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Greatness Magnified

But I’m Exhausted: How to Recognize Yourself and Others’ Even in Overload

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An interview with special guest, Christine Laperriere, owner/founding partner of Leader In Motion and Executive Director of Women of Influence Advancement Centre. Christine is passionate about Women’s Advancement and helping them learn how to stay happy despite being so busy.  Learn more about the mindset and strategies needed to get through it all.

Sarah:

Today, I’m pleased to introduce you to my amazing colleague Christine Laperriere, the head of Leader In Motion. We were going to talk about something that we’re so passionate about- women’s advancement and the lack of recognition – but here’s the thing; we’re both showing up at 4:30 in the afternoon at the end of the week exhausted and we’re exhausted! Instead, we’re going to have a real conversation here about what it’s like when you are fatigued and the lack of recognition that comes when that happens.

Christine:

We can definitely have a talk about that because that is top of my mind right now. Doing all this work with the Women of Influence Advancement Centre is a big part of my day job. I coach women through their careers to help them move into promotions. It’s amazing because here I am; I’ve got a screaming toddler and an eight-month-old baby who’s teething right now. Basically, I’m juggling it all. Sometimes the idea of advancement in the first place is just exhausting.

Sarah:

It’s fleeting moments when we consider: why would anyone want to advance?

Christine:

True, When you are thinking, you have more than I can possibly handle. Please, I don’t need anymore! I see this a lot when I’m coaching women. I see them struggle with being exhausted and under these incredible demands and feeling like they don’t want any additional responsibility. They don’t want any additional leadership. I just got off the phone earlier this morning when a coaching client went from an individual contributor to over the last year and a half she was given a team of 10 and then another team of 10 and then another team of six.

Meanwhile, she’s a busy mom at home raising children. She just said, “All I need to do is get as much done as I possibly can in a day so that I can get home and be a mom,” which is another important job for me. Sometimes I think to myself, “How do we do this? How do we do this all?”

Sarah:

I too see with coaching clients that they internalize this: if I can’t get it all done I’m a bad contributor or I’m a bad mom or terrible spouse. It’s amazing how many of us look around and think others must have it figured out. Not only is it rarely true, but it also robs us of the opportunity to recognize our greatness, what we are doing well and what we are doing right.

Christine:

It’s definitely a matter of understanding how to manage the standard that you’re going to hold yourself to when you’re juggling more than one thing. I think one of the things that I was talking to her about was how, before I had kids, it was easy to find four extra hours. Not that my life outside of work wasn’t very important, but there were other things that I could try to delay, move or reschedule. Unfortunately, I can’t reschedule a teething eight-month-old! I don’t get the luxury of coming home from work and finding four additional hours while I’m juggling a teething eight-month-old. It’s interesting how the idea of balance, like the standard that we set on ourselves, it has to be modified for the number of demands that we’re carrying. The bar that I used to jump in my career was much higher. Today, it’s got to be a little bit lower so that I can manage it all. I need to be pretty good at a lot of things versus awesome at everything. I’ll raise the bar again next week when his teeth are here.

Sarah:

Maybe we realize the expectations don’t have to be that high anyway. Maybe we actually have much higher standards than we need to. Because one of the things that I’ve learned through the work you do in supporting women’s advancement and the research is that what holds women back is that we put our heads down, keep working harder, and expect our blood, sweat, and tears will eventually pay off. Not advancing? We do more. Then the bar is higher, not just for ourselves, but others have a higher bar for us too. We expect it’s going to get us noticed, but that’s not what happens, is it?

Christine:

Right. To bring it all together, I’m finishing a book called “Too Busy To Be Happy.” Ironic. Maybe you’ll understand why I feel like I’m an expert on this topic being too busy to be happy, but at the end of the day it’s juggling all of it and let’s say the bar that we put on ourselves, I still come back to, can you answer the question, “Are you happy?”

When we set expectations and standards that are so out of reach and then we start on that treadmill and we’re running, running, running, we end up losing sight of actually just being happy. I’ve made it a passion of mine to figure out how to be busy and happy. Somewhere along the line, the idea of this work-life balance thing came along and it made me feel like I needed to have a life on the top of a mountain and meditate for nine hours a day in order to be happy.

