Creating a Habit of Accountability, 12 Brutal Truths For Every Employer & ‘The Daily Huddle’ & Yearly Themes Done Right
3 September 2023 Newsletter
“A good leader leads everyone the same, a great leader caters to different people based upon what they need.” John Maxwell
Hope you’re Thriving!
It’s been an extremely productive week with four x full day planning workshops and preparations for the new Onboarded for Managers book launch on October 1st.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a good week also.
If you haven’t yet had the chance, I’d encourage you to watch the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary “Arnold” on Netflix. It’s heartfelt, motivational and perhaps not what you might expect at all. See Arnold’s social media policy below.
Creating A Habit Of Accountability
In a previous article, we discussed the 3 levers to drive accountability, how to create momentum and have an action plan to coach our team to achieve high performance and demonstrate the right behaviours.
Once we’ve initiated the three levers of accountability, we want to maintain that momentum, so next, we address the question: How do we integrate those roles’ expectations into the day-to-day work?
Aligning Expectations With Your Team Members
As leaders, one of our responsibilities is to help our team succeed. One way to do this is to help them have absolute clarity on how to succeed in their role.
In our work with leadership teams, we often see five consistent and recurring expectations that are required.
- Role purpose: the reason the role exists and its primary responsibility
- Measures of success: 1 or 2 KPIs to measure the role’s primary responsibility
- Priorities: 3-5 quarterly priorities to ensure focus and alignment on the most important things to deliver
- Processes and systems: 5-7 processes and systems they are responsible for
- Behaviours: cultural expectations reflected by the company’s Core Values
Recently, I discussed this with a CEO who was frustrated with their results, even after having a few meetings where the main agenda item was, in fact, accountability.
Continue reading this article here.
12 Brutal Truths Every Employer Needs To Read
This week I came across this short and interesting list I thought you’d appreciate.
12 brutal truths every employer needs to read:
- When your best people leave, it’s not them. It’s you.
- You don’t have a remote work issue. You have trust issues.3. Management that can’t handle feedback won’t survive change.4. If your actions don’t align with your values, your employees won’t trust you.5. Your diversity program is hollow if your leadership team all looks the same.6. Underpaying your people doesn’t make you cost-effective. It makes you short-sighted.
7. A toxic culture will tarnish your brand, no matter how good your products are.
8. The customer experience will never exceed the employee experience.
9. Micromanagement isn’t a sign of dedication, it’s a warning sign.
10. Top talent won’t stay if their growth isn’t your priority.
11. Leading by fear creates teams that underperform.
12. If you don’t pay people what they’re worth, someone else will.
When you always put your people first, they’ll give you their best and everyone wins.
‘The Daily Huddle’ & Yearly Themes Done Right
Dancer Concrete Design is a 40 person business specialising in polished concrete and epoxy floor coatings based in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
They physically change the design, the feel, and the impact on interior spaces by using concrete as a design element. They are a great example of a business doing the hard work to become a small giant – a business that works to become better not bigger.
One of the things I liked on their website was their yearly themes which lists out all the themes they’ve had as a business since 2011. They celebrate the new theme with handouts, new t-shirts, and signs in our business.
For example in the video below, President Nick Dancer can be seen wearing a T-shirt from their 2019 theme “Trust the process”.
2019 Theme: Trust The Process
The best work is brought to life by meditating on the task; by focusing on the doing. It’s not about the end goal or worrying about the future. To create the best, to be the best, you have to fall in love with the process of creating. It’s then, and only then, that the process is nurtured, valued and appreciated. When we focus on the process, we can ignore the pressures of an outcome. Trusting the Process is an adventure. Trusting the Process is awareness, presence, and understanding. It’s the right here and right now parts of life. When you give yourself to the moment, the creating becomes its own reward.
Here are the daily huddle questions everyone answers each day at Dancer Concrete Design:
- What do you plan to do?
- Where do you plan to get at the end of the day?
- What are your stucks (the things keeping you up at night, that are bugging you)?
And here are three great quotes from the video:
- “The daily huddle is an open book of what everybody’s business day looks like so we can make the best decision”
- “Every minute on the huddle saves ten minutes out on the job site”
- “The big driving force of our company is growing leaders who deliver best work and that means there’s always leadership opportunities.”
Watch the video here: Parkview Connections Podcast: Leading to build culture
Arnold Schwarzenegger Social Media Policy
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Keep Thriving!
Brad Giles
