Increase your self-esteem

Self-esteem – you wanna increase?

On the topic today I’ll take you through a few substances that you as a leader need to focus on to increase your employees self-esteem. These substances are 100% natural and your feel-good-feeling will increase if you add on to those.

First, not all of them are applicable in a work environment, second some of them are very difficult to increase by sole management. The substance I’ll talk more about in my next post are: Dopamin, Endorfin, Serotonin and Oxytocin…stay tuned…

Recognition – Peer-to-Peer is THE SHIT

Are you recognized? What is recognition? What does recognition do to you? I have a thesis that recognition can be strong or stronger depending on who the giver is. Best giver is your peer.

First I want to give you some examples from life that support my thesis around different levels of recognition and how strong it gets.

I bought a basketball cap for my kid of age 7. Of course, I sold out myRecognition - peer-to-peer purchase as much as I could saying; – Son, this is such a cool cap, it fits you just perfect. He responded back; -Thanks Dad, I’ll ware this at school tomorrow. Next day at school the first Mate he met called directly: -O man, what a cool cap. He was recognized by his peer. This went straight into the heart of my son. His peer recognized him. This is peer-to-peer recognition and it is stronger than if a parent or a little brother of age 4 commends you.

Another example to explain this thesis. Imagine Zlatan would practicing free kicks with Messi. If Messi would give Zlatan some good words about his free kicks, Zlatan would be stronger recognized than if his coach would commend him for them. A peer-to-peer recognition is again the strongest.

Salesrep-to-Salesrep, Dev-to-Dev, CEO-to-CEO, Geek-to-Geek, ITPro-to-ITpro, Manager-to-Manager. They all go strong when it comes to recognize each other, peer-to-peer.

If you could transfer this peer-to-peer recognition into your work space the company culture would change dramatically to an amazing playground. I’ll refer to my previous blog post around this topic where the discussion mostly handled receiving recognition from your coach/manager/boss to you. This is important as well but as a coach or leader it is more important to make those peer-to-peer recognition opportunities/meetings happen. If you make this happen, the peer-to-peer recognition will appear.

In our company we have a lot of consultants. They often go onsite on their own, in different assignments. No one sees them in the perspective of recognition. The customer demands and only. The coach/manager/boss have no clue what they are doing out there not to mention the Account Managers or Salesmen who’s only interest is to sell and to make the customer happy. The consultant’s peers and colleagues are working on other assignments which they do not really know of.  And they do not have time to put any effort into each other’s assignments.

Play with the idea that you want to apply peer-to-peer recognition in your company and you believe this is the way to go. Where would you start? We started years ago with small steps where we arranged meetings for peer-to-peer to get together. One-on-one meetings in the beginning, where the task was to explain to each other what they do at their customer site. One just asked questions about his/her project. Half time they switched position and the other one asked questions. They gave feedback back and forth. Peer-to-peer recognition. All of a sudden someone knew what you actually were doing.

A battle occurred!

Stay tuned – A definition of a battle is soon to come…

Treat yourself – Don’t cheat yourself

Treat yourself – Do your best.

Do you work smart? Yes, if you work hard and efficient, focusing on things that will take you there, making your best effort. I guess you think you do, otherwise you are just “cheating yourself” i.e. you are doing more harm than good for yourself in your attempt to cheat someone else like your Employer, your Colleagues or your Boss. You are cheating yourself.

Motivation 5

–          Don´t cheat yourself

–          Treat yourself!

I’m the coach for one of my son’s Soccer team. He is eleven years old. A lot of kids in his age just play around without getting serious in what they do; Practice soccer to get better. I often remind the kids to make every occasion to a serious opportunity to increase their skills. If you make your best effort in every attempt to shoot, to score, to make a pass or to run as fast as you can, you will make progress, no doubt. You are the only one who can make this happen. No one can do it for you. And of course, do things that you like and that you thing is the most fun. If you keep yourself inside your comfort zone you will probably have greater time short term with no fatigue, but there will be an “epic fail” long term. You are cheating yourself.

Treat yourself!

I often compare this with the process for weight loss or your training program. When you cheat on your diet, who are you really cheating? When you cheat on your training schedule, who are you really cheating? Of course you are cheating yourself. We all know it but it can be really hard to stop eating certain things or changing diet. Same thing with training and exercise, it is sooo easy to make up excuses all the time to not practice even if you told yourself to do so. You are cheating yourself.

Treat yourself!

