As I write this on a gloomy Saturday afternoon, I look out my office window only to see grey clouds and leaves furiously flying around.
It’s easy to feel down and overburdened by whatever hard stuff is going on when the weather is like this. But when I really take the time to think about it, there is so much to celebrate and be generally positive and grateful for.
Two things in particular that I am grateful for are:
- Stapleton Consulting are now a team of three!
- We are working on some exciting and challenging projects with our clients.
Our new recruits
Delia joined us last month. She has found her stride and has got into a few projects including a recruitment and assisting with a performance management case.
Then last week I had the pleasure of welcoming Steph to the team. She is our trusted HR Coordinator and will be keeping the wheels turning whilst Delia and I are working with our wonderful clients. Steph is a community minded person who loves being involved in school sports and her kids’ activities.
Steph’s usual hours are Tuesday to Thursday, from 9am to 2.30pm. She will be checking emails outside of these hours and some weeks she will have more availability than others or may change her days. It is great to have her in the team and you will no doubt get her meet her over the phone or via email in the coming weeks as she comes to grips with my inbox and our CRM.
The previous 2-3 months haven’t been the easiest ride and there is only so much one person can do. I would like to thank those clients out there who have been understanding and patient with us when we may have not responded as quickly as we would have liked to.
Over the coming months we will be working towards gaining incremental improvements so that we can reach our high standard of service delivery.
The added bonus with Steph joining the team is that we (kind of) have a base now. She has taken up residence at Panama House in Hamilton. This gives us access to a range of meeting rooms and facilities in the city. Since she lives in that part of world it seemed only fitting that instead of spending 1-1.5 hours commuting to Te Awamutu that she put this time into her work. We still operate from my office in Te Awamutu as required.
it’s time to Pause, reset & act
There are times when running a business or getting a project off the ground is not easy
You have a picture in your head of how it is meant to be, but it sometimes that simply doesn’t happen and you need to change course or there are delays and fires to fight.
My advice is to use this wintery month to push pause, reset and act. What is your plan for the second half of 2019? How do you want 2020 to start? Do you want to feel like a leaf blowing in the wind with little control over your destination?
Act with purpose and awareness. Purpose of what is going to happen between July and December – not what could, may or needs to happen. Then act with the awareness of where you have been and why. This is so that you know what to look out for so there is more good stuff happening than bad.
‘Pause, reset and act’ is not just for the business leaders out there. It is also for the employees out there who are having to put the detail into the leader’s vision and bring it to reality.
Mid-year performance and business planning conversations
The time to act is now.
Sit down, have conversations and make plans with your team members and your key stakeholders who are integral to bringing the vision to reality.
Give them goals to work towards and feedback on what is working, what is not working and what needs to change – do it as a group and one-on-one. Not everyone is going to respond to your vision the same way. The one-on-one conversations are just as important as your team meetings. If you are time poor and the thought of one-on-one meetings with each of your team members makes you dive your head into the sand, then reach out and talk to us.
Recently, we worked with one of our tradie clients who hadn’t had one-on-one performance and professional development conversations with their team in over a year. During the sessions, there were some great moments of clarity on both sides of the table. Not just on an individual level but also it made the business vision change and become clearer for the leader.
Another highlight was that an employee had made assumptions that hadn’t been challenged before then. Once challenged, they came to realise the negativity they held towards a team member, was of their own making. The team member hadn’t done anything to them. Instead, it was a story they had created and believed to explain why some events and conversations happened in the manner they did. Lesson learnt – Don’t’ always believe your inner gossip and ask questions to clarify.
The client and their team valued the opportunity to talk performance and how things were going so much that it is now a regular 6-monthly slot in the calendar. The business owner has also penciled in 6 weekly informal chats and project milestone review meetings to make sure things stay on track.
If you haven’t had one-on-one performance conversations with your team in a while, please make it a priority for June. Use these meetings as an opportunity to pause and reset so you know how best to move forward and act.
Give us a call and let us help you see the forest for the trees.
