Bad boss?

Do you have problems with your employees? With productivity? Or maybe with your boss? 

But you might not be sure of what is going on?

Here you will find a method for reducing motivation and productivity. Why would you want to have such a recipe? Sometimes an alternative perspective makes you see the situation much clearer and thereby find solutions. When you intensively try to find the positive angle and a solution you might get stuck. And if you have failed as a leader, this might make you realize that it could be much worse.

If you wonder if this has anything at all to do with a real business case, I, unfortunately, have to inform you that I have seen it, and it was actually even worse.

• Make sure that the managers get salary increases and improved benefits, at the same time as you minimize salary increases for the other employees, and take away some of the benefits they used to have.
  

• Don’t inform about any crucial things going on in the organization. But make sure to whisper loud enough in the corridors, so they know everything – unofficially.
  

• Micromanage! Make sure the vision is fuzzy, the goals are unclear, but criticize details in every delivery. That way the employees have little or no possibility of doing it right.

Tada! You have managed to get an unproductive and demotivated organization!

I guess that is not what you wanted to achieve, so start doing the opposite!

Suddenly lost your motivation?

Have you ever suddenly found yourself without motivation for things you normally love doing? It could be that you can’t get up in the morning to go to work or find your partner to be extremely boring or irritating, or find the Gym you used to love to be impossible to prioritize. I have a special talent - to motivate myself! I am actually good at motivating others too, but that is another story. 

Yet I can suddenly find it extremely hard to find “time” to take my long walk, go swimming, tidy up my office, or plan dinner (I don’t like cooking except for a special dinner, or a party). The strange thing is that motivation seems to disappear suddenly and often for no reason. 

So what do you do when you often don’t know what to cure? I know quite a few people that start looking for a new job when they lose motivation. But they seldom apply for the job since motivation has returned when it is time to send in the application. Some people decide to leave their partner, and we who have to listen to their complaints don’t take them seriously after a few rounds.

What I suggest is that you focus on something else. The reason you lost motivation is probably temporary, but if it isn’t you can still look for new jobs, partners, or Gyms when you have decided that the lack of motivation is serious and solvable.

There are some things that always work to increase motivation - at least in the short run:

1. Do something you really like - eat chocolate, drink champagne, sunbathe, read a good book, or meet your best friends.
2. Take a long walk - the brain will be fooled into believing life is not that bad after all.
3. Do something that will make you exhausted - boxing, running, climbing, etc but I have to admit that when I have lost motivation I am not capable of that so I go for the first two alternatives.

Good luck!

Do you want people to agree with you?

Would you like to avoid changes? Would you like everything to stay the same? Probably if you dare to admit it! Your brain is programmed that way, but as we all know, “the only thing that is constant is change.” So the normal scenario is that you know there is a need to do something that is not to everybody’s liking. Or someone told you to do something that is not to everyone’s liking, which is everything! There is not a single case where everyone will like your suggestions. Even if you plan a party, there will be different opinions. So you always need to crack the code of getting everybody to at least accept what needs to be done and how. What is the secret code? You will not be surprised - it’s communication!

Here are some simple ways to present the problem you need to solve or the challenge you see in front of you, how to solve it, and how to implement the solution.

Ask questions!

Make sure you get a few different views of the problem you need to solve. You might need to change your systems, product range or organization, Or the authorities decided some new regulations.

Visualize!

Make a presentation of the current situation. Pictures always make people more engaged. When you have a couple of possible solutions - visualize them! Don’t spend too much time trying to present the perfect picture. People love to find ways to improve it. Let them! If you let others be better than you, your team will grow which will benefit the organization - and you! Win-win. It’s right to be wrong!

Good enough - decide!

When you have a solution that is good enough, it’s time to make a decision and implement it. Change is so fast that there is no time for perfect solutions if you don’t work as a brain surgeon or at a nuclear power plant.

Dare to be wrong!

If it turns out you were wrong, dare to make a new decision and change path. When you dare to admit you were wrong, more people will dare to admit they were wrong, and you will make better decisions, and implement better solutions.

If you want to be the best in your field you have to now and then go outside your comfort zone to try new solutions, walk the unknown paths, and you also need to be prepared to admit you chose the wrong path.

Good luck! Remember that there is seldom dangerous to try an unknown path even though your brain tries to make you believe it.

Passion for improvement?