I felt like I was conflicted because I really love my busy life, but there are just moments where I no longer am happy. For me, it’s just trying to find out how do we be busy and happy. Not feeling quite so exhausted all the time.

Sarah:

It’s so important to be both busy, and not feel guilty about that, and happy. When we aren’t, we often aren’t living our greatness and not recognizing ourselves. What are some of your best tips for people to be able to recognize themselves even when they feel like they’re busy and perhaps not getting it all done? How can they still recognize themselves?

Christine:

I think it’s going to sound really simple, but the prioritization of the things is important. When you look at the amount of energy we’re trying to expel on so many different priorities at the same time, the first thing I end up doing when I’m talking to somebody is coming back to, what are the most important things? Such as, “Okay. I need to be an awesome mom and deliver fantastic results at work, but are those are the only two things or do you also want health, friendships, and other things? What are the things most important to prioritize?

If you have a sick parent, over delivering just isn’t in the cards, right? It’s about survival. Understanding what are those two or three most important things that have to get done right now. It’s funny. You can take a look at your day where you’re spending your time and see how well aligned you’re spending your energy and time with the two or three things that are most important. To me, it’s the fastest way.

One of the things I do all the time is I’ll say, “Open up your calendar. Where have you been for the last week or so? Let’s take a look at where you’ve been spending your time.” It’s almost instantly an “ah ha” moment for people when they’re feeling too busy to be happy.

Sarah:

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge, Christine, that in your busy day, you still valued and prioritized our relationship and our conversation.

Christine:

One of the things I’ll say on that note, it’s so funny because I’m very particular about where I spend time and energy. But if a relationship is bringing good energy and it actually raises my energy level versus depletes my energy level, I prioritize it. That relationship goes way up in my importance of things to do. I think that’s been one of the biggest things that actually helps me manage my stress levels. Our relationship is energizing for me. It made the top of my list when I did have a free moment to do a VLOG. Thank you so much for being a part of it. And thanks for the great work you’re doing helping people leverage recognition in themselves and at work.

Sarah:

If you want to learn more about Christine and her website is www.leaderinmotion.com. And we’ll be sure to keep you updated on Christine’s new book that’s coming out in early 2019! Christine, I hope you’ll come back for another interview!

Christine:

You’ve got it!

How to Recognize Your Audience: Transferrable Lessons from the Speaking Profession

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Listen in or read Sarah’s interview with Jane Atkinson, a well-respected speaker, and coach. Jane and Sarah discuss how the exponential power of recognition can have a significant impact on your success as a speaker, whether it’s how you deliver your message at work, for small groups or on the main stage in front of thousands of people!

Sarah:                   I’m so lucky to interview Jane Atkinson, a well-respected speaker, and speaker coach. Jane, you have some great insights and wisdom from having seen speakers progress, or not progress, in their career, and how recognition can have a pretty big impact on that. And I know your wisdom fits both those who speak for a living as well as those looking to have a bigger impact when they share their ideas in a meeting, present at a team meeting, or even present to their board of directors. So, let’s kick it off by me asking you for some words of wisdom about how to recognize those listening to you present.

Jane:                     Well, I think that there are a lot of things that you can do to have tremendous recognition for your client, so in my world, it’s professional speakers who have a client who has a goal. I think the best thing that you can do to recognize them, sure, you can send them a beautiful gift and a promotional product after the event is done or when you get the booking, but one of the things I think will have the most long-lasting impact is really giving them something of value that they can hang onto, so there might be language in your presentation that can become sticky, and what you might offer them are ways to keep the language alive for a long time after the program is going.

Maybe there are little coffee mugs or something that can keep it going, and I think from our perspective, from a speaker’s perspective, the best form of feedback is to go into a boardroom six months after you have spoken to this company and hear them using your language. Doing a great job and giving them some language that really sticks, that they can hang on to and start to build into their culture in order to make this a thing that goes beyond them, the ripple effect.

