Want to have a championship caliber team?

In some recent management retreats, we noticed that all of the people on the management teams suffered from exactly the same issue. The issue manifested in different ways, but the issue was the same. As part of our retreats, we facilitate open, honest and compassionate communication and what got said over and over again to most of the managers was: I don’t feel appreciated, I don’t get enough atta boys, you aren’t as available to me as I would like and it’s often difficult to talk to you about my issues without you getting defensive. Sound familiar? We hear things like this all the time.

So what’s the issue? If you are a manager of people you have two choices. You’ve heard us talk about this before. You can either listen to the voice of your ego, in which case you have your attention on yourself and spend your time thinking about what you need to do for you and what you want others to do for you OR you can listen to the voice of your higher consciousness, in which case you have your attention on everyone else and spend your time thinking about what you can do for them.

This is such a simple and basic reality but one that eludes most in management positions, which is why over 50% of workers hate their jobs and/or their bosses. It’s a fact of life that people will never care about you until they know you care about them. And when you go through life with your attention on yourself, you send a powerful message to the people that you manage that you don’t care about them. So don’t be surprised that they don’t do a good job for you.

Want to have a championship caliber team with high productivity and creativity, leading to increased profitability? It’s so simple it’s almost ridiculous. Stop thinking about yourself and what you need to do and what you want others to do for you and start spending all or most of your time thinking about how you can support and empower your people to have what they want. It’s one of life’s ironies that as long as you’re in life for what’s in it for you, there’s nothing in it for you. It’s only when you are in life for what you can do for others that all of life’s riches come your way.