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In times of dispair

Okay I admit, this write-up is going to be a little bit different from what you'd normally see on this site, but I think it's important to post here nevertheless.

When things are going well in our business or personal lives, we often don't take the time to consider the things that we're doing which facilitate that level of success - even the little things that make up our daily routine. Failing to recognize the things that we do which yield positive results and happiness can then make it difficult for us later when things do not work out quite as well and we're left wondering how to turn things around.

Then when (not if, but when) you've hit a slump - again whether it's in your business or your personal life - it's sometimes hard to see why things are no longer going well. It seems like you're doing all of the same things you were before, but the results just aren't as good. Too often, we drastically change the way we do things in order to get out of the slump, just for the sake of change, but there's no rhyme nor reason for what we're changing; we're not "recording" what we've changed, and we've strayed way off the things we had been doing when we were successful or happy.

If you're at this point and you're reading this right now, I have only five words for you: get back to the basics. Do the things you were doing in happier and more successful times. Keep doing them and keep things simple and you will weather this storm. By no means am I saying that change or adaptation is to be avoided altogether; far from it. Sometimes, the situation may call for a re-working of your business or personal practices. But first and foremost, stay positive and get back to basics. Recognize all of the things you were doing when things were going well. Go back to doing those things again. Be patient and positive and the results will come.

Most importantly, try to recognize those things when things are going well so that you have something to go back to later on. Everything starts with a positive state of mind.

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How to build your team using mentoring and coaching

In order to expand the capabilities of everyone on your team, you will need to share the knowledge and wisdom that you as an experienced leader have gained along the way. In other words, you will need to be a coach to your employees.

In the much praised 2002 book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, authors Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan describe coaching as “the difference between giving orders and teaching people how to get things done,” and that good leaders “regard every encounter as an opportunity to coach.”

With that in mind, here are some of the suggestions on how to effectively coach your team:
  • Observe the person(s) work and provide them with specific and meaningful feedback related to their performance. Discuss both the strong and weak points of the employee’s performance.

  • Be willing to discuss broad organizational issues in a group setting so that everyone can learn and contribute. By discussing these issues collectively, you instill trust and confidence in your team and you will give everyone the opportunity to learn and to grow.

  • When it comes to asking questions, don’t hold back. By tactfully asking your employees questions related to problems and issues that you may not have a complete grasp on, you will help people rethink these problems and search for new ways of looking at them. The authors Bossidy and Charan state that as a leader, you should ask pertinent questions in order to “expose weaknesses in the strategy that would have made it a certain failure in execution.”

  • Offer your employees education and training. When it comes to expanding the capabilities of your employees, this suggestion is perhaps the most obvious of them all; yet, it isn’t always carried through properly. Instead of sending people on generic, broad-based training courses, you should recognize the unique skills and existing capabilities of your employees (segment them, if you will) and individually discuss future opportunities for training and growth with them.
By simply managing the people on your team effectively you give your team an opportunity to achieve its objectives. But, when you also use coaching and mentoring to lead your team, you not only provide your team to succeed now, but you also build up your team’s capabilities, and just as importantly, you also expand the capabilities of your entire organization.

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