Sarah:                   I really love that, Jane, because oftentimes, we think about recognition in terms of something you have to give to people, that it’s something extra, it’s something different, but I agree. When you do an exceptional job and people can remember what you’ve said, it’s transformative in a way that truly helps people solve a problem. Recognizing their time is precious and you’re there to help make things better for them. What additional specific suggestions can you pull from the professional speaking world to help speakers of every type recognize their audience?

Jane:                     Well, this is not even just a secret for this audience. It’s a secret for everybody because not a lot of professional speakers are using a specific form of recognition.

Joe Calloway gave me this one and he does it brilliantly in his business. The key is making the audience the heroes of your presentations, and Joe even takes it one step further and he might make the CEO or the leader the hero of his presentation by moving it out of a presentation mode into him interviewing the leader of the organization to pull out the kinds of things that we want the audience to know, so that’s one idea, but also let’s say you have a three-part formula that you’re going to unveil in your presentation.

You can ask ahead of time for the person running the conference, “who are three people who are well-liked and respected that I might be able to interview to get some firsthand knowledge of the audience?” and so they’ll give you three people and you will go and do your research and you will ask them questions that are really specific to your formula, and when you say, “This is my idea,” and you say, “And Susan Jones just used this idea. Stand up Susan,” and then you’re recognizing Susan and Susan becomes the hero of your story. This works if you’re in a small or large group. Whether you’re an outside hired speaker like Joe or an internal speaker.

Sarah:                   I wish that I had this sage advice back when I was doing corporate presentations! I reflect on how many times I and others would be trying to communicate a burning platform and create that sense of urgency only for it to fall flat. And I’m realizing now it’s because we were trying to convince them of our idea, not bring them in to be the hero and partner in the possibility.

Shifting gears a little, one of the things I love about what you do is you start your presentations (even your book) with a compelling vision that as an audience member or reader I can feel. It’s for me. I’m the centre of it. You say, “Picture this,” or, “Imagine” and then you put us into this desired future which actually you may or may not know from the solution-focused approach that I write about that is actually a wonderful way to get people super excited, because you’re presenting their best hope. To your point, you have to know them well enough to know what that best hope is and really care about it to create it.

Jane:                     Yeah, and that comes with your research, with understanding the company or the association (and you have the upper hand if you’re a member of it), knowing their values, knowing what’s important to them, and also knowing their pain points, because if you can help solve their pain points, well, then you’ve really, really done a great job. Honestly, if it was up to me, and I were going to get either a box of chocolates afterward or a really amazing speech or presentation, I would take the really amazing speech any day. So, we think sometimes that trinkets or swag or flash equal recognition, but I actually think it’s the whole package.

Sarah:                   Yes, that old adage it’s how you make them feel. Have you left them better off? One of the ways you know you’ve done that is when afterward folks say, “Wow, it’s like you were speaking to me” or, “You know what, I never thought of it that way,” or, “I’ll never forget that story of so-and-so.” I think that is one of the best forms of recognition that you can get in return, and that’s the reciprocal part of recognition, right? Is that you recognize and value your audience, and then they recognize you back.

Jane:                     It feeds you. It keeps you going, and I think that you can ask a question; “Well, how long would you like this message to last?” A lot of people who are putting on an event, they might be thinking just about that event, but what if it’s the cultural shift that they’re trying to achieve? What if they’re trying to make it a culture of recognition? How do we make it last longer than the presentation or speech? What will allow us to go deeper on this idea?

Sarah:                   It’s really believing that your audience can and will be able to make positive change from what you share. And, to do this, it’s not one-way sharing of information (or worse telling people what they’re not doing right, how they need to do better, what they don’t know). It’s honouring what’s working, what they value, what is working even a little.

When I speak on recognition, I have to be careful not to make the audience feel they’re being scolded for not recognizing enough. Instead, I give them “calls to action” where they can practice more recognition, no matter how much they’re already doing. And the best part, often the people behind the scenes – the bathroom attendant, the registration clerk, the meeting organizer – gets a kudos I’ve given the audience as the call to action. An ED of an association I just spoke for shared, “When I was sitting there listening to your talk, I never would have thought that it was my staff who would get the recognition. I just assumed the members would bring this back to their workplace but you wouldn’t believe how over the moon my staff are being recognized! They’re used to being behind the scenes and everyone forgetting about how hard they work to make everything happen.” The audience feels good, the members feel good. How do we make people in the audience the heroes?

