1) You can only master a few things. You’ll feel like a novice most of the time. Why? Because in today’s world, you are required to do things the first time more than ever before.
2) Everyone who is advancing suffers from imposter syndrome (100% of the 1000 leaders I’ve interviewed said they have it. You will too).
3) Confidence-Competence loop. You have to break it. Otherwise you’ll always feel like your not enough.
What should you do:
1) Education, empathy, and self-compassion. If business was easy everyone would be successful. They aren’t. It’s ongoing challenging situation. You are never done learning.
2) Focus more on your strengths than what you lack
3) Develop yourself in self-awareness, relationships, leadership, management and managing/engaging with others
4) Realize failure is a part of the success process. You only fail if you stop.
5) Manage your emotions and emotional landscape. We are all emotional. Ignoring this hurts you and everyone you interact with (live and digitally).
Facing fear is how you move past it. Ignoring it isn’t. What you resist will persist. It won’t go away. In fact, it will get worse.
Taking action and using uncertainty as your friend will help you move through fear much more quickly. You won’t ever be fearless, but can manage fear much, much better!
Here is an email I replied back to a help a manager/leader increase employee engagement, team building and overall performance in their management team and with employees. “3 Great Employee Engagement and Team Meeting Activities.”
“Here are a few other ideas that have been proven to increase engagement, happiness, performance, problem-solving, teamwork and more:
#1 Picture Exercise
Have everyone bring a picture that’s important to them. Give them one minute to share who is in it, why they choose the picture and what impact this picture has had on their life
Go around the room and give everyone 30 seconds to one minute to mention one person in the room they are grateful for and explain the impact they had on them.
#2 Random Email of Kindness (Two versions)
Have each person in your team write an email to send to a member of the group (1 of the 12) that expresses the impact they have had on them. Spend a maximum of five minutes writing it (so it should only be a couple paragraphs or less in length). Have each person send it one hour or less before your meeting. So you can write it ahead of time, just not send it.
You can also do it that each member of the group sends an email to an employee (not one of the group members). I’d have each person send it to a person NOT inside their work function. For example, Finance manager would send it to a legal, HR, marketing, etc. employee. I think it means more to be recognized across the organization. You wouldn’t do anything other than the email.
#3 Above and Beyond Award
Give an award every month to one employee that has gone above and beyond. You can ask employees for feedback and the team of 12. Team of 12 decides on who it is. Either give them that award in a company meeting or have them come to your meeting.
Have one of the 12 read outloud a paragraph or so on why they choose the person. End it with, “We value you because…(either create something new everytime or say, “We value you because you went above and beyond!”). Send an email out companywide on it. I’d give $50 Visa Gift Card (or something like that) and possibly balloons you put up in the area they work. Feel free to get creative.
“Thank you for speaking at our SHRM seminar in Texarkana on Tuesday. You presented such valuable information that will be useful in my position at work as well as my dealings with people in other areas of my life. How generous of you to speak at our event and provide your notes and game to us at no charge! I appreciate that so very much.
I thought you might like a little feedback about how we are already using the information you presented. Our management team (about 12 key leaders) meets every Friday morning. We plan to pass around one question each week to help us get to know each other on a deeper level and connect personally rather than just professionally. It went great this morning! We found out some things about each other we never would have known otherwise and the team seemed relaxed with great interaction as we continued our meeting. I am looking forward to continuing this each week and see our good team become an excellent team.
Thank you again for your time and generosity. I wish you the best!
Melinda Wommack, Human Resources/Finance, Hospice of Texarkana”
“Jason joined the AA-ISP (Global Sales Association) for our Spring Leadership Retreat with 50+ Sales Leaders from companies of all sizes. Our event focused on “culture” and Jason was the perfect Guest Speaker for this 3-day event! Attendees gained so much knowledge from Jason’s talk and loved playing the Cards Against Mundanity game. Thanks again Jason!” Kameron Hobbs, Sr. Director, Global Marketing & Operations at AA-ISP
Here are 10 questions to take your employee reference calls from ineffective to informative and revealing. You are spending a significant amount of money to recruit, hire and retain every person in your company along with the future replacement cost.
You can hire significantly better candidates and see “red flags” much quicker if you ask better questions during the hiring process and during reference checks.
Considering using this questions for your candidates. I put them in the order I’d use them.
Questions:
What is your relationship to the candidate? How long have you worked with the candidate?
This establishes a baseline for you.
What were the candidate’s responsibilities, outcomes, and impact?
This lets you know how well the person knew the candidate and you can understand their role versus the role you need them for.
(If the person managed the candidate): Could you please share with me your leadership and management style/philosophy and company culture.
This gives you a guide on comparing your company environment from where the candidate is coming. It also gives you a lens to understand the feedback you will be receiving.
On a scale of 1-10 (one being poor, ten being extraordinary), how would you rate this candidates communication, teamwork, problem-solving capabilities? Please share a specific example that explains your rating.
Where did this candidate fit in well with your company culture? Where didn’t they? (and why for both)
When you worked with this candidate, when did they appear to be highly motivated (and why do think that was? when were they least motivated? What do you believe drives this candidate?
What blind spots do you see with this candidate?
How could have this candidate excelled more in their position? Why?
How did this candidate react to feedback? What developmental feedback did you provide them? How did they react, process and implement that feedback?
On a scale of 1 to 10 (one being poor, ten being extraordinary), how enthusiastically would you endorse this candidate?
“Working with Jason really helped me to work through my blind spots and become a better leader. I can’t say enough great things about how impactful working with Jason was for me personally and professionally.” Joel Clum, COO, Worldwide Express $1B Revenue (Shipping & Logistics)
