Your team never seems to get it?
Let go of telepathy as a management technique
Ooh the joys of managing a team!
It sounds so great in theory, to run and lead a team.
So why is it not so easy in practice?
Your team never seems to get it. It doesn’t matter how much you try, it’s like you are speaking a different language. You ask them to do something, but when the work comes back to you it’s not worth the paper it’s written on and you are spending hours redoing the thing before you can give it to your boss for final sign off.
It’s like you have two jobs to do – manage your own work, but also redo their work.
You are losing your patience more and more every day, and there are times when certain team members give you something back to review, and all you can think is “what mess have they made of it this time?”.
You are just plain exhausted, and you are taking things out of your team, either by being downright mean, or by ramping up on the passive aggression.
It’s having an impact on them too – some are so scared of screwing things up, that they are screwing things up despite themselves; and some have just lost all respect for you, and now treat you with a “F%£* you” attitude about everything. Who can really blame them?
This is not the type of leader you ever wanted to be.
Something has to change.
What if you could just start over, and create a better relationship with your team
What if you could take a step back and spend some time working on strategies to improve the working relationship with your team, and identify small changes that could lead to big improvements? Imagine if you stopped expecting them to be telepathic, and found a better way to express what you need from them? Imagine if you learn again to respect them for what they can bring to the table and open up a two way flow of thoughts and ideas.
You create new habits of delegating work, and a brand-new dialogue with your team. You clear the air and start working in partnership – they can see the big picture of where this work fits into things, and what you need to be able to take decisions.
You stop being such a control freak and you start again to trust the autonomy of your team. You reduce the turnaround time to review work they have done, and you boost their confidence as they see you believe in their work. All in all, there is a lot less to-ing and fro-ing with them with numerous drafts and reviews. You free up time for yourself to get on with business development, or studying, or working on other projects you can enjoy so much more. You all go home earlier, and finally get some of your life back.
Imagine what a difference it would make
Know this: you are not alone having a difficult working relationship with your team, one based on an expectation of telepathy rather than open and clear communication.
I work with very successful women who, despite their impressive track records, are still full of self-doubt as they advance in their corporate careers. Often the relationship with their team is a big part of the problem – they don’t recognise themselves any more in their leadership style, and as a result they are questioning their entire leadership capability.
They are exhausted from second guessing themselves all the time, and they know they would have a lot more to offer the world if they weren’t so afraid of screwing it all up. I help them quiet the fears and rebuild their confidence so they can navigate a way forward and get on with the Work they know they are meant to do.
Taking the time to work on the relationship with their team is often a key step to stop this second guessing and open up the next stages of their career.
And I can help you do that too.
By the end of our time working together, you will have:
- A deeper insight into how you make decisions, and how you need to be managed by your team, so that you can communicate that clearly to them;
- A clear checklist of points to discuss with your team when you delegate work to them, so that you can express clearly what you need, and where this work fits into the bigger picture;
- A cheat sheet of guiding principles for the work with your team, so that you co-create mutually acceptable game rules for the team to work with; and
- A tangible strategy to adapt your communication style to the team to make sure that the message you want to convey does come across to them, and to ensure that there is no mis-communication
How It All Works
This is what you get
A status quo snapshot questionnaire
Answer a few simple questions about your team and your current working relationship to help identify where the biggest struggles lie.
Communicating a current summary of the situation and getting clear on the frustrations in advance of the call is important for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it will get us on the same page so we can dive straight into our work together and make sure we cover what we need to cover during our meeting.
Secondly, and more importantly, answering these questions will help you remember that the relationship with your team comprises two sides. You are just as responsible for the working relationship as your team is, and it is far too easy to dismiss the situation as being the fault of the team who “are doing shitty work”. You have a job to do in terms of communicating what is needed, and respecting your team and their skills and knowledge too, and we can be quick to forget that when we are under pressure ourselves.
Work it out session (90 minutes)
During this 90 minute call I’ll help you discover key factors that are going to help streamline the working relationship with your team so that you can just get on and do the work together.
We’ll discuss how you can tap into insight about yourself and what you need, as well as how your team need to be respected, and use this to improve your communication in the new environment of working from home.
Finally we will identify new habits that you can use now that make you feel more in control and ready to kick ass when you bring them back to the office after things go back to normal.
Cheat sheets
After our session working together, you will receive a clear checklist of points to discuss with your team when you delegate work to them, so that you can express clearly what you need, and where this work fits into the bigger picture, as well as a cheat sheet of guiding principles for the work with your team, so that you co-create mutually acceptable game rules for the team to work with
You will be able to use each of these over and over again for every project and meeting to make sure that you and your team are always on the same page and you never need to second guess again.
Getting back to work
For the following ten days you will go away and use these techniques in your day to day work with your team, reflecting as you go along on what is working well, and what needs readjusting.
You will see how small proactive changes in how you work together can result in big improvements to your working relationship. You will start to discover that you have as much control over the success of your working relationship as they do, and you will start to see how the same applies to other working relationships (such as with your bosses or clients).
By consciously reflecting on what works well and what needs further improvement, you will also develop a self-reflection muscle that you can then bring into other areas of your life and work, and start to see how you have control over them as well.
Check in and tweak (30 minutes)
Two weeks after the first meeting we will regroup for a thirty-minute call to see how things are doing.
This is about lessons learned from the work you have been doing, and where needed a re-tweak and adjustment to your strategy.
You will create an action plan going forward and walk away with a clear idea of your next steps, so that you can feel back in control for the future too, even after we have stopped working together.
This whole thing is about setting you up for success. It’s time for you to stop striving and start thriving in this relationship – you and your team can finally start working in true partnership, and get on with the job in hand!
Price
Investment for all this: £500 (VAT included).
Let’s get started
Are you ready to get started working?
Excellent! Here’s what happens next.
Step 1: Make your payment here
Step 2: within 24 hours you will receive your “Status quo snap shot” questionnaire, as well as instructions for booking our strategy session.
Step 3: Then we will hold our session and get you started on pressing the reset button on the relationship with your team
Any questions?
Do you have any questions? If you do, just fire me an email at joanna@joannadenton.com and I will get back to you to walk you through anything you need from me.
Oh my goodness, I’m so excited to hear from you and support you in this reset process!