality. This blacksmith, let’s call him John, had a reputation for producing durable and reliable tools that would withstand the test of time.

Fast forward to the present day, and John’s philosophy still resonates, but it has found a new application. Today, the raw materials aren’t iron and steel; they are the hearts and minds of your workforce. The hammer’s ring is now the sound of collaboration, and the heat of the forge represents the pressure and challenges of modern work environments. And just like John, who knew that a well-crafted tool requires care and precision, business leaders must understand that their workforce thrives when they create an environment of psychological safety.

In recent years, the idea of a “safe space” in the workplace has become somewhat of a buzzword, even a meme in some circles. For those who come from more “old-school” approaches to work, the concept may seem soft or unnecessary. The prevailing belief often leans towards “toughen up and show up to work.” However, in this article, we’ll explore a perspective that resonates with those who value grit and resilience, showing that providing care and psychological safety to employees is not about coddling but about forging a workforce of extraordinary strength.

The Resilience Dilemma

Imagine two individuals working side by side, both highly skilled and motivated. One has the resilience of a finely crafted tool, while the other, despite their potential, constantly buckles under the pressure. What sets them apart? Psychological safety.

Psychological safety is the foundation upon which true resilience is built. It’s not about shielding employees from challenges or eliminating stress. Instead, it’s about creating an environment where they feel safe enough to take calculated risks, voice their concerns, and learn from their mistakes.

In the world of the “old-school,” toughness is often equated with resilience. Employees are expected to handle stress, adversity, and criticism without showing signs of weakness. However, this tough-it-out mentality can have detrimental effects on both individuals and organizations.

The Hidden Costs of Toughness

The “toughen up” approach may seem effective on the surface, but it comes with hidden costs. Employees who feel unsupported or judged for expressing vulnerability are more likely to:

1. Burn Out: Suppressing emotions and stress can lead to burnout, which not only affects individual well-being but also hampers productivity and innovation.

2. Disengage: When employees don’t feel psychologically safe, they’re less likely to engage with their work or share innovative ideas, ultimately stifling creativity.

3. Exit: High turnover rates are often a consequence of workplaces that don’t prioritize psychological safety. Employees leave in search of environments where their voices are heard and respected.

4. Stagnate: Without the freedom to take risks and learn from failure, employees may become stagnant, and their development may plateau.

The Resilience of Psychological Safety

Now, let’s pivot from the “toughen up” mindset to a more appealing perspective for proponents of old-school work ethics: the idea that psychological safety is not about coddling but about building resilient, high-performing teams.

1. Encouraging Growth: Just as a blacksmith carefully shapes and tempers metal to create a durable tool, leaders can foster psychological safety to encourage the growth and development of their employees. When individuals feel safe to express their ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes, they are more likely to learn and adapt.

2. Boosting Adaptability: Resilience is not about enduring constant pressure without breaking; it’s about adapting and bouncing back stronger. Psychological safety encourages adaptability by allowing employees to speak up when they notice potential issues or opportunities for improvement. This adaptability is a hallmark of strong, durable teams.

3. Fostering Collaboration: Like the different parts of a finely crafted tool working in harmony, psychological safety fosters collaboration and teamwork. When individuals trust their colleagues and feel safe to share their perspectives, it leads to more effective problem-solving and innovation.

4. Retaining Talent: Just as the best blacksmiths take pride in the longevity of their creations, organizations that prioritize psychological safety retain top talent. When employees feel valued and supported, they’re less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.

Nurturing Psychological Safety

To convince those skeptical of psychological safety’s value, it’s crucial to highlight practical steps and tangible outcomes:

1. Open Communication Channels: Encourage open dialogue at all levels of the organization. Make it clear that feedback and concerns are not only welcome but also valued.

2. Lead by Example: Demonstrate vulnerability and openness as a leader. When employees see that it’s safe to express concerns or ideas, they’re more likely to follow suit.

3. Reward Innovation and Learning: Recognize and reward innovative ideas and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Show that the organization values growth and adaptability.

4. Training and Development: Invest in training programs that promote emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and active listening. These skills are essential for creating a psychologically safe environment.

