The Latest from Kristy-Lee

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!

I first became aware of this framework probably about 10-15 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...

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, or not showing up how we want them to at work.

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...

Whether we love it or hate it, there is no doubt that for many of us the way our teams work has forever changed. For many of you it’s likely that your once 100% on site team is a mix of remote, on site and combination workers, and for others you have switched to a predominantly remote model.

In my opinion, what’s happened was always destined to happen, we have just fast tracked the process by 10 + years. Employees have been crying out for the opportunity to have more flexibility in where they work for too long. Work from home requests getting met with rejection after rejection, and the rules attached to them, were seeing increased frustration, and the companies who could embrace it were, in some industries, winning the talent war.

But the reality is most businesses weren’t offering it as an option, or even allowing it when there was seemingly no other alternative, so employees didn’t have the choice, they were stuck in roles, or not able to work...

“I can’t make a decision because you have presented 2 great candidates – if we hired one of them we’d always wonder whether the other would have been better....”

This was the exact words that came out of the employers’ mouth after we had carefully and meticulously conducted a thorough and rigorous recruitment campaign for them, providing a strong shortlist. So strong in fact that they simply couldn’t (and didn’t) make the final decision. Whilst the team rightly pointed out that we had done such a stellar job we made it difficult for the employer to choose, I found the situation fascinating.

How does it sound to you? Ludicrous? Funny? Typical?

At first I assumed that really they just didn’t want to hire anyone, that it was a total waste of time and resources because they clearly had no intention of hiring – I mean surely one candidate stands ahead of the other for their needs?

But as I...

I love exploring generational differences, both in the workplace and generally in society. Whilst of course there are some generalisations that get applied, and not every member of every generation has the same foundational experiences, but it’s hard to miss the fact that there are certain changes, events and experiences which form the behaviours, attitudes and beliefs of new generations.

Whilst we’ve all heard more opinions than most of us care to imagine about the Millennials (otherwise known as Gen Y), who have really mixed it up inside workplaces, we’ve been a little quieter and more reserved when it comes to Gen Z.

So to you Gen Z – welcome to the workplace, it’s fabulous to have you here, and I for one can’t wait to see the impact you are going to make on how we work, how we approach careers and how we can do things differently and better.

If you’re wondering who Gen Z is – they are the generation born...

Don’t you just love those weeks where you have a Public Holiday (especially on either the Monday or the Friday), but any day, and you only need to run your operations, lead your team and be present in your business for 4 days of the week? As a bonus, how much do your team love those weeks?

Interestingly, I’m going to ask you to reflect on something – how much less productivity happens in those weeks? Does 80% of the work get done, or is it much closer to 100% productivity squeezed into less time? I am willing to guess that the vast majority of you are going to say closer to 100%.

Isn’t that interesting … 80% of the time ‘at work’, 100% of the tasks and objectives achieved.

So, should you make all of your team part time, as they’re obviously dilly dallying for around 7-8 hours per week right? The short answer I am going to give you is no, I don’t think you should cut their hours along with their salary and...

No doubt you have heard of the term ‘imposter syndrome’ before, but have you ever heard of it when it comes to our teams, our employees, amongst our staff? Most commonly as business owners, entrepreneurs and leaders we might talk amongst ourselves about this feeling which we refer to as imposter syndrome, but I don’t hear business owners discussing this as something which might be impacting their staff.

Before we consider how this might play out within our teams, let’s first understand what specifically it is we’re referring to here.

The term Imposter Syndrome was coined in 1978 by Psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes who explored the idea that people with this feel like they have only succeeded due to luck, not because of their talent or qualifications. The Oxford Dictionary succinctly defines it as “the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of...

As I have shared in recent weeks, I have spent some time over the last month about the fact that I recently celebrated 15 years of being in the world of entrepreneurship and business. And WOW what a ride it has been!

The things I thought I knew but didn’t, the things I had learnt that I never thought I’d need to use that came in handy, the wins, challenges, fun and hard stuff. There is no doubt that being in business is not dissimilar riding a roller coaster most of the time – except you’ve got the controls in your hands.

In recent weeks I have shared the key lessons that I have really taken on about leaderships and teams – because hey, that’s what I’m all about, but today is a little different. Today is about the real lessons, the life lessons, the things most people don’t talk about, but I’m going to.

Learning to juggle has been imperative, and I’m a pretty good multitasker naturally. But the juggle...

As I shared last week, recently I was reflecting on the fact that it has been 15 years since I threw in the towel on a stable, well paid, leadership position with a multi national organisation to set up my own business, and so the Footprint brand was born.

Whilst I may have been anything but the text book approach, I knew what I wanted to do and just went head first in. Whilst I had some skills, plenty of grit and a no nonsense approach to success being inevitable, I can’t say that there hasn’t been hurdles to overcome along the way.

One of the key lessons I’ve learnt in these 15 years is the importance of your team – your employees, the contractors and suppliers you work with, the mentors and advisors you seek support from and everyone else that is part of this journey.

Now I’d been building high performing, successful teams since I was a teenager, so this wasn’t news to me, but there are certainly some lessons that I have...

Recently I was reflecting on the fact that it has been 15 years since I quit my stable, well paid, leadership position with a multi national organisation to, within 7 days, set up my own business, and the journey of The Footprint Group took it’s first step into the world.

Whilst I certainly don’t think the way I decided to go about this entrepreneurial journey is a text book example of solid business planning, it was the only way for me. I was youngish, impulsive, stubborn and had been dreaming of doing this for the longest time. Why hadn’t I done it before? The usual story – the people around me thought it was risky, uncertain, crazy, against the grain.

But in a period of 3 days where the timing was like a perfect storm to make this decision a no brainer.

So I resign, spend the week of my notice period setting up business names, company structures, getting logo’s designed, preparing a full policies and procedures document, finding...