The Big Rollback

The big rollback...not really poor leadership, but could have been.

Morale is at an all time low I am told, due to the economy. This leader is beside themselves trying to figure out how to fix it. They want surveys, 360degree surveys, benchmarks for the industry, roundtable discussions with other industry leaders to see if they are experiencing the same thing. It's sheer madness he says, they cannot get out of the funk.


So, here comes the coach. My first question is....what is your mood? What is your attitude? Are you perpetuating the ' poor me' or are you pushing past it and asking...why not me? What can I do about it? What can I change?

The leader paused for a moment...well, longer than a moment, for which I give him great credit....and then he said..no one has ever asked me that before. No one has challenged me to change my perspective instead of finding excuses for the perspective I have.

I could not tell at the moment if he was happy or grateful for the challenge or not. Time will tell if he picks it up and moves forward with it. By the end of our session he was willing to consider that he could be the game changer by moving forward instead of looking for excuses for everyone.

What could have turned into a complete business debacle ( a poor leadership adventure spiralling out of control) turned into a good coaching session, where my client learned a skill to take back to his team.

Changing perspectives is not easy, sometimes you need the prompt.

The 3 Hour 30 Minute Meeting

Would you like to have one of these at your next meeting?

If you have a boss like I had long ago, they would call a 'quick' 30 minute meeting....
....and we never got out in under less than 3 hours!  And everyone in the department, no matter what the role, was required to attend.

What a waste of time!  We ended up calling this the 'M' Meeting!

Having a meeting without a purpose or agenda, it was all about feather-fluffing and her talking about what she just did or what she still has to learn and why she (meaning us) is always behind on every project.

Not fun!

What to do?  Let the boss know that an agenda would be appreciated so that you can prepare for the meeting.  Also, request that your team need not attend because you would be happy to provide the meeting details and action steps so they can keep working on the project at hand, keeping productivity moving efficiently.

Use the Tools Against the Team

Looks like they are at it again.  Instead of spending time planning and developing the business, the boss is going through every single line of expense reports (and there are 30 of them), recalculating every penny spent on every item that was outlined as expense-able in the contract and company policy.  Being that the reports are done on an Excel program that the company mandates be used - developed by their own IT team - isn't this a waste of time?

Is this what a good leader should be doing?  Yes, I understand that expense control drives the bottom line up.  But does the six-figure help need to do this?  Or could they perhaps spend a few more minutes explaining expense management to the team?  Or could they have their assistant do it in a spot-check manner to ensure all expenses are valid?

This is a singular tool.  Look at the review time you spend and why are you spending that time?  What else could you be doing to work ON your business?  Who could you be spending time with to grow your business and review the tools with them so that they better understand and utilize the tools the company has in place?