What happens after the honeymoon period?
Like every single lust filled relationship a business or start up goes through the same process. You have this team of inspired creative individuals chewing off their own arm in anticipation to get started. This initial sex drive creates genius in the workplace imagination and creative is flowing to the point where the leader will have to say no to brilliant ideas to service the phenomenal ideas. We all know what it feels like to wake up next a person and the only circulating thought is going full caveman and having your way. There is a level of vigor that exists to the same extent when operating and entertaining an idea to life.
Your sitting at your breakfast table slamming a tasteless but practical breakfast in anticipation to get out and show the world your art, you roll into the building or office and your team are hard it, serving clients going above and beyond, coming up with questions and answering them before you have chance to process what the fuck they are talking about. Clearly you have a culture going on. This process continues for 3-6 months, the profits are rolling in and your growing, you start to recognise yourself as a deserving successful leader.then it happens
Your eating the same tasteless breakfast and you recognise how terrible it tastes, your team are quiet, late but fulfilling there duties, you feel you need to come down on them hard to fight for there positions but they are still ticking boxes and crossing tasks of lists, the profits are still there but it doesn’t feel the same. You hear the odd sound of people clinking coffee cups and the monotonous tapping of the soft and smooth Mac keys. It’s eerie and dead because in this moment you have joined the other 90% of lifeless office spaces watching the clock tick.
The Honeymoon period is long gone
What every leader/ manager needs to recognise is that whatever they are feeling in their 3 brains (head, heart and stomach) so is your team and clients. If you the leader are having a human moment getting caught up in the day to day, the grind, the cycle of day and night SO ARE YOUR TEAM!!! It appears that the most successful individuals looking back and right now have developed strategies and rituals to move through these periods and maintain the rage on having an effect on the world. Here are some tactical approaches for yourself and team to keep growing and progressing.
- Publicly elevate and champion key members, organize a catch up outside of the workplace for the sole reason of having fun, leave the business talk behind. If the conversation swings around back to the workplace then let it be, this is great indicator that your team are still adding value and reflecting on their work looking at ways to make it better. During this time call someone out for his or her achievements because something magical happens. Both party’s giver and receiver receive a hit of a very important chemical…serotonin. Unlike dopamine and inherently selfish chemical, serotonin serves the person receiving the award and the person giving the award. By Osmosis the team will strive to have that shared feeling of significance. By making this a standard it can add to continuation of the culture and the team working as a unit. A very influential person in my life shared this “ If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go with many”. I must add going fast does not mean far. I will give some clarity and content around how neurochemicals work in the workplace in a later article.
- As the leader it is imperative to know your team on a very deep level, If you cannot uncover in them what really makes them get up in the morning and what is the most important values and beliefs they navigate life with then you will need to take a very surface approach to drive behavior e.g. incentive schemes or the manipulate the 2 most valued commodities, time and money. This approach is expensive, tactical and very short term. It will only last so long until you run out of ideas reinventing the wheel. Helping your team uncover, desires, goals and unique purposes to them will build honor trust and insane work ethic. As long as you’re providing a platform of skills and capabilities to see them follow through and progress to this goal the rage will be maintained. Notice my continual use of this phrase J. If you cannot do this within yourself do not expect anything you say to land with your team, “if you want your reality to change you have to first change within”
- “In the pause of reflection comes insight”
We are thrown into an education system that teaches us how to prepare. We prepare for grade school in Pre School; we prepare for high school during grade school, all the way into years of preparation for retirement ……then guess what we prepare for? That’s right, death. How do we know where the hell we are if we can only see a future that never actuals comes? Insert carrot and stick analogy
If you desire a team of high operators then it appears that a skillset and mindset of owning the moment and celebrating the wins are a ritual that needs to be practiced. All we ever have is unfolding moments of now and the debate on past and future is very long winded and cannot be proven wrong or right. “Who you are right now is only who you chose to be moment ago”.
Make reflection a part of your processes and watch the gold arise.
More on teamwork and leadership in
http://nathanielhodges.blogs.com/my-blog/2016/03/4-reasons-why-your-goals-left-you-empty.html
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