Setting New Year’s Intentions for your Business

It’s that time of the year when we all start setting New Year’s Resolutions but what about if we set New Year Intentions instead? When we are thinking of resolutions it is usually bad habits we want to break but that is often coming at it from a negative perspective of things we don’t want to do.

Intentions on the other hand are things we do want to do or achieve – goals, objectives, tasks. Fast forward 12 months – what would you like to be different in your business? What would you love to have ticked off the to-do list and got finished? Start with the end in mind and work back.

If you want to grow your social media following, start with an intention of posting something to your followers every single day for the next year. If you want to have more clients, make an intention to be more visible at networking events or by being bold and asking to meet with prospective clients to talk about what you offer.

Intentions can be big or small but either way they imply you have a growth mindset and are willing to work towards something. Often an intention helps you to achieve a bigger goal, for instance you can set an intention to go on more walks during the week which helps you with an overall goal or objective of getting fitter.

The key with intentions is to make them achievable so that you can feel good when you are making progress.  Here are a few simple intentions that you could consider putting into practise in your business:

1. Set an intention for shorter meeting times – rather than always scheduling an hour, could you improve productivity in your business by reducing every meeting by 15 mins?
2. Set an intention to always approach challenges with a growth mindset. As and when issues or hurdles crop up, set the intention that you will approach them from a perspective of positivity and opportunities for development.
3. Set an intention for your people to use their cars less when travelling to the office or to see clients – could they travel on public transport or car-share with each other? Track the progress made over the course of the year – how much carbon has that saved? Has that impacted positively on the environmental footprint of the business?

Think about the areas of your business that you’d like to encourage positive changes and set some intentions with your people which help you to make steps towards achieving them.

If Your Business Can’t Run Without You, It Won’t Grow Beyond You

One of the questions we ask prospective clients is what would happen if they took a month off from their business – would it still operate the same? Most business owners laugh at the prospect of this. But if your business can’t operate without you then chances are it won’t be able to grow beyond you.

One of the reasons for starting a business is to have freedom and autonomy but nothing eats more into that freedom than having the buck always stopping with you. If you are the bottle neck for all decision making, if you are the only person who can make things happen then it might be time for a rethink.

Making your business less dependent on you has several benefits – you can scale your company more quickly; you get more time to enjoy life outside of your business, and a business less dependant on its owner is much more valuable to be able to sell it in the future.

But where do you start? Here are our top tips for getting started:

1. Document all of your business processes – if everything lives in your head, get it out of your head and down on paper. How do you onboard clients? What are the passwords for your website? Create a standard business operating manual. This isn’t just helpful for someone holding the fort if you get run over by a bus, it can also be a great guide for new starters joining your business.
2. Develop your team – if you are fortunate to have people working in your business then help them to improve their skills and experiences by teaching them how to do some of the things that you do. You can start small with a week’s holiday – what would be all of the things you’d usually do that you could delegate to others?
3. Change your mindset – sometimes as business owners we are the blockers. If we can get out of people’s way, they might surprise us. Have an open mind to what people are capable of doing and give people the opportunity to have a go.
4. Make a list of what only you can do and set yourself a challenge to abdicate as many of those tasks as you can. Yes, not delegate – abdicate! When people come to you for a decision, ask them to make it. Even when you want to say yes, say no, and put the onus on to others and once they are competent, leave it with them to do!
5. Review your infrastructure – what systems do you have in place that helps your business operate without you? What can you automate? What could you outsource? Nowadays technology can do a lot of the heavy lifting – make sure you have your infrastructure working for you.

None of these things will happen overnight but if you make a commitment to them, slowly but surely you will be able to see that your time is freed up and you can focus on what you as the owner is there to do – which is to grow the business beyond you. If you need any help in this area, reach out – we can help.

Who you are being and what you are doing equals what you have

A lot of people believe that the more they do, the more they have, the happier they’ll be but there is actually a popular goal-setting exercise which totally reverses this thinking. This is the Be, Do, Have model and is one of the teachings we share in our leadership development programmes.

When we are thinking about what our ambitions and desires for the future, most people think they need to have certain things (more money, time, love, experience) so that they can do something important (start a business, buy a home, pursue a new relationship, travel the world), which in turn will allow them to be happier, inspired, peaceful.

Be, Do, Have suggests that it works the other way around and that we should start with focusing on the feelings of ‘being’ what we want (peaceful, inspired, successful) first because when we then start doing things from this state of being, it brings us the things we have always wanted to have.

This is a paradigm shift but if you think about living in alignment with ‘Be, Do, Have’ more of the time it can really alter your outlook on life. The order of the model is important. You start with what kind of person you have to beto reach a specific goal which in turn leads you to consider what you need to do to succeed. And finally you can focus on what you will have as a result.  

