A loved one
is usually very vocal
about whether or not
she is feeling well.
She hadn’t said anything
recently.
I assumed she was well
health-wise.
I found out yesterday
that her diabetes
is out of control
and her health
is failing scarily fast.
Don’t assume
quiet
means everything is well.
Check in
with ALL members of your team.
Ensure EVERYONE
is on track.
The tasks that are easiest
to delegate
are often also
the easiest tasks
to complete.
It’s tempting to delegate
ALL of that sh*t.
Resist that temptation.
If your role
consists of only
difficult tasks,
you’ll become burned out
and discouraged quickly.
Easy tasks are satisfying.
Easy tasks give us
a confidence boost.
They reassure us
we can get sh*t done.
Easy tasks also give us
a mental break
while still allowing us
to accomplish things.
Keep a few easy tasks
for yourself.
Delegate the rest
of them.
In the past,
I’ve advised you
and other business builders
to make
masks and hand sanitizer
freely available to employees.
It is simply the right thing
to do
for you,
your employees
and your business.
If you’re looking at it
from a purely financial perspective,
one benefit of
providing masks and hand sanitizer
is
it will greatly decrease
the odds of your business
getting sued into the ground
because someone became seriously ill
while on your premises.
And providing masks and hand sanitizer
is fairly inexpensive to do.
But, but employees won’t wear the masks,
you say.
If employees don’t wear the masks,
hey, the price of supplying them with masks
decreases even more.
But make them available
and be visible about this.
Post signs
in employee areas.
Place the masks and disinfectant
in plain view.
Because,
with measles spreading today
like…well…measles,
in addition to COVID
and Monkeypox and Candida Auris
and other sh*t
continuing to circulate,
providing masks and disinfectant
has gone from a recommendation
to a MUST-DO
if you want your business to survive
long term.
This infectious sh*t
isn’t going away.
Protect your employees
and protect your business.
Supply masks
and hand sanitizer.
There’s a lot
of serious sh*t
happening in the world.
People are struggling
emotionally.
If it doesn’t
directly harm your business,
let people have fun today.
Ignore the employee
who arrived in costume
without permission.
Let employees play
the spooky music
in your store.
Give employees
some time
in the break room
to enjoy the treats
their coworker brought in.
Allow the non-service doggy
in costume
to enter the store.
Let everyone blow off some steam
and have some fun.
Tomorrow,
you can get back
to serious business.
Most people don’t know
if 12 pm
is noon or midnight.
I’m one of those people.
I always have to
look it up.
And in this global
running 24 hours a day
business environment,
meetings could happen
at noon OR midnight.
A super easy solution
is to schedule meetings
at 11:57 am for noon meetings
and
at 11:57 pm for midnight meetings.
Ensure everyone knows
your noon meeting is starting
at noon.
Schedule it for
11:57 am.
If you hire an employee,
especially a younger employee,
that employee will require
not only training
but also mentorship.
They will want to know
what their career looks like,
what their future
with your company
looks like.
They will need to learn
and grow
and become a better employee.
Because they’ll want
salary increases
that at least keep up
with inflation.
And you’ll be d@mn bitter
about those salary increases
if the employee isn’t becoming
better at their job.
Set aside one hour
per week
per direct report
for mentorship.
If you don’t have time
for that,
you don’t have time
to manage them.
And you should consider
hiring a manager.
Mentorship
is part of managing an employee.
There are frustrations
in every job,
every business,
every industry.
If we don’t express
these frustrations to someone
(this could be a human someone
or a cat
or a plant),
if we don’t vent
some of these extreme emotions,
they will erupt
usually at the most inconvenient time
when we are with customers
or people we’re trying to impress.
I have someone I vent to.
I express my frustrations
to him on,
at least,
a weekly basis.
He is outside the industry
so he is unlikely
to ever inadvertently
reveal my feelings
to people I sell to
or partner with.
I’ll preface the deluge
of complaints
by telling him
“I just have to vent.”
He knows then
that he doesn’t have
to provide solutions.
All he has to do
is listen.
And I do the same
for him
when he needs to vent.
We both feel better,
are calmer,
and can go back
to whatever we’re working on.
Ensure you have someone
to vent to.
There’s a scuffle happening
right now
between
folks with
an optimistic view
of future climate change action
and
folks with
a pessimistic (doomer) view.
The thing is…
leaders should be listening
to BOTH views
and preparing action plans
based on BOTH scenarios.
As a project manager,
I usually craft
three scenarios
– Best Case,
Worst Case
and
Most Likely Case.
Then I prepare
for ALL THREE
scenarios.
Because ALL THREE
are possible.
Will some of that preparation
not be utilized.
In the case of the worst case scenario,
f*ck, I hope so.
But if the worst case happens,
that preparation
could be the difference
between surviving and perishing.
Prepare for the best
AND
the worst case scenarios.