The Latest from Kristy-Lee

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a brand new ‘ask an expert’ style event with a fabulous group that I am a long time member of. As I jumped into different virtual rooms I was prepared to answer any question about teams, staff, hiring, firing and everything in between. The rooms were full of businesswomen who all are running successful businesses that they are looking to scale, so all at different stages on the process.

Here’s what was interesting, in almost every room, one of the questions had me recommending an exercise that I call the ‘Clean Slate Exercise’ – I recommended it to someone who was just starting out with building her team, to someone else who has a team but was finding things weren’t flowing as they should, and to someone else who was preparing for the next phase of growth and wanted to narrow down which role next. For all of these women, who were all in very different stages of growing their team, the...

Whilst I often steer clear of topical, time relevant topics, I felt this one was worth exploring today because it’s critical, it’s complex, it’s unchartered territory and for many employers it’s just plain stressful.

Can you, should you, and do you want to mandate the COVID-19 vaccination in your workplace.

I think if you asked most business owners this question 6-12 months ago most would have said they this is a personal choice issue, it’s a minefield of privacy concerns and it’s one more thing that they didn’t really want to have to make the decision about.

Fast forward to September 2021, when Victoria is in the midst of lockdown number... I’m not even sure, I think there is some kind of numbering convention that might have us at 6.7, and NSW thick into a 12 week stint that feels like it’s never going to end, employers are in a very different business environment, and mindset.

The Australian...

There is no doubt that the increased use of technology has had many benefits in how effectively we can work, and providing flexibility for how and when we work. Especially for those in more senior roles, which typically require more hours, higher attendance and a greater degree of availability. It has meant that where previously these senior executives would need to be on site for upwards of 12 hours per day, they could be as available, but not on site at the workplace for such lengthy hours.

But when the way we work changes for everyone in the workplace, thanks to a global pandemic, the impacts of this excessive availability have now come to light. With 18 months of working from home, remote and hybrid teams, we have enough data and information to see the impact this change is having on our teams.

The reality is our workplaces, and the way we work have changed forever, and in many ways, this is a good thing. I have spoken in the past about my belief that we have fast...

We’ve all experienced the pain of turnover before, after spending time hiring, training, guiding and leading someone in your business that you were desperate to retain suddenly leaves. It can be frustrating, disappointing and even surprising, yet something that is a reality to owning a business, leading people and managing teams.

When we talk about ‘retention’ what exactly do we mean? There are obviously various definitions around, but fundamentally it’s about keeping staff. Technically retention is a measure of the degree to which your current employees remain with you over a given period of time.

To debunk a myth straight off the bat here, retaining staff is absolutely not about throwing more money at people. If that’s your only retention tool, in my opinion, you are on a fast path to a destructive, toxic and dysfunctional culture. Of course you should be paying your team solid market rates in line with their value to your organisation,...

As a leader and manager, someone who employs people and is building a team, the ability to successfully delegate tasks, responsibilities and authority is, or will become, critical to your ability to grow and develop your business.

However, it’s a skill that often we struggle with. Even those who can delegate, often don’t do it as effectively as they could, and for those who own their own businesses, and are building their own team, this can be a really tough art to master, because it involves letting go, and releasing control.

Put simply, delegation is the action of assigning responsibility for the completion of a task to another person. Typically, you as the delegator maintain the responsibility for the task being completed, although you may, depending on the circumstances, delegate the authority up to a certain level as well. So, you delegate the ‘doing’ but still need to ensure the doing gets done.

As your business grows, delegation becomes critical, you...

I was once asked what the #1 thing was I stood for when it came to how I show up and serve my clients in my business. What was my north star that I always without doubt did without question?

Without much thought I answered, ‘I tell people what they need to know, not what they want to hear’, in fact I honestly and openly tell business owners that when we start working together. I let them know that sometimes I might need to have discussions with them which they may not want to hear, but it’s what they need to know in order to move their business forward. I honestly feel as though I have an obligation, a moral obligation to do this – because anything else just isn’t honest and without honesty, I can’t possibly give them the support they are seeking in their business.

I was considering this recently and was reflecting on how this behaviour shows up in business owners and managers. I know from my own experience that it’s a whole...

One of the key frustrations and pain points I hear about from business owners, leaders and managers is around an employee not performing. Either very directly simply failing to get their job done, or more covertly just not quite meeting the mark, or frustratingly just walking the line of getting things done – just – it’s constant frustration.

Quite often we feel frustrated because our Industrial Relations landscape is quite firmly focused on employees, and protecting their rights, leaving businesses with a whole lot of tricky red tape to deal with in managing underperformance, especially when termination may be on the cards. However, what might be really causing our frustration is the fact that we don’t really understand why on earth they can’t just do their job.

If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to bang your head against a wall wondering why they aren’t just doing what you need them to – you’ll know exactly...

Ever heard the saying ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’? If you have, how much attention have you paid to it? If you’re like me, and many other business owners and entrepreneurs I know, you’re pretty good at putting your head in the sand on this one, think it doesn’t apply to you, and, most likely, think it’s extraordinarily selfish to even consider the fact that perhaps looking after yourself needs to be a priority.

Here’s the thing, like many of you, I spent my career, and my life, looking after everyone else first. Squeezing in time to replenish my mind, look after my health or do anything for my mental wellness was at best just that – squeezing it in around everything else. And by the most part that was a pretty successful approach. I had a thriving, fast growing and successful business, everyone was well looked after and life was good. I was juggling all of the things, working all the hours and truly thought I was smashing...

There is this common misconception in leadership books, amongst leadership gurus and in the advice we hear – and that is that when you’re a leader, you aren’t allowed to have a bad day. You can’t be off your game, you can’t be feeling blah and you certainly can’t let anyone in on that.

I call BS on that.

We’re human, whether we run a business, or lead a team within a business, you have days when you’d to be honest, rather just not have to deal with people. Of course most of us don’t have that luxury – we have to show up for our team and get some work done. However, that doesn’t mean that you need to put on an act, pretend that you’re fine when you’re not or not acknowledge that you’re just not having the best day – for whatever reason.

In fact, doing this sets the wrong example for our team. If someone on your team is feeling a little off, or is otherwise distracted, for...

At the time of writing this here in Australia we are in the midst of the ongoing impact of COVID-19. It feels like a dance, the in and out of lockdown dance. Unlike the initial periods of impact this virus had on us, where we were ‘all in it together’ we are now quite often a country divided. Victoria has been in and out of lockdown more times than they care to count, Sydney are in the midst of a long drawn out period of restrictions and in fact right now more than half the population are currently under some form of restrictions.

With all of the uncertainty that the last 18 months has delivered, one thing that has proven certain is this: all businesses require great leaders to survive and flourish, and through a period of crisis in any organisation, economy or environment, it’s our business leaders who have the ability to really pull us through.

If you’re in a leadership role, whether it’s your business or someone else’s, that fact may feel like...