What if you remembered that you have the capacity to experience any state of being at any time – not just when things work out ‘perfectly’ or you achieve exactly what you want? There’s nothing wrong with going for your goals and dreams but when we are purely focused on the outcomes we want to have we can set ourselves up for disappointment when things don’t go exactly to that plan.

Focusing on how we are being in life creates the context for how we think, feel and act – these ultimately create our reality. A simple way of remembering this is to bear in mind we are human beings! Still confused as to where to start? Here are some tips to get you started…

• Start embodying the desired states of being what you really want in your life. This isn’t about faking it; it is about getting into the feeling of already having achieved it. If you want to be happier, how would it feel to be happy?
• From this state of being think and talk about the kinds of things you would be doing and the actions you would be taking. You can have some fun with this – how might you behave if you were already a wealthy business owner? How would a super fit and healthy person be? What would you say yes to, what would be a no?
• Make a list of your top ‘Be, Do, Have’ priorities. If you want to have a best-selling novel, you need to behave like a writer and take action to write regularly. If you want to have more wealth in your business, you need to work with more clients, which might involve you being more visible in networking events or online through marketing.

You can use Be, Do, Have in every aspect of your life and it is a great model to help people who are stuck in the victim mindset and feel like they cannot change their outcome in life. This leads to one of our favourite DICE mantras – change your mindset, change your life!

What makes a great leader?

Everyone has their own thoughts and feelings on what makes a great leader. Often, we find that leadership can be a difficult thing to describe and understand but there are often common qualities that we can recognise in leaders we admire or have had the pleasure of working with.

Being a great leader does not mean you have demonstrate all these qualities, however making small yet incremental improvements in certain areas can make a big difference. Over time these can turn into behaviours and habits which impact on your own leadership qualities. So, what are some of the common qualities of great leaders? Here are just a few to get you started…

Courage people need leaders who have the courage to make the difficult decisions and the ability to say no when it might be difficult to do so. A leader who will stay the course, follow the right path even in tough times. People are far more likely to show courage if they see their leader demonstrating it.

Communication isarguably one of the most important leadership qualities. Being able to forge a connection through communications which is real and personal and being able to adapt your communications style to suit the different needs of an audience is truly inspiring.

Generosity leaders don’t take all the credit! They are quick to celebrate other’s successes and offer enthusiastic praise when it is due. They want their people to be successful and achieve their best. It is not all about them!

Humility being able to say they don’t know something, getting their hands dirty and jumping on the tools when the need arises, is the skill of a great leader. They don’t let their position of authority make them feel that they are better than anyone else.  

Self-awareness great leaders have a clear view of their strengths and weaknesses and aren’t afraid to own them. They know where their zone of genius is and have effective strategies to compensate for their weaknesses.

Approachability great leaders are hungry for different viewpoints and opinions, they welcome feedback and challenge. An environment where people are afraid to speak up, offer insight and ask questions leads to a culture of fear and over time this reduces innovation and stifles growth.

Accountability leaders know that it is important to hold themselves and others to account to achieve results. They set targets, they measure results, and they communicate what needs to be done. This builds strength, understanding and a committed team.

Our leadership development programme is accredited for Continuous Professional Development. We help leaders improve their abilities in the above areas, and many more. If you are looking for any support with your leadership skills, or those of your team, get in touch. We would love to help.

As we head into the final month of the year, we inevitably start thinking about setting goals for the year ahead. But when it comes to setting goals for your business, it’s common to get blocked or feel like you’re not doing it right.

• Do you set one overall big stretching goal?
• Do you consider what you realistically can achieve and start there?
• Do you look at what you have achieved this year and add an incremental improvement, such as plus 10%?

For a lot of business leaders, setting goals can feel overwhelming, which often leads to procrastination. Maybe you set out with good intentions to write down some goals and targets to achieve in the year ahead, but they don’t ever make it from your notebook to the boardroom or beyond.

Setting goals in your business helps you to:

• Get focused on what is important
• Make decisions
• Grow and expand to the next level

When we work with business leaders to set goals, we know that the biggest hurdle is usually the over-thinking that goes on inside their heads! Quite often they get hung up on the ‘how’ they are going to achieve something, so much so that they never actually get around to doing it. Get out of your head and set some targets for things you want to achieve – it could be that you want to reach a certain profit target, it might be an increase in your headcount, it could be a goal of on-boarding X amount of new clients – get it down on paper. Think about who you need to involve and share these goals with – are they to be communicated out to the whole business? Are they going to translate into people’s objectives and key results or key performance indicators? Will people be rewarded if they hit them?

Consider whether you are motivated by setting yourself big stretch goals and targets or whether that scares the living daylights out of you. If you are setting goals for other people in your business, it is key to take this into consideration too. Everyone is different and only you will know whether it is going to motivate you and others or freeze people into inaction and fear of failure.

