As I work with frontline leaders in our Bud to Boss workshops, I frequently hear this concern after we discuss a coaching approach, change management strategy, or communication technique: “Guy, I hear what you’re saying, and it all sounds great. I just can’t do that with my team.” It is not always verbalized the same way. It is the same basic … [Read more...]
Set Expectations That Employees Fully Understand
"What do you expect?" People say that all the time in an earnest or quizzical way, or sometimes with outright exasperation. However, more often than not, people simply think it without ever taking the extra step to clarify what is expected of them. That leads to mistakes, conflict, shoddy work and productivity losses, because your employees and coworkers ask or think of … [Read more...]
5 Tried-and-True Motivation Tactics
Looking for new ways to keep your employees motivated? Don’t trust your team’s motivation to quick fixes that promise to boost morale. Instead, depend on these good old-fashioned management strategies: Make sure workloads are reasonable. The current mantra is “do more with less.” Be extra diligent in ensuring that employees’ workloads are realistic. How do you know if … [Read more...]
Our Gift to You: Words of Advice for 2021
Happy Holidays from the Bud to Boss team! 2020 was a challenging year, to say the least, but soon we will be turning the calendar to a new year, full of new opportunities and goals. So as we say farewell to 2020 and prepare to welcome the New Year, we’d like to offer you these words of advice. May they serve you well next year. Quit sweating the small stuff If the last year … [Read more...]
Ensuring a Well-Run Meeting Starts With One Critical Step
We’ve all walked out of a meeting and thought “Wow, that was a waste of time.” Perhaps the meeting had no clear purpose, the participants strayed off topic or the issues weren’t adequately resolved. Regardless, you left the meeting feeling frustrated. This time-wasting experience could have been avoided if the person preparing for the meeting knew how to write an agenda that … [Read more...]
Resources: Managing Negativity Now and Later
Most people right now are feeling the full weight of the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re anxious or scared. They may be feeling frustrated with the stay at home measures. Some are experiencing financial problems. Some may have even lost a loved one to the virus. Most of us are dealing with emotional highs and lows, and that can affect even the most positive people’s attitudes. To … [Read more...]
The Remote Working Survival Guide: 4 Tips
If, for the first time, you are managing employees who now must work from home, or you have been managing at least some remote workers for a while now, Jono Bacon, management strategy consultant, speaker,and author, shares some insight for doing so successfully in this guest post. Before the pandemic, 70% of professionals worked from home at least once a week. Similarly, … [Read more...]
Figuring Out What Motivates Employees
Two questions I often hear from coaching clients during workshops and consulting engagements are: "How do I work with an unmotivated person?" "How do I motivate someone to work harder?" Here are the quick answers: There is no such thing as an unmotivated person. Everyone is motivated to do something. Therefore, everyone is motivated. You cannot motivate … [Read more...]
Reducing Conflict in the Workplace Starts With Common Courtesy
I was recently reading about strategies for managing high-conflict people in both the workplace and in your personal life, and it got me thinking about conflicts, in general. Conflicts are often not the result of some huge problem. Of course, people can do terrible things to one another, and that creates conflict, but when it comes to our day-to-day activities, our fights … [Read more...]
4 Signs You Might Be a Micromanager
What does it mean to act "like a boss" in your opinion? Does it mean managing your employees every move or empowering them to find their own way? Does it mean setting a process you expect everyone follow implicitly or working with your team to find a system that works for everyone? Honestly, no one wants to admit to micromanaging employees’ performance. Yet you may have … [Read more...]