The Latest from Kristy-Lee

We all know the feeling, we’re losing sleep, we’re avoiding the person at work, we’re angry, frustrated and tearing our hair out. We have an employee who is not performing, not showing up how we want them to at work or behaving in a negative way, a way that isn’t sitting right with you.

We can’t always quite put our finger on the exact issue, it’s just not quite right, but it’s wrong enough to be consuming our time and attention. Or maybe it is more obvious, but we feel like we’re going over the top if we bring it up – we don’t want them to feel like we are micromanaging them or pulling them up for something that feels petty and insignificant (yet the fact that it’s consuming our time and attention does in fact mean that at some level it is significant to us).

So, we tolerate it, whether it’s behaviour, attendance, performance or something else, we tolerate it. We think maybe it’s not that much of a big deal, or maybe it’ll be short term, or surely they will realise soon and fi...

Hello and welcome to Episode 268 of the People Powered Business Podcast!

In this weeks episode I’m chatting about why you might still find yourself doing everything – even though you’ve hired a team.

We start by looking at the common misconception we have that more people will immediately reduce our workload. In fact the opposite can be true. More people can often mean more work when we haven’t hired the right people, for the right roles, and created the right structure.

The key to having a business that delivers success and freedom to you, the business owner, is the right team (not just any team) and this includes the right team structure.

When we get that wrong – we end up building a team which has a dependency issue – a dependency on us. And this can sometimes be exacerbated when we are a natural control freak.

In truth, the real issue might just be us – not because we are intentionally sabotaging things, because this is new, this we need to learn, we are often modelling off po...

There’s a fine balance between the number of people that report into any one position and how effectively a business or organisation continues to run. It’s quite often an aspect of organisational structure that is overlooked, neglected, or spirals quickly out of control as businesses scale and grow without a clearly identified structure or resourcing plan for growth.

But there is a magic number of direct reports that hits the sweet spot, ensuring that you have just the right number of staff reporting into a single position while still ensuring that position itself is effective depending on the nature of the role.

Structure is one of the fundamental aspects of ensuring that you don’t overwhelm, or even underwhelm, your management team and help set them, and their teams, up for success – in the long run, this feeds into your business success and is well worth investing in.

There are actually five key factors or variables that impact the success of direct report structures and...

Hello and welcome to Episode 267 of the People Powered Business Podcast!

Today I am sharing a conversation I had with Juliet Robinson over on our Grow Your Influence podcast about the power of owning the problem as a leader in our business.

We’ve all had that feeling when someone behaves badly: maybe if I just leave it, they will sort themselves out/the problem will just go away…

Juliet and I talk about an example of a client who knew they needed to deal with a toxic person in their team but had been avoiding the issue. As soon as they decided to deal with the person, they felt so much better about themselves. The team’s morale was almost instantly improved and the manager gained so much confidence from realising their response didn’t need to be perfect, they just needed to need to do it.

We talk about the importance of leaders being aware of boundaries, both personally and within the team, and tackling issues directly when people are pushing those boundaries.

As managers we can f...

No less than once a week I’ll get a call, or question online, that goes a little like “I have a problem with a staff member, they are getting their job done but they aren’t being a great team member, I can’t quite put my finger on it but every time I raise an issue with them they have an excuse, there is always some reason things haven’t gone to plan”.

Does this sound familiar to you? Have you had someone like this on your team before?

Sure enough, after a few questions my typical conclusion is – you have someone who is below the line. What line? Great question!

The Above the Line – Below the Line Framework

I first became aware of this framework close to 20 years ago, I’d heard about it conceptually but when I really noticed this as a powerful framework for teams when I worked with a business who really embraced the concept so much that their team used the language in their day to day operations – this is when I really started to pay attention to this concept.

Who conceptualise...

Hello and welcome to Episode 266 of the People Powered Business Podcast!

In this episode we are talking about the 80/20 rule and how it applies to your team.

There are two sides to this coin.

Firstly, are 20% of your people responsible for 80% of results in your business? Look around your team, who are you high performers? Who drive things forward? What would happen if they weren’t there? As your teams grow, you may find yourself here – where a small portion of your team are responsible for a lions share of results. They might not the doing all the things, but without them things will fall apart. I want you to check in, are these people getting your time, attention and recognition?

Conversely, are 20% of your team taking up 80% of your time? The other way this shows up is in the opposite, where the bottom 20% are ‘problem children’ and they are taking up 80% of your time. You’re constantly training, mentoring, coaching, performance managing and course correcting. It’s exhausting ri...

Ever felt like you were literally drowning in resumes? Recruiting the right people for your business can be both time-consuming and overwhelming.

With hundreds—sometimes thousands—of applications flooding in for a single job posting, filtering through resumes can quickly become a full-time job.

One of my favourite tools to use to make this process not only more efficient, but also more effective, is SEEK’s screening question functionality.

If you’re hiring staff and using SEEK to advertise roles, leveraging its built-in screening tools can help you save time, reduce hiring overwhelm, and identify the best candidates faster. In this post, we’ll explore how to use SEEK’s screening questions effectively and share some insider tips to optimise your recruitment process.

Why SEEK is Still Australia’s Top Job Board

SEEK remains the most dominant job board in Australia, with over 160,000 job ads live at any given time and more than 32.8 million site visits in January 2025 alon...

Hello and welcome to Episode 265 of the People Powered Business Podcast!

In this week's episode we are chatting about the Federal Governments recent Budget announcement around their plan to ban non-compete clauses in employment contracts.

Today we will break down what non-compete clauses actually are and what they do, what is the Government saying they plan to do and what this means for your business.

Put simply, non-compete clauses are clauses in employment contracts that prevent an employee from working in competition with the employer after they leave. Also referred to as non-poach or restraint of trade agreements, they are largely designed, or at least in part to protect an organisations Intellectual Property and aim to protect the livelihood of the business.

The Federal Government recently announced their plans to ban these clauses from sometime in 2027. They have suggested the ban will employ to employees who earn under the high income threshold, currently $175 000.

So what ...

As business owners, we often find ourselves spending our entire day dealing with people, managing their needs, and navigating the complexities of teamwork.

As a business owner we need to step into the role of ‘leader’ in our business. However, many entrepreneurs and managers find themselves reluctant leaders, struggling to embrace their role as "the boss."

Instead of providing direction and leadership, they fall into what can be called the "non-boss mindset"—a hands-off approach where they hope their team will figure things out independently. While autonomy is important, a lack of leadership can create confusion, inefficiency, and frustration among employees.

If you've ever avoided making decisions, shied away from conflict, or found yourself reluctant to manage your team, you might be operating in this non-boss space.

Overcoming the Fear of Leadership

When we started our journey into entrepreneurship or embarked on our careers, we may not have anticipated that managing people ...

Hello and welcome to Episode 264 of the People Powered Business Podcast!

Today I have a question for you: What if I told you that your business could completely change with just ONE key hire?

So often I see business owners feel stuck in the day-to-day grind instead of leading.

They’re answering every question, fixing every problem, putting out fires.

They think hiring more people will fix it, but somehow, they’re still overwhelmed.

If this is you, the truth is there is a missing piece on your team. You’ve got growing pains, you know that, but you don’t know who to hire to solve it.

You could duplicate a role, and add another member to a key team, and that might stop the bottleneck there and let you service more customers.

You could create a role, and add skills to your team to improve your customer experience and reduce the need to outsource.

But neither of those solutions solve the key problem: they won’t stop you being overwhelmed, spending 10 hours + per week managing people...