“I need to vent. I can’t keep it in any longer – this process is garbage. It’s not working. Cases are slipping through the cracks and I’m entirely stressed out about it. I am about to blow.”
Silence.
“Thank you! I’ve been feeling the same way but didn’t want to be the one to pull the plug on all our hard work in creating this process.”
Ever find yourself trudging through the same broken situation every day (or week or month)? Something (or someone) isn’t working, you’ve tried and tried to figure out why, to no avail, and it is completely sucking the life out of you and draining your time and confidence.
Ok, maybe you don’t have the time or insight to FIX something that’s broken, but good Lord, let’s at least give ourselves permission to say “This isn’t working!”
That doesn’t mean you toss out all your work, knee jerk to firing your team members or get up and quit (if you are team). But it means you honestly acknowledge that a situation is not working consistently enough that it’s depleting your energy and confidence. Surely, 95% of the time you won’t be the only one feeling that way. But everyone continues to show up defeated, which is useless torture. Admitting something isn’t working gives you freedom and space to go a different direction, or at least honestly explore that possibility – and to do it together, with your team. And if you decide to proceed, you will do so knowingly and with a reason or intention, instead of just silently suffering.
We often see this silent, broken suffering with an employee whom you are considering firing. I kid you not, we had the SAME conversations about the SAME employee with the SAME boss for 12-plus years. H/she just couldn’t pull the trigger and let him/her go, or figure out how to fix it and they were both miserable. No one knew how to power down, sit down and have the vital, breakthrough conversation. The boss was in a cycle of “If I could just find the right x (people, product, services and/or technology)” and the team was stewing in a place of “If we could just get the boss’s undivided attention and carve out some dedicated time as a team to whiteboard what’s working, what’s not working and brainstorm ideas on how to get this on track.”
Sometimes it is the people. Sometimes it is the product, services and/or technology. But until you go through the analysis and process, the knee-jerk reaction is to fire, quit or continue to complain.
If you need to conduct this analysis on yourself or your employee, this is just one benefit of joining the Team Empowerment Academy: You gain access to the Power Project Process ™ to determine what is working, what is not and what to do about it. If it’s a crucial conversation, we have the employee review process. If it’s firing, we have The Smart Fire Solution process. But until you can anchor to a system, you will never feel good about your decision. Click here to schedule a FREE 30 Minute Discovery Call today and learn more about the Team Empowerment Academy – we’ll help point you in the right direction!
Laney Lyons