In conclusion, for those who believe in the value of old-school work ethics, embracing psychological safety is not about making the workplace soft but about forging a workforce that’s resilient, adaptable, and capable of achieving extraordinary results. Just as the best blacksmiths take pride in crafting tools that stand the test of time, leaders who prioritize psychological safety are crafting teams that can withstand the pressures of the modern workplace and emerge stronger than ever.

Joshua Berry is a world-class facilitator of change. As an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and director of Econic, Joshua has spent the last two decades helping Fortune 500 companies and venture-backed startups evolve the way they work. Learn more at econic.co and joshualeeberry.com.

Accepting Failure

October 11, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

As much as we like to celebrate success, there are going to be failures. They’re not fun and they can derail a team if you don’t handle that failure well.

As much as we like to celebrate success, there are going to be failures. They’re not fun and they can derail a team if you don’t handle that failure well. When there is failure, the first thing is avoid blame and turn it into a learning opportunity. This is not about the individual. This is not personal. This is about behaviors and this is about choices we made that didn’t work out well. Find the opportunity to turn those into lessons learned and think through how future actions can be taken that will help you avoid these failures the next time around.

Here are some principles around dealing with failure:

First, fail as a team. Deconstruct the failure and understand what the root causes were. Identify all the places where the team could’ve improved. Was it was a process failure or a failure to provide information from one team member to another? Try to never make it about the individual and instead, look at the processes that the team is following and where those broke down.

Next, even when there’s failure, praise people for taking a risk. We’re always making risk reward trade-offs and if you’re not encouraging people to take risks, you’re going to get that risk averse culture where people are paralyzed and won’t make decisions. And if they’re not making decisions, you’re not going to get that upside. So, when you talk about failure, help people appreciate, “Here is the risk we took, here’s what we thought the odds were, and then here was the result and it didn’t work out well and here were the actual odds.” So next time around, how do we do this better?

Your job as a leader, in terms of success and failure, is making sure that you celebrate those successes and all forms of success every opportunity you get. Do so in a way that’s going to be targeted to the individual you’re trying to reward. When there’s failure, avoid making it about the individual and instead focus on, “What are the things that we did wrong as a team and what can we do differently the next time?”

Taking this healthy approach and balance between success and failure will continue to build momentum for your team and keep team members engaged and excited.

The Importance of Celebrating Success

October 4, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Success and failure are part of running a team day to day. You need to recognize and promote wins, because it’s going to build momentum for the team and make them feel like they’re accomplishing great things.

There are a lot of great ways to acknowledge success. You can give people bonuses, provide them visibility opportunities, maybe do some public recognition, give people increased responsibilities, and even promotions. And all of those are very effective ways to celebrate success of your team members. But remember, just because you think something is valuable doesn’t mean the team member will. You need to understand what personally motivates them and then reward them accordingly. Because if you’re not thoughtful about it, something you think as a reward is going to be horrible from that person’s perspective.

For example, if you have somebody on your team who is very introverted and you decide that you’re going to take their success and celebrate it by putting that person on stage in front of a large audience, that introvert might really hate that situation, and they’ll feel very uncomfortable. And even though you thought you were rewarding them and celebrating their success, you’ve turned it into a bad experience.

Or, for example, you have somebody who’s very happy in their current role. They like their level of responsibilities because it allows them to have a proper work-life balance. You decide they’re doing such a great job and you want to celebrate that success, so you’re going to give them a promotion with more responsibilities. Now they’re pulling their hair out and they’re very stressed out and unhappy because they really enjoyed their old role. That promotion isn’t a way to celebrate success. It’s actually a punishment.

So as you’re thinking about celebrating success for your people, put yourself in their shoes and ask, “What would that individual really value?” Be sure that you communicate that success to the rest of the team. It helps build momentum and creates a culture of winning among those team members. People will feel proud to be associated with their teammates who are doing such great things.

Providing Feedback to Your Team Members

September 27, 2023/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

By following this feedback model, you can remove emotions from your feedback conversations and help your people focus on improving their performance instead of getting defensive.

If we want people to improve, we have to give them feedback. Now, feedback can be really difficult because we feel like, “Maybe I might hurt their feelings, or I have to share an uncomfortable conversation, or I’m telling somebody who I really like and respect that they’re falling short in some regard.” So we avoid feedback, but that’s a huge mistake—especially as the leader of a high performing team.