Jane:                     Oh, and honestly Sarah, I have to tell you, I have to work hard at this. This is something that comes naturally to you because you think about it 24/7, but I am not as good at it. I just ran a meeting, and in the meeting I should have recognized my assistant who had done so much hard work to get it ready more, and you gave me some great ideas on what to do after the fact, but I really felt that and I thought, “Gosh, I think it becomes a part of your DNA when you do it often enough,” and so I could use some more of that recognition DNA rubbing off on me.

One of the fallback positions I have is, “Okay, as long as everybody walks away with what it is that they need, great, then we’ve done a good job and we’ve had a good meeting,” but at the same time there might be that one person who’s going, “You know, I did a lot of work for that and I didn’t get recognized.”

Sarah:                   Such a great point. And thank you for sharing that Jane. I think it’s always really valuable when somebody who’s really well-respected, professional and poised also acknowledges where they’re working on something, so thank you for that.

Jane:                     I’m a constant work in progress. No question about it.

Sarah:                   So am I. Thank you so much, Jane, for your time today. I know this is really, really valuable because speaking is part of every professional’s job. There isn’t a single person who doesn’t have to do a very brief presentation at a team meeting or pitch a new client or speak for the whole organization! I love all the insights about how to recognize your audience, including specific members, making them the heroes and leaving everyone better off by having been in the audience. Super valuable Jane. Thanks so much.

Jane:                     You’re welcome.

Sarah:                   If you’d like to connect with Jane, you can reach her at https://speakerlauncher.com/ jane@speakerlauncher.com

10 Tips to Start a Facebook Movement: Grow a Fabulous Facebook Group FAST

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One of the best compliments I ever received is that my brand matches what people hear and see me do. There is authentic alignment. One of those places I work hard to add value is on social media. Well, it’s not too hard…recognizing greatness all around you is easy when it’s…everywhere!

Do you have a clear message of value you’re putting out through social media? If you did, what might it do for your career, business or relationships? What might it do for you?

When you can do an even better job

 I began to notice in the Spring a lot of people sharing they were having a difficult time. Divorce, strained relationships with their teens, the loss of someone they loved, self-doubt. Posts, DM, coffee conversations, folks approaching me after a keynote. I thought surely there was something I could do. Surely there was a way to help contribute a glimmer of hope and recognize the greatness all around us.

It occurred to me that there’s an opportunity with Facebook. What if we could pull individuals together for some positivity-based conversation on a daily basis? What if we could recognize what was working versus just talk about what wasn’t or comparing ourselves as not good enough. From this idea, the group, Great Happy People was born.

There were, of course, many skeptics who wondered the benefit of yet another Facebook group. There were others who asked me why I’d waste my time with something that couldn’t make me money (we have a strict no selling policy on the site). Funny why we always have to justify our gut instincts with a logical reason, isn’t it….

Just Serve

Thought leader, Gary Vee professes, “Serve, serve, serve first.” It’s short-sighted of us to think that there isn’t benefit if we’re from a service-based mentality, but perhaps more importantly, I wasn’t doing this to make a sale. These individuals were reaching out to me for advice and to perhaps to just unload.

How do we build a community of support? If I am going through a difficult time, ultimately that’s what I’d want somebody to do for me, and so we acted. How did we create this incredible community?

Today there are over 3,000 individuals who share hope, positivity, and encouragement on a daily basis. We share things that make us laugh, feel lighter, and make us grab the box of Kleenex. We share what people may need at the most difficult times of their lives (without it being therapy, of course). People who have never met providing timely, sincere support and encouragement to perfect strangers. It’s, in a word, inspirational.

So how can you create that kind of service through a Facebook Group? Here are 10 things that I believe are the successes and what has worked for this community of Great Happy People.