Some people always goes to those meetings, day out and day in making their least effort in your own Comfort zone. You are telling yourself -What differ will it make if I’m attending this meeting without my greatest alertness, just hanging around chilling. Seriously, how can you be productive with all those meetings not making your best effort, instead blaming others for making wrong decisions or no decisions in the meeting? Do your best and your day will be more productive. Do not cheat yourself.

Treat yourself!

Are you productive if you are creating reports all day? Are you productive attending all those meetings day out and day in? No. Especially if you are not making your best effort creating those reports and attending those meetings.

I mentioned before that you should go out there and work instead of having those internal meetings and time for creating reports. Do things. Do not waste your time sitting in those meetings and doing those reports. Go out there meeting with your clients or prospects.  And if you do, make your best effort always!

How do you work smart? Well, with my own experiences I found myself most efficient when I follow those four steps, not that I always do but…it has happened…

1)      Prioritize – Do what you have to do first. Make an outline on paper and limit your goals to be reachable. Learn to say no. If you have to choose between two assignments or projects, pick the one you’d like the most and the one that will take you there.

2)      Dealing with clients – This is probably the most important one. Please make sure you work with your customer base or prospects, making your relation strong. Either direct or indirect, depending on your role in your company. Remember, without a strong relation with your clients, you are done.

3)      Getting more done in less time – Reuse and copy-cat your old work/projects and modify for your client at this time. If you have fun at work or having interesting assignments this will not be a problem for you. Clear communication with your clients to achieve realistic expectations will help.

4)      Take care of yourself – Rest and come back fresher. Periodic brakes during your day, blame caffeine addiction. Recognize the point of your exhaustion. Exercise. Eat good food.

A summary: Treat yourself!

Working hard, do you?

Recognize similar phrases?

–          I’ve been to meetings all day, I haven’t had time,

–          I’ve been writing all these reports, I haven’t had time,

 Reports - Motivation

    Meetings – Cancel those meetings:

Some people always goes to those meetings, day out and day in. Seriously, how can you be productive with all those meetings? Take them away and your day will be more productive.    

Reports – Cancel all those reports, no one reads them anyway:

Are you productive if you are creating reports all day? I’m thinking of writing reports on how other persons perform. And who           reads them anyway? And if they read the reports, do they understand the report?

Go out there and work instead. Meet with your customers, clients and prospects. Do things. You must not waste your time sitting in those meetings and writing those reports. My experience of meetings and reporting are that they just waste your time, or the time for the company.

Most of the meetings I’ve been to out there try to solve problems that originally comes from low productivity. I give you an example: Company A says: Consultants do not invoice enough of their time. Ok, let’s have a meeting around this topic.

1)      First of all there will be meetings and meetings around the topic.

2)      Secondly, on one of those meetings there will be a decision made that someone has to create a report on different things to confirm the problem

3)      Later on there will be meetings again to try to solve the issue that they already knew about, but now confirmed by reports that someone spent a lot of time creating, sending and distributing internally.

4)      Now it is time to change the way of working to get more efficient and productive team to make the invoicing increase

5)      There will be more meetings to find out how to make changes.

6)      Then there will be meetings to modify the reports to be fitting the changes that will be made

7)      To be continued… What if the managers and employees instead put all their efforts in enabling and performing out there instead? So, what should you do instead of go to all of those meetings, creating reports and then go to meetings again? How about:

  • Meeting with Customers, Clients and prospects

For managers, meetings with your team make sense:-).

Your Manager. Boss or Friend? Part 2

My opinion in this matter is clear. Yes, I prefer to have both a Professional and a Personal friendship with my colleagues.
Are you a person who think that relationships that are personal only can produce disappointment in the long run?

Motivation - Akey to success

I’ve had a lot of discussions around this topic after my previous post, especially with peers and managers in the IT business. The most common comment has been: “Of course you cannot be friend with an employee” That is easy to say but when I then asked the question Why? right back, the answer didn’t come out clear at all. I can see a trend out there today that the people who enjoy their work most also tend to have a great manager/employee relationship. To be able to balance the Line between Professional and Personal Friendship has become a new important skill set.


In today’s busy world, work wise, it is hard to separate work from private life. You spend so much of your time at work, hopefully because your work is enjoyable and a pride to you. To have a successful boss/friend relationships the players have to know when to turn off the corporate switch. To know where to draw the line will then become a key. Work is personal, and when you have a problem at work you want to ask a friend for advise. And if he/she is your boss…and friend, wouldn’t that be perfect or at least a convenient scenario?

