When someone on your team pesters you to get something low priority completed, how do you react?

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EKG Pulse Graph with Glowing Blue Line

Our reader poll today asks: When someone on your team pesters you to get something low priority completed, how do you react?

  • I firmly tell them, “No, I’ll do it when it’s time. Please don’t mention it again.” 34%
  • I ignore their pestering and get to it when I get to it. 22%
  •  placate them and keep saying “I’ll get to it soon.” 32%
  • I give in and just do it. Anything to get them to stop pestering me. 11%

Maintaining focus and priorities. It looks like most of you try to get the distraction to stop – either by being direct, ignoring the distraction, or placating with a “not now” response. Recognize that if they’re pestering you, they likely won’t stop until they get a firm answer either way. Whether that’s you giving in and just doing it or firmly telling them “no” they’ll need a definitive result and will keep bringing it up until they have resolution. Try giving them definitive answers. If the answer is “no” or “not now” then just say so. Ignoring them or placating them doesn’t stop the distractions and those distractions impact your productivity significantly. Step up and assert your priorities. It will alleviate anxiety for them and will reduce interruptions for you.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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How does your company handle times of extreme challenge?

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EKG Pulse Graph with Glowing Blue Line

Our reader poll today asks: How does your company handle times of extreme challenge?

  • We hunker down and don’t do anything different until things calm down. 16%
  • We play defensively but take on small new initiatives with low risk. 37%
  • We aggressively seek new opportunities and invest behind them. 48%

Seizing the moment: While the poll is split on those playing offense and those playing defense, the implications are pretty clear. For those acting defensively, you need to factor in how other market participants will behave when calculating your stance. If you’re not factoring in the aggressive 48% into your expectations, your defensive stance might cost you more than you anticipate. Strategy isn’t just about your actions – it’s about your actions in relation to other players in the market. You might find your defensive strategy puts you further behind your more aggressive competition and when you come out of that defensive stance ready to compete aggressively again, you may have a lot of catch-up to play. While being defensive is certainly understandable, you could be creating many more risks than you believe you are. Conduct a rigorous market assessment before choosing a stance.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post?  If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog.  It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!).  SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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How important is it to your employees that you treat them consistently with one another?

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EKG Pulse Graph with Glowing Blue Line

Our reader poll today asks: How important is it to your employees that you treat them consistently with one another?

  • Extremely: They want everyone to always be treated equally: 51.14%
  • Very: They’ll tolerate some special treatment but not very much: 31.99%
  • Somewhat: Some want consistent treatment, while others don’t seem to care: 11.34%
  • Not very: Most of them only worry about how they’re treated themselves: 4.28%
  • Not at all: Special and different treatment is an accepted norm: 1.25%

Fair versus equal? The majority of you said your team members want consistency and equal treatment. Be sure you have a perspective on equal versus fair though. Should a new hire be held to the same equal standards of performance as a senior peer in a similar role? Should someone be given time off to handle a personal issue while another person who doesn’t have a personal issue be denied the same time off? Equality absolutely matters on the vast majority of topics. Your challenge is figuring out when fairness comes into play and how to apply it. A big part of doing that right is explaining the difference to people and when you make decisions that aren’t necessarily equal or consistent that you’re able to explain to them why you did what you did and why it is fair. These are challenging topics to navigate. As long as you’re doing what is right and explain things, you can have a productive conversation. Also be open to other perspectives on how to handle the situation because “fair” to you might not seem fair to someone else. Enlist the aid of trusted advisers for those challenging situations.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post?  If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog.  It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!).  SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Rethinking Gen Z and Millennials in the Workplace

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20200427 Millennial on the Phone

Millennials and Gen Z workers are passionate and searching for meaning in their work. It’s time to ditch the lazy and entitled cliches society attributes to these generations.

Today’s post is by Heidi Ganahl, author of SheFactor (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

News flash: the promising new grad you just hired is already looking for her next job.

The numbers don’t lie – Generation Z and Millennial women are only staying at their jobs for an average of 18 months. In comparison, the national average for salaried employees is 4.6 years, according to an Economic News Release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The American workforce has changed dramatically since Millennials came on the scene. This phenomenon has left many of us wondering why the ways we engage, reward, and retain employees have not changed with it.

Today, especially with a historically low national unemployment rate, companies cannot afford to lose their ambitious new talent. The costs of turnover and training can add up in ways that go beyond the measure of profit margins. Reputation, recruitment, and employee turnover can add up to about half of an employee’s annual salary. Let that sink in for a moment.

If you want to retain Millennials, your organization’s leadership must give them better reasons to stay.

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Becoming a Net Exporter of Talent

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20200205 Team Development

Developing your team so well that they begin being poached by others and letting them go to those other teams is exactly how to develop your organization.

Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS

Want to build your team? Get rid of the people who are on it. I don’t mean go about firing people in a flurry. Become what I call a “net exporter of talent.”

You need to develop your people to the point that they’re ready for new challenges. Build their skills. Make them more valuable to the organization. Grow them and build upon their responsibilities. And once you can stand back and admire the fruits of your labor, send them somewhere else to work. Actually, if you’ve done a good enough job developing them, others will be trying to poach them from your team.

Madness you say? Don’t be too quick to judge. The benefits of becoming a net exporter of talent are many. Before we get into them, let me elaborate on how to become said exporter. First, recognize almost everyone on your team wants to grow. Your obligation as a leader is to provide those opportunities and help people succeed in them. Once you’ve expanded the skills and scope of your team members, you’re ready to begin.

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What portion of your team’s work is done remotely?

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EKG Pulse Graph with Glowing Blue Line

Our reader poll today asks: What portion of your team’s work is done remotely?

  • Over 90%. My team is all over and we use calls/virtual tools for almost everything: 12%
  • 60-90%. We do a substantial amount of work remotely: 10%
  • 40-60%. Around half of what we do is done remotely: 12%
  • 20-40%. We don’t do a lot remotely. Most work is face to face: 18%
  • Less than 20%. We are almost always working together in person: 48%

Remote work is substantial. While two-thirds of you still do most or all of your work face-to-face, it’s hard to ignore how much work has shifted to being remote. While the nature of your business obviously dictates how large or small the opportunity is to work remotely, ask yourself if you’re actively pursuing those opportunities. Remote work can improve productivity (e.g., it eliminates commuting, improves morale, etc.) and cut costs. Given the quality of tools available for video conferencing, document sharing and collaboration, and workflow management, moving some of your work to remote channels is an opportunity you can’t ignore. Take a moment to review your business processes and see which ones can be changed and supported by remote work. Run a pilot. Monitor results. You might be very pleased with what happens.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post?  If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog.  It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!).  SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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