10 Tips for Starting a Facebook Movement Fast & Fabulously

1. Come up with a relatable name

Identify a name that people can resonate with. “Hey, that’s me!”

2.Rules

It’s essential folks know what is okay and not okay. Things like: No bullying, no solicitation, and sales, etc. May seem obvious but you’d be surprised. Recently, I’ve added no political persuasion, and no religion, even if it’s positive because we don’t want anyone to feel isolated from this group. This was from direct feedback from folks feedback.

3.Invite your raving fans first

I invited 20 people through an invitation-based system that I knew either wanted, needed, or could really benefit from this group. Next, I encouraged them to invite other people to be part of our great, happy family. Rinse and repeat.

4. Encourage personal sharing

The next thing we did was encouraged people to share pictures and a description of what made them a Great Happy Person to allow them to feel a sense of belonging. People shared the most wonderful pictures, which got people connecting and getting to know each other!

5.Provide a warm welcome

Almost every day (it depends on how many new folks join…and what my day looks like!), we welcome all the new members and encourage them to introduce themselves with pictures if they choose to! We’ve started adding a fun GIF or picture to the welcome message to keep it interesting for those in the group too. I love seeing existing members welcome our newest joiners!

6.Encourage participation

Encourage and nurture by taking the responsibility of reinforcing and supporting what people contribute. Daily we have at least a dozen posts of folks sharing videos, articles, live videos, and pictures. It’s their group, it keeps the momentum alive, and it keeps people motivated knowing they are the Great Happy Person the group is named after! Occasionally the posts break the rules, so I just delete it and sometimes have to block a member.

7. Keep on inviting

When it comes to Facebook groups, do you just add people or invite them to join? If you choose to add them, ideally you’ll check with them first to be sure this is something they would like to be included in. Sometimes I know them or what they stand for and I just add them (most are appreciative, and a handful don’t like it so I ask forgiveness). The beauty is, people won’t know that this is available to them unless you help them find and understand what it’s all about.

8. Encourage posting and provide updates

Regularly share posts from the Group on your own wall and encourage people to do the same. The benefit of this public group is that anyone can share posts that they’re inspired by, which means that all of the people that follow them that see that particular post, they may choose to click over and join that group. Provide updates on the growth of the community because who doesn’t want to be part of something trending and gaining momentum? Offer a prize to the person who can predict the size of the group by a certain date and time. I offered a book that I had recommended and I shared a lot of quotes from, directly related to the topic of that group, called the Little Book of Like: The Danish Book of Happiness and not a self-promotion book.

9. What’s the core goal?

Understand what your core goal is for the group; just one. My number one goal is to have as many happy people from around the world recognize their greatness and the greatness of others on a daily basis, which is why so many of the strategies I’ve shared with you are about encouraging growth and sharing. You may have a different goal of your group, or of the groups that you belong to, but know what it is because it directly impacts how you interact with your community.

10.Celebrate

When we reached the goal of a thousand people, we celebrated. People responded and so thrilled to be part of that. Celebration within the group, the support you have created and ask the questions, “Why do you keep coming back? What do you get out of it?”

11.Bonus Tip: Ask for help

When I was about to go on vacation and our group had grown to over 1500 folks, I knew I needed help. I didn’t want to leave the FB group unchecked and unsupported or to lose momentum while I was away, nor did I want to take time away from my husband on vacation by checking the group every time we had wifi. So, I asked the top posters if anyone wanted to be a second admin. An amazing woman Yvonne Nasri stepped up and loves up our community with as much care and kindness as I do. So grateful to her.

Give and Get Back Too…

You will be surprised at the things people share. Things that bring tears to my eyes. How they needed it more than ever before. That they’re going through a difficult time. How it helps them to get focused at the beginning of their day. How it inspires their family. That they share it with a teenager. There are so many different reasons why people are part of the group, but every one of them is beautiful, inspiring, and delicious, and that keeps me going.

The most surprising thing is how much I get back every day by seeing the conversations in the Group. You can have an intention to serve but get back so much too.

