Have you ever been in a situation where you were trying to convey an important point to your leader or team but were not able to communicate it properly ?
Or have you ever had worked really hard on something with sleepless nights but expectation turned out to be completely different once you delivered ?
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
There is power in understanding this and having the power to build self restrictions, such as deadlines and work expectations, for yourself and your teams.
Read more at: https://www.thinklivechoose.com/post/parkinson-s-law-and-building-fences
I recently stepped into a supervisor position after two years at this company in a team lead role on the same team. Our team is one of five teams in a larger group that meets weekly for major progress updates (1 hr), I have 30-min 1:1s with all six of my directs either weekly or biweekly (at their preference), and we have a 15-minute individual team meeting with just the seven of us once a week. This is the meeting I am struggling with. I believe it was originally scheduled for an hour under the previous supervisor but since no one ever shared anything (them included), it's gradually gotten shorter and shorter. I WANT this team to feel like a team and improve these relationships but I don't know how.
Much of the work they do is repetitive, they all have assigned tasks to handle daily and these never change. There are some special projects throughout the year, but not many, and some recurring tasks that happen quarterly or annually that are discussed at the weekly meeting with the larger group, so mostly they are clocking in, completing their tasks, answering emails, and their work is done. Since the few special projects or recurring tasks are discussed in other spaces, when I bring them up in the smaller team meeting I basically get eye rolls. I still personally feel like it's valuable to recognize the work the team is doing, celebrate wins and progress, and keep others apprised of ongoing tasks.
1:1s were challenging in the beginning too. I've been successful in getting them to open up a bit more individually, but in the group it's like everyone is either too shy to brag about a success or ask for help from more than just myself, or simply think it's a waste of their time to mention anything. Some claim their workload is so heavy they don't have time for meetings, which I've assessed and believe this is instead an excuse. It's really been bothering me. Some suggestions I've read are things like icebreaker questions or calling on each individual person for a status update. I don't see either of these working well with this group. I like the idea of asking each person one thing they are most proud of and one thing they are most anxious about from the last week, which is another suggestion I received, but I think that's more suitable for a 1:1.
I am open to any and all suggestions for how to bring this team meeting back to life. On a team where there truly won't be many regular (weekly) updates on projects, what can we focus on as a team to build morale and trust and teamwork?
The personal, self destructive, apocalypse is a real thing. Denial, blame, anger and depression are all ways we can self implode and year down our support systems around us.
So how do you escape it?
Failure is visible. We notice when a project misses its target, when a business folds, or when a leader makes a poor decision.
But avoidance? Avoidance is subtle.
What are the impacts of avoiding or fear?
https://www.thinklivechoose.com/post/avoidance-and-the-fear-of-failure
I have been through a number of management and leadership courses and quite a few of them create this hard line between leaders and managers. Now I know you can lead without being a manager, but I think it makes for a poor manager to not also focus on leadership traits.
In my head they should be more closely aligned, and the discussion is "which is appropriate here, in this circumstance" and not a bifurcation of the two.
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Lately I’ve been questioning what “self-realization” actually means.
A lot of us think it means becoming a better version of ourselves:
more peaceful, spiritual, confident, healed, successful, etc.
But isn’t that still just another identity?
If you watch carefully, everything about you changes constantly:
thoughts, moods, opinions, personality, even the role you play in life.
Yet there seems to be something that notices all of it without changing.
So what if self-realization isn’t about improving the character…
but realizing you were never just the character?
The moment I started asking:
“Who is aware of these thoughts?”
instead of
“How do I become someone better?”
something shifted in me.
Curious how others see this.
Do you think there’s actually a deeper “self” beyond personality and thought? Or is the observer itself just another illusion created by the brain?
Most coaches I have met don't really have a viable business.
They fall in love with coaching itself and like the idea of helping people. Perfectly good thing.
BUT..
To thrive in coaching, build a reputation, get great clients and it be rewarding financially, you need the infrastructure and systems to do that.
What does that look like?
Matching your coaching to existing demand - it is easier to sell your coaching as a solution to a WANT a market will pay for. But many coaches focus on marketing coaching not the realisation from coaching. So, they struggle to charge right, capture leads and build the level of revenue to build the infrastructure.
A recent stat, shows most coaches makes $20k a year.
Second, the infrastructure needed to build demand is absent or they are the infrastructure. No demand creation engine.
Posting is not connected to the buyer journey - a lot of activity but not much joined up. So the content isn't growing an email list, an email list isn't building trust or creating tension. And the program is not aligned to the email list. It's all jumbled.
This means they end up doing the very thing they hate.... hustle marketing, more selling.
Buying more courses, hiring agencies - when the issue is, they don't align to demand and build the infrastructure.
Is this something you see in the industry too?