Remember from my last post:

“Pros: You trust a friend, you like to spend time with friends, you want to develop things with a friend, you can tell a friend what you really think, most of the time you are loyal to a friend, a friend needs you. You are depended on a friend. You will miss a friend. So, would you care for the same skill set in a leaders profile?
Cons: Blank for now. Help me out here…please…”

Some people say you can’t be friends with your boss without an unequal balance of power. Although a boss have greater responsibility, each person in your organization handles a critical function to that company. If not, that position would quickly have been wiped from the org. chart. Authority or not, each position is essential. Power comes in how you handle yourself in whatever role you are given.
Let’s be honest. Wouldn’t you rather work with a person that you have a great relation with than with a person you either have to obey as a slave or the opposite, treat that person like a slave? Yes yes, a slave is a strong word in this matter, I know, but it puts you in the mindset at least to affect you on this topic…ask yourself:

-Do you have a good relationship with your manager today? Good or bad?
-Do you have a good relationship with your employee today? Good or bad?

I met a guy yesterday that did not even know who his boss was. Well, you obviously have that as well… I’m not sliding in to another topic here. Just had to mention it…Hey -Become a friend with your colleague.
Stay tuned!

Your Manager. Boss or Friend?

Hello and welcome to 2014!

Well, Boss or Friend. Boss or leader. What would you prefer?

Don’t you always wanna be among friends? Of course, however there is no straight answer to the question if your Manager should be a Friend or a Boss. I Think your manager should be your friend although she/he has to act as a professional leader. With that said there is also a certain balance that has to be in place to make it work. Trust and relation are for sure the most important dress for success. Let’s start with some pros and cons to have a coach, manager or a leader who is also your friend:

Motivation - InnovationPros: You trust a friend, you like to spend time with friends, you want to develop things with a friend, you can tell a friend what you really think, most of the time you are loyal to a friend, a friend needs you. You are depended on a friend. You will miss a friend. So, would you care for the same skill set in a leader profile?

Cons: Blank for now. Help me out here…please…

The last 20 years things have changed rapidly when it comes to management and leadership. Before the Boss was untouchable, a person you did not know personally and that was acceptable. Today your recuirements to work with a human beeing is there to stay, yes I hear you…”business is business bla bla bla”. Seriously, you spend so much time at work and the person you have as a friend can become a problem for you as a manager.

Remember, business is all about relationship today. Trust and relation, motivation.
If you do not Think so, Wake up! If you do not have a good relation with your manager, quit!

I’m actually talking about the differences between a Boss and a Leader…I’ll be back with Cons on this topic in a while…stay tuned:-). Meanwhile…do you recognize your manager in the Picture below?

 

Motivation - boss vs leader

Enough feedback at work?

Are you enough recognized at work?
Are you sufficiently appreciated?
Do you get enough praise?Praise

Check yourself!

  • Have you heard any nice words from your Manager or have you got any other feedback today?
  • Did any of Your colleagues say something good to you like; Thanks, good job, awesome or any feedback?
  • Did You give any feedback to any of Your colleagues today?

If the answer is no, there is a huge risk that you will quit your current position or job in the near future. The feedback culture we all want gets more and more important and is not only “nice-to-have” today. It is a requirement. We do want more feedback, it is one of our most basic need, to be seen, to be recognized. What is good, what is bad behavior? We all want praise. How can a manager miss out on that 2013?

We all have experienced managers who say:

– We are here to work not to cuddle, aren’t we?

or

– Yes, we should have a better feedback culture, but as a manager you don’t get praise or feedback so much either so why should I give any?

2013! We all know that the Mother Earth is round and not flat. Do we need recognition? YES we do!

What happens if you get it often? You will get an increased self-esteem in your Company. What does that give you in the end? Everything that you want in the Company! Highly skilled people want to work for you. Your colleagues want to bring in people to the company. People start to talk about your Company in a positive way. They love their job!

So, what can you do about it? A lot! Start asking for help at work, begin to say thanks, I’m sorry, those kind of small things… Those small words will create the culture you desire…it is not that hard. Try it and see if someone will nag you about it. Don’t think so. Who did you ask for help today? Did you say sorry to anyone today? Did you praise anyone or did you say thank you, good job to anyone?