What I know is paying off immediately is a good feeling that I have, that hit of endorphins and oxytocin when I see people doing good for each other and that I’ve been a part of creating. If you want to join our Great Happy People community, you are welcome to our positive movement. It is truly a wonderful, grounding and inspiring place to hang out.

 

Rejecting Perfection: Why Being Perfectly Imperfect Elevates Your Greatness

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If you were to pull up to my home right now, you would not experience what they call in real estate, “curb appeal.”

We have some major renos in progress. As we build the future home of Greatness Magnified (a converted barn), the rest of our property looks disastrous. On top of that, there’s road maintenance, our neighbours are fixing their septic system, and piles of topsoil, lumber, and scaffolding decorate the property.

Not the best first impression. Nor would you suspect a place you’d want to bring clients.

But this would feed into the belief that things need to be perfect to be professional. What if, by still having meetings at my home and hosting retreats here, it was a visual reminder that life isn’t perfect, just like our work-in-progress renovations? What if it were a reminder that life and business are perfectly imperfect, but we need to just keep going?

Progress is better than perfection.

Perfection trips us up all the time. We don’t want to make a mistake. We want to ensure we’ve got everything right. We need to look our best. However, it’s not reality, is it? We’re all completely and perfectly imperfect.

What if we decided that all the work and extra effort of trying to get it 110% every time just wasn’t worth it? What if we looked at the toll it was having on our kids, partners, staff? What if it was actually making us less accessible and relatable as people and professionals?

Imagine the possibilities if we embraced our imperfections. Imagine what it would be like if our standards weren’t so high? Imagine how free we would feel if we don’t get caught up in our negative inner critic that says louder, meaner and untrue things than we’d ever to say to somebody else. What if we didn’t hesitate to pursue what we were most passionate, proud, and motivated about?

What if we were able to decide that we didn’t need to be perfect? We just needed to be great. And we already are…great.

Can we agree that you’re not perfect and neither is anyone else? Can we agree that any evidence you see about perfect lives, bodies, faces on social media is not the full story? Can we agree that it doesn’t actually matter that much anyway?

In other words, don’t look for evidence of perfection that isn’t there.

Using the metaphor of our renos, here are three tips I’ve learned about how to chip away at perfection.

  1. Give credit to “good enough”

There’s beauty all around us. See the beauty in whatever surrounds you. Instead of looking at my imperfect work-in-progress property, I can look across the street at the beautiful vineyards (even though they’re not mine). Appreciating what is present and not attending to what doesn’t matter helps with perfectionism.

  1. Look for what is working

Sure, most of our property needs a lot of work, but I can also look at the gardens across the front of our house that, with my mom, we lovingly planted. I can remember the joy we spent together. I can remember the feeling of a hard day’s work with pleasantly sore muscles. I can remember the care we spent picking each plant. I can even remember a rather comical discussion the nursery owner overheard about the right roses to plant to match the “lipstick red” shade of door my husband picked out.

  1. Look past imperfections that don’t matter

Our front door has scratches on it. We have a piece of tape that’s stubbornly stuck on from a long-forgotten note. Spiders love to form nests around our light fixtures (we understand a by-product of living on the water). But do any of these things matter? Not really. I no longer feel I need to apologize for these things or try to clean them before every client visit. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think they really notice anyway. They’re here to see me and do business, not evaluate my place of business. When we look for the things that aren’t perfect then we see them. But instead, if we look at everything else around it we will see beauty. I don’t know about you but I would rather live my life looking at what is working and the beauty that exists, the extraordinary in the ordinary, than to spend so much of my time and energy looking at the few things that don’t quite measure up.

Who’s to say they don’t measure up? Maybe they’re actually somebody else’s version of pretty darn good, or maybe even amazing.

How is perfectionism robbing you of your time, focus, attention, patience, compassion? How is it creating tension in relationships with staff, co-workers, suppliers, partners? How is perfection stopping you from trying new things, taking a risk, following your passion, getting something completed? And is it worth it?

How to Handle a Bad Situation: Three Tips that Leverage Your Greatness & Allow Others to Save Face

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In a recent post, I talked about how you can maintain your professionalism and stand in a place of your greatness even when things go very wrong and you’re incredibly stressed. In that post was some key lessons and suggestions about how you can reduce your stress level and demonstrate our greatness even when the situation is crumbling around you.

