The Latest from Kristy-Lee

Let me ask you a question…. As the business owner, leader, manager, the head honcho, how important is ‘self-care’ to you? In fact, what does self-care even mean to you?

Why am I asking you this? And what on earth does this have to do with your team and your business success?

Well I wanted to let you in on a little background and share my experience in realising just how important this is to our success as business owners. I wanted to share this with you because I was there, I was doing all of the things, all of the time and thought I was smashing it! I had it totally under control and was moving forward and building my empire (yes literally that was my mantra, I’m not even joking).

But do you know what, I was on the fast train towards burnout and I couldn’t see it, and in fact it took one of my team to not so subtly let me know that I wasn’t being the best leader, manager or business owner I could be.

Was my business successful at the time? Absolutely! By all of the typical measure...

Ever been in a situation where you felt completely blindsided by an employee resigning?

Perhaps you’ve been frustrated because they had ample opportunity to talk to you about whatever was going on and they didn’t.

Maybe despite not seeing it coming you’re quietly relieved because, let’s face it, they haven’t been a stellar team member for the last little while.

There is even a chance that you are not so quietly relieved because this employee has been keeping you up at night, you’ve been avoiding having one of those conversations with them and their resignation has just got you out of it….

Whatever the case we have all been there, where a resignation landed on our desk that we didn’t see coming. But could we have? Could we have seen the signs, and known that this was inevitable? Or could we have seen the signs and put in place strategies to reverse what was going on so we could retain this once high performing and well liked member of our team.

The truth is, in almost every circums...

This is one of the topics I most often get asked about.

I see business owners, leaders and managers struggling with this one all the time: tackling difficult conversations with staff. Usually this comes after a period of avoiding that difficult conversation which is what we’re going to spend a bit of time today looking at in depth.

If you’re anything like me, conflict is not something you run headfirst toward with arms wide open to embrace - that’s exactly why tough conversations are hard. That dreaded feeling in the pit of your stomach, sleepless nights, anxiety, avoiding the staff member and putting off THAT conversation, if not avoiding it entirely.

You are absolutely not alone.

Even with my experience, I don’t like having these conversations either. I never have, and while I’m definitely better at tackling these tough conversations, it doesn’t mean I like it any more than I did before - I just developed the skills to get better at having them. 

These skills are essential fo...

"If it can not be measured it can not be managed" - Peter Drucker

When was the last time you contemplated creating KPIs for your team?

KPI's, Key Performance Indicators, Key Success Criteria or any other term you would like to use are essential to drive employee performance, productivity and engagement.

Too often this task lands firmly in the 'too hard basket' because let's be honest it's not the easiest task to do.

Done poorly, creating KPIs are an utter waste of time. For many of you who have been in the position where you have been allocated or managed staff with ineffective KPI's, this will have undoubtedly influenced your desire to develop better targets for your future teams.

If this sounds like you, I am going to challenge you to rethink your approach today. I am challenging you to set just 1 KPI for each role over the next week, and 3 big ones for your business or team.

Why?

Our team members fundamentally want to know 3 key things from their leaders:
1) What do we expect ...

It’s simple maths that you can’t continue to grow a business and achieve greater results year on year, quarter on quarter and week on week without a great team. But once you have that team, the challenge can be how to keep them motivated.

Motivated employees are our most engaged employees, and we know that an engaged team can be 17% more productive and lead to a whopping 21% increase in business profitability, according to a study conducted by Gallup.

So keeping motivation high, and ultimately increasing engagement is like your secret weapon that can really differentiate you from your competitors. Motivated and engaged teams attract the best and brightest, and foster environments which encourage productivity, creativity and best practice at every level.

So what can we as employers proactively do to maintain and improve our teams motivation at work?

• Operate from a Place of Purpose
  Employees thrive in businesses which are driven towards a clear purpose. Be clear on your purpose,
...

As a business owner or manager, you may think you have a million more important things to do than write a position description for every role in your company.

Particularly in small business, where there is a need for flexibility within the scope and responsibility and daily duties of each individual, to meet the fluctuating needs and demands of a fluid business structure, these ‘structured’ documents can often seem limiting and unnecessary.

However, accurate and detailed Position Descriptions, in my opinion, are the most important document to have in your business, when it comes to managing staff, and here is why:

• They create structure – as we all know, where there are no rules people instinctively will make up their own. Position descriptions which are clear, appropriately detailed and cover the nature, scope, and duties of the role, as well as the expectations around behaviour and performance standards create a working ‘rule book’ for your employees.
• They set the bound
...