The best working climate today includes all of these expressions and where this is common, you probably have a management team that think this is important and drives this topic consciously or unconsciously. Motivation or what? Oh, yea!

I had a manager that never said thanks nor gave any praises or positive feedback no matter what you did…to anyone. Also he required more work to be done, working for him, not with him. Why should I?

 

Praise 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once, one of my most skilled colleague told me as a manager that I never gave him positive feedback. I asked him what he meant by that, I thought I always praised him for things he did. He answered me back that even the number one football player in the world couldn’t get enough positive feedback for things he or she did. Sometimes they are the persons who need it the most. Conclusion: If there is a smallest reason to give feedback or praise…just do it.

Start today, start to say – Thank you! Good job! I’m sorry, my bad.

Work with Your Manager, not for Your Manager!

Motivation today is all about working with the Company, not for the Company and this can also be said:

Work with your manager, not for your manager.

Blame managers, not Employees when people leave your Company! If you’re losing skilled people, look to their immediate supervisor. I read this article: Why Good Employees Leave? and I couldn’t agree more. The last few months I’ve discovered this is very true out there. A lot of people in my direct network discuss this topic today and there is a clear trend going on. The manager is definitely one strong reason why great people leave Companies. AND this is also a reason why certain Companies attract top players and good employees to join. Great leaders/coaches attract skilled people and good Employees more than The $$$$$ itself or the “Company brand”. True or false? I convinced this is true.Motivation 3

Some manager-employee relationships are easy and some more challenging, but there is no doubt that working to get the most effective and well managed relationship possible will ease your working life and help your professional and personal development. The Manager has the “Power” and is the key person for making this happen. If not, change job!

“People leave Managers not Companies” was also quoted by David W. Richard in the article I read and my experience tells me that Money today is not a key motivator for rudimentary cognitive skills, it is the opposite. A larger reward actually leeds to poorer performance. How can that be? Check this out!

What really motivates people.

 

A perfect Manager!

If You have a manager that doesn’t inspire you or has no clue on what really motivates you, QUIT your job please!! If you snooze YOU lose, not your manager. My advise: Please choose a Manager and Company to work with. Not a Company to work for!

The Manager who has the skill set to make you motivated through your career rocks! The perfect manager sees you, not the number you make for the Company. If your manager sees you, you will be motivated and can focus on the tasks that really motivates you. You want to master something. You want to achieve things together with your manager.

Manager…the old school makes you cry and the new school make you increase your self estime and you will be recognized.

Old school? Carrot and sticks mentality

The old school fact is that your manager was a person that you had to serve and obey. Does carrot and sticks mentality comes up in your mind? If you use a carrot-and-stick method to make someone do something, you both offer rewards and threaten punishments. This method really sucks. A carrot is also punishment no matter what you call it. In the Navy it’s called “A physical reward” when you have to make 50 push ups. That’s “not” punishment.

 

Incentive programs can be effective, but only if they incorporate the kind of recognition employees really want.

Check out Robert on his blog. This is something!

http://employeeengagement.ning.com/profiles/blogs/what-really-really-motivates-people

My advise: Please choose a Manager and Company to work with. Not a Company to work for!

 

Why forecast? Hire enablers instead!

Does forecast meetings boost you and your team? So many companies put such a great effort in forecasting, hours and hours in meetings. Does it really help the business? Are you motivated after your forecast meeting?

I haven’t made any direct business out of those meetings in my career so far. So, why do you have forecast meetings? Is it because you as a manager are too far away from the business and the only way to get control you need those meetings…or is it a fact that you do not have the enablers necessary to drive the business with success? Your company need you to provide information, so you attend pipeline and forecast meetings week after week. Or are You the boss who requires this…?

 

Forecast

 

Why forecast? Sometimes you need to predict the future, or at least try to predict it as a foundation to make decision on. True. On the flip side this will often take too much effort in your organization. I’m convinced you will gain more business from a face-to-face meeting with a client or if you put the same amount of hours in selling or hiring enablers instead of having meetings about things that “might” happen. If you dare to cancel those meetings and focus on sales and hiring skilled people “enablers” (those people who really make sure things happens), I think you just increased your sales!

The laws of physics are ruthlessly inflexible, and as it turns out, if you are in your office in a meeting, you can’t also be sitting in a face-to-face meeting with your client. Nor can you be making prospecting calls.

Hit two birds with one stone. Now, cancel those meetings and leave your comfort zone, increase your sales and your teams motivation.

//Öien