One thing I have learned is that if you stand in your greatness, other folks are able to grow and learn from it. You can show there’s another way of behaving even when things aren’t ideal. It’s not easy, but it’s important.

The alternative that I see if people getting into complaint mode. Folks lose hope and fixate on the negativity. Worse yet is the toxicity seeps into the environment, like a negativity smog descending.

The example I shared in the last post were service professionals who sadly, are often treated as invisible objects. They can be made to feel dispensable. They often are undervalued, not appreciated and feel overworked. I wasn’t about to do that to reinforce this, even in the midst of a stressful circumstance.

One of the biggest reasons they feel invisible, dispensable and undervalued? They’re not given feedback – positive or constructive. They usually only hear – often in harsh tones – when they’ve “messed up”. And usually, it’s in generalities about situations they’re not even responsible for.

The benefits of giving feedback in a respectful way to serve folks – in addition to showing you appreciate them – is they’ll work harder on service recovery with customers. When treated professionally, they are more likely to act like professionals. It makes so much sense it seems redundant, but have you seen someone in frontline service dressed down, devalued and disrespected? Happens all the time. Instead, here are three tips on how to handle a bad situation with professionalism, allowing others to save face and leaves everyone better off!

1.Speak directly with staff

This is twofold: from the customer and from the manager. We talk a lot about giving feedback as leaders, but let’s focus in on giving feedback as customers. How many of us give it directly? Or instead, do we wait to write on the comment card, give an unfavourable Yelp rating or tell the manager? Or worse, not give feedback at all and instead, “Well, we’re never going to go there again.” After all, “It’s not my problem” right? The flawed logic is that there isn’t an opportunity to learn, to improve right away and to do service recovery so you can walk away at least a little more satisfied.

No one wants to do a bad job. Give them an opportunity to delight you in the moment and course correct.

2. If speaking directly doesn’t work, talk to a supervisor

For this organization I told you about in my last post, the root issue was many brand new staff without the proper training. I learned this from speaking with them and them saying, “I don’t know what to do in these situations.” In other words, I had some feedback for leadership about an apparent onboarding gap. It looked like it was an issue with the service, but the root issue was the lack of training.

Knowing this, however, didn’t solve my issue. I needed the supervisor’s help because the staff was making excuses. She went and spoke with them right away, and recovered the materials that were apparently impossible to find. By the manager having to roll up her sleeves (literally…to root through the garbage for my lost materials with staff) she understood the importance of addressing the gap!

3. Show appreciation

Despite being frustrated, I used a technique we learn in therapy school called, “repair attempts.” It’s when you’re having a fight or when tensions are rising, you say something to soften the tension. “I see you’re all incredibly efficient and hard working.” It was true. It was just a strength overused in this case that in haste, the information I needed got discarded. But it didn’t minimize the fact this team has greatness, and each individual needed to feel valued as well as take responsibility for addressing the current issue.

The supervisor really stepped up, so of course, I shared my appreciation to her, and in return, she gave me her card and said, “If there’s anything else you need please contact me directly.” I suspect if I were yelling and unprofessional she’d be hesitant to do that!

Do you have any other advice about how to handle a difficult work situation professionally and respectfully? Comment below!

And why don’t you join me next week for another post on Your Greatness Magnified…Work, Family, Life and check out my YouTube Channel or website for lots of resources!

Three Ways to Maintain your Professionalism (When You Feel Like Losing It)

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I recently had an experience that tested my professionalism and questioned my greatness, at least it could have. I was at an important event and I had promised my client that the feedback forms that I handed out painstakingly to every one of the hundreds of people in that room, I would collate and get that feedback to them. Not only that, but on the feedback forms, we ask individuals if they would like us to get back to them and, specifically, what services they would they like to know or get more information about.

I had left the room to go to my book table and chat with the attendees. By the time I came back in, not 20 minutes later the entire ballroom was cleared away. Not a scrap of paper, not a table linen, nothing left.