You want to get clear on the intention behind your goals and then communicate that – set the expectations for what success looks like and then drill into what you and your people need to make these goals a reality. For instance, if it is on-boarding more clients, do you have a sales and marketing strategy and budget to support this?

Have you got the right mindset to set your business goals, or do you need to seek some external advice? If your business has reached a plateau in certain years, it could be that you would benefit from hiring someone who can help you with a different perspective and viewpoint. The biggest challenge for people in leadership roles, or business owners, is maintaining a growth mindset – particularly when faced with external forces such as the current cost of living crisis. Having someone to turn to who can help you to explore different ways of looking at things in your business can often be a catalyst for growth and change.

Finally, just like puppies aren’t just for Christmas, goal setting in your business doesn’t have to just be an annual event. You can start every month, week or even day with a simple goal setting exercise – ask yourself what are the top three things you want to achieve?

Science has shown that the process of writing your goals makes you more inclined to achieve them – especially if you have other people in your business helping you. So what are you waiting for? Grab that pen and paper or open up a blank document and get writing!

And if you would like some support setting goals for your business, get in touch – we would love to help! Email: [email protected]

The concept of ‘quiet quitting’ is a more modern term for what many of us know as ‘work to rule’. In other words, it is where employees work within their defined hours and do exactly what the job requires – nothing more. It is said to be a post-pandemic phenomenon – particularly in younger workers or those who were furloughed during the pandemic and might still be holding on to some residual antipathy.

With productivity at the forefront of the minds of many business owners, especially in this time of financial pressures across the economy, quiet quitting is a concern. It is the opposite of ‘discretionary effort’, which is what we work with our clients to encourage through developing a workplace culture where employees are well engaged and motivated to do more than the bare minimum.

Disengaged people who don’t feel like they have a sense of purpose in their job role, or connection with their colleagues and the business they work for, are less likely to go above and beyond. Employees who enjoy their work and the working environment will always put in more effort because they get a buzz from achieving and being part of a bigger vision.

Author Daniel Pink argues that there are three crucial elements to encourage intrinsic motivation in your employees (i.e., it comes from within them and not through threat of punishment or promise of reward): autonomy, mastery and purpose.

He suggests that leaders should encourage autonomy amongst employees across time, technique, team, and task. For instance, some organisations allow employees to have time at the workplace for their personal development or to encourage a work-related project outside of their usual tasks, which can lead to innovative ideas and solutions (Google is the famous example of this). More flexible working practices is another example of allowing employees more autonomy as they are trusted to get their work done in a way that suits them. Teamwork is another good way of facilitating autonomy, particularly where the team members pick the team and people get to work across functions.

Pink describes Mastery as the desire to continually improve. Most people get a high degree of job satisfaction from getting better at things or developing their own skills. Creating opportunities for employees to develop themselves in different ways contributes to an increase in their inner drive and motivation. In contrast, a lack of opportunity for people to spend time improving themselves or investing in their professional and personal development leaves the potential for employees to feel demotivated and even bored by the lack of perceived progress they are making in their own careers. The key is to find the ‘Goldilocks’ tasks – those things which are neither too stretching, nor too easy – they are just right!

Finally, and we would argue is most important for business owners to cultivate, is Purpose – that is the desire to do things that contribute to something larger than themselves. Doing things that matter and make a difference is a big motivator – particularly to younger employees who are said to be more conscious of their impact socially and environmentally. Regardless of age, most of us spend half of our waking hours at work and we want that time to matter.

A key part of adding purpose to work is to ensure that the organisation’s vision and goals are clearly communicated to employees in a way that is personal to them. They need to know the big picture and understand how their work and contribution fits into that. Having a clear line of sight from the large organisational goals to what an individual is working on day to day is a great way of establishing this, but like most things it isn’t a ‘one and done’ exercise. Regularly updating people as to how the business is performing against those goals is key, as is giving employees regular feedback on their own individual performance.

Of course, none of this works in isolation and in the current climate there is no denying that additional money above the set salary is a motivator for many at work, but Pink argues that once people perceive they are paid fairly for the contribution they are making, then they become much more motivated by intrinsic elements.

Our biggest piece of advice is for line managers to get to know their people and really understand what motivates them. If you have employees who you suspect could be prone to becoming quiet quitters, start there. Encourage line managers to have a conversation with them, acknowledge that the phenomenon exists and seek their feedback on what motivates them. Employers often shy away from these conversations in fear that people will make demands for more money that they can’t meet but this often isn’t the case, and you might just be surprised at some of the ideas they have which cost little or no money.

Weaving the crucial elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose into your employment offering is easier than you think, and the DICE team has a wealth of tools and techniques