I’d like to offer an example of a feedback model that can remove the emotion from it and help people focus on improving performance versus getting defensive. The model goes like this:

First, you’ll ask for permission to give somebody feedback and ensure, at that moment, that they’re open to receiving it. Their head may not be in it. They may have come out of a tough meeting or they’re in a rush to go to their next meeting, so making sure they’re ready to receive feedback is critical.

Next, they should let you know that they’re open to receiving that feedback. The next step really matters a lot in terms of removing the emotion from it. You’re going to offer a fact-based observation of something you saw them do, and then confirm that they know it happened so that you’re operating from a common base of fact. They should then confirm to you that they recall the event.

Then you need to let them know, “This is how that made me feel. This is how we that event impacted me. Or, this is how that event impacted somebody else on the team.” Then ask, “Can you see why your behavior impacted me that way?” Hopefully, they can then understand why you felt that way and put themselves in your shoes.

Now comes the request for change. Let them know specifically what behavior you want them to demonstrate going forward and ask them for their commitment to that behavior. Hopefully, they’ll commit to making that behavioral change. Then you thank them for being open to that feedback and for committing to the change, and ideally even offer them, “Let me know how I can help you make these changes if there are things I can be doing differently to support you.”As we walk through this feedback model, hopefully I’ve removed emotion from the conversation and helped them focus on a specific behavior and a specific change that’s delivered in a very non-threatening way.

As you think about providing feedback to your people, I encourage you to follow this feedback model and see how it goes.

Resolving Your Team’s Conflicts

September 13, 2023/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Your job as a leader is not to mediate conflicts and be a referee. Instead, you need to teach the members of your team how to resolve conflicts with one another.

More often than not, high performing teams operate in high pressure environments. And many times on a high performing team, you have some strong personalities at play. When you combine pressure plus strong personalities there are plenty of opportunities for conflict between the members of your team.

Your job as a leader is not to mediate those conflicts and be a referee. Instead, you need to teach the members of your team how to resolve those conflicts with one another. It’s going to help them build relationships, ultimately it will build their interpersonal skills, and it keeps you from having to dedicate a significant amount of time and energy every time somebody has a conflict with another member of the team.

Your job, when there’s conflict, is first to recognize it. Identify when you have team members who are butting heads and figure out what the root issue is. Then you should suggest that they go figure it out and come back to you when they’ve developed a solution on their own. Hopefully if they’re really high performers they can go in a room, hash it out, come up with a solution that will be acceptable to both of them.

However, there will be certain opportunities that you’re going to have to take advantage of to get involved in it and teach them how to resolve conflict better. When you do so, first sit them down and acknowledge the conflict. Hey look, I know you have a problem with this perspective that the other individual has. Get to the root of the issue and focus on the facts. Here are the facts, let’s remove the emotions from it. What do we disagree on? Then have them define a goal for resolution and what the desired behaviors should be in terms of how they perform with one another. Drive it to the level of specific behaviors where they had points of difference with one another. And then, teach them how to give constructive feedback to one another going forward so they can apply it in their day-to-day conversations with each other.

There will be times where they won’t be able to resolve the conflict on their own. And in those situations you’re going to need to mediate that conflict, but this is a last resort. If they can’t resolve the issue, talk them through the resolution but do so one step at a time. Don’t just jump to the end and say, I know what the answer is, here’s my decision, go make it happen. Because you’re not building their skills in doing so. Instead, talk them through it. Okay, what’s the issue? And have them describe it and have them figure it out. And then ask, what are the emotions that are involved here and why are those emotions coming up? And they’ll talk through that. Then ask them, how are those emotions getting in the way of a resolution?

So for each step of that conflict resolution process, all the way through identifying alternatives and desired behaviors, and then coming to a decision they can live with, you should walk them through that conversation rather then just giving them the answers. At the end, when they’ve identified a solution that’s acceptable to both of them, get their commitment to resolving the issue that way and more importantly set expectations that the next time there’s conflict between them, that they go through this process on their own, before they involve you to mediate the conflict.

By doing so, you’re going to build their skills and their capabilities, you’ll spend less time mediating conflict going forward, and your team members will be able to focus more on execution than arguing.

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