How can you maintain yourself as a professional when you have a big mishap? How can you stand in that place of your greatness even when you’re really stressed?

When we don’t stand in that place of our own integrity and our greatness, what happens is, you don’t live your brand. For those of you who are working in organizations, you may not think a brand is that important but let me assure you that who you are, what people think of you when you’re not there or how people describe you, that’s your brand and you need to maintain it. Consider this – we don’t like ourselves later when we react in a way that isn’t kind or that is not a reflection of the real us; we beat ourselves up about it and perhaps lose sleep over it. People may see us differently, be less likely to recommend us, and we may have fewer opportunities.

In this story, the service staff was working as hard as they could. Perhaps they had a mandate to get that room turned around in 15 minutes or less. Far be it for me to yell at them and make their job miserable.

The positives and benefit of having an experience like this are, it really tests you as if you truly are who you say you are. If you put on a confident, professional, respectful air, are you this way even when things get tough? People are watching. Case in point: I had no idea that one of the sponsors actually came back into the room while I was speaking with the staff. They saw how I spoke calmly and respectfully yet assertively with staff about the importance of finding the missing paperwork so I could fulfill my commitment to the client. Without me seeing they were there, I reinforced my message on recognizing greatness; imagine if I had ranted, raved and yelled just after I spent an hour teaching folks how to recognize the greatness all around them. Instead, the sponsor saw that I care about my clients enough to stay late to get that paperwork, I do what say I’m going to do, and I can recognize greatness even when it’s a tough scenario.

Here are a couple of things I strongly suggest you consider the next time you are really stretched professionally and feeling it would be so easy to just… freak out.

  1. Ask Yourself: Is it really that important?

It was important to me, that I explained to the individuals who had done such a diligent job of cleaning that room, was why it was important to get the paperwork back. Instead of, “get me those forms,” and “how could you do this?” I shared that I had a commitment to keep and if we had to go back to the two hundred participants it would make my client look bad. I could have yelled and ranted and made such a nuisance of myself that they would try to find them to make me be quiet, but instead, one staff member really got why it was so important, and rallied her colleagues to go find the missing paperwork. When not all was recovered, I shared the why with the supervisor, and she made sure the rest was found.

If you’re the one handling the situation where someone else is upset, can you help them ground him or herself in why it is so important? It’s easier to deal with someone out of control when you’re both on the same page about why this is important. If it’s you, consider: Why does this bother me so much? Why is this so important? When you’re clear on your why, you get clearer on the most appropriate path forward.

  1. Remember: To err is human

Remember that the other person in front of you or in that context who has created that stressful environment is a human being. Things are going to mess up. There are going to be miscommunications, misunderstandings, missteps, it’s just normal (as a matter of fact, I’m writing a book about how failure is so commonplace, it’s your mindset and the context that matters…but more on that later). If you expect that there’s going to be tension, stress, and problems from time to time, then it is not as big a deal when it happens. It’s not a personality flaw, laziness or incompetence, necessarily (and let’s face it, we often jump to this conclusion); it’s just human nature for mistakes to happen. Unless it’s a traumatic situation, accept it and move on to finding a solution.

  1. Practice: A calm approach

Ask yourself, if you will be able to live with yourself behaving in the way you want to behave at this moment? When you’re stressed, your reptilian brain is the one that’s running the show, as opposed to your higher order prefrontal lobe that can reason and solution-find. When you remain calm, you’re actually more resourceful. If you let yourself blow your stack, it takes a while for the cortisol (your stress hormone) to stop flowing through your brain. As much as possible, you want to stop that cortisol rush in the first place. And in the process, you are better able to tap into your greatness as opposed to operating from a place of deficits.

If that seems tough, consider this: what if someone caught the situation on tape. Would you be comfortable with how you handled it if your family, kids, parents, employer or prospective client watched? What if it went viral (as some of these freakouts have). Would you be embarrassed? Or, if your calm reaction were caught in a very frustrating situation, would you be proud of that? Be the hero in your own life!

I hope you found these suggestions helpful because, we all have situations that don’t go very well on a day-to-day basis and it is okay, but you can still rock your greatness in those situations too.

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