What is your passion? You have probably, as I, several things you are passionate about. One of my passions is to travel off the beaten tracks with a light packing. But this blog is about my other passion - tackle change, improvement possibilities, the best possible way! 

The only thing that is certain is that life is constantly changing! It doesn’t matter how hard we try to stop the world from spinning we will only get worn out while the world continues to spin. Do we like change? Absolutely! If it affects others! Who doesn’t want others to change? You might want to change the colleague that is too detailed, too lazy, or too sloppy! And what about your partner? There are probably a few areas in which you like him or her to change. But do you want to change yourself? Only if you are the one that decided to change! You don’t like people to impose change on you!

One of the significant changes that is affecting all of us and will continue to do so is digitalization. All my projects since I started my carrier has had to do with digitalization. Mostly as a possibility to make business more efficient due to new tools and systems. It’s not a new phenomenon, but digitalization 1985 that was a major change by then is a story to laugh at today. The digital change is going faster the more it’s affecting more areas and more parts of daily life. I can assure you that much more can be done to keep up with change in almost all big companies and organizations. Most of you know that there are still too many old models, processes, and systems around. Why are they not replaced? They function good enough (at least according to all of those that don’t like someone to impose a change on them), and it’s expensive (so we rather wait until the world stops spinning and see what we need to do by then…). I could give you more examples but let us continue with how to implement change faster and smoother. 

I love to keep my eyes and ears open to see and understand trends and use that understanding to implement necessary changes. Since change is inevitable, you might just as well do the best you can to adapt smoothly. Is it possible? Absolutely, and it’s not even that difficult, but you have to deal with it consciously. And please don’t wait for things to settle - they will not!

The 4-step model to handle change and other challenges

Understanding is the most tricky step. We have to admit that we face change whether we like it or not. The sooner we accept that change is here, the sooner we can start making the best of the situation.

Analyzing is to find the possible ways to adapt to the change we face. When you skip denial, you can concentrate on collecting the best information from the best sources, and present at least 2 possible solutions, preferably 3. One could be - we refuse to change.

Then it’s time to decide how you want to tackle the change you face. You might feel you have no choice, but that is never true. You can always walk away. It might be costly but is always possible even though that seldom is my suggested solution.

The implementation phase is, of course, the most challenging. When finally faced with the fact that change will affect each person, resistance and questioning grow strong, but you can’t easily detect it. People unconsciously hide it behind arguments and facts. Through good leadership and clear goals you will succeed, but not if you don’t stay focused and conscious. 

I will continue to inspire you to dare to handle the effects of coming changes earlier. The next blogs will cover communication and people which is what you need to manage to succeed in implementing change and staying ahead of your competitors.

Why do you do what you do?

Most people I talk to want to change something in their lives. At this time of the year, people want to change more. What do you want to change? Job? House? Health? Travel? 

The first thing to think through is why you have your current job or why you live where you live. Before deciding to make a change, you need to take some time to think about some of the important decisions you made some time ago. I am sure you had good reasons to make the decision that has taken you where you are even though you might not like the result. When you know more about the history of the decision you can avoid making the same mistake again. But beware - don’t get stuck in the history and don’t start blaming yourself for making the bad choices. Just take a dissociated look at the situation you were in when you made your choice, understand that it was the best choice you saw back then, and learn why you should not make the same mistake now when you know better.

I was the Administrative Manager for a company that had multiplied. I had recruited a lot of competent people to the company, and suddenly I had to inform them that the company went into bankruptcy. How could I let that happen? Well, the fact is I was seriously worried about profitability and cash flow and presented the facts to the owners repeatedly. The owners did not listen to my warnings. One day the company lawyer came to the office and informed me that the company was in a due diligence process and was not allowed to slow down the expansion or make any major changes during the process. When the deal did not go through the company went bankrupt. I admit I considered the owners to act silly before I knew why! Could I have done something differently? Actually - not much. What did I learn? That you can end up in a situation that you did not choose and you might not even believe such a thing could happen - not even in your worst case scenario. 

When I work with change, no matter if it’s an organizational change, business process overview, new financial regulations or system development, I always do my best to figure out why it looks as it does and assume that the decisions some time ago were right back then. I can assure you it’s much easier to discuss the coming changes when I have acknowledged the history. 

So if you are about to make changes in your life - start with asking why! But make sure not to blame yourself for making bad decisions. That will not take you anywhere. 

Good luck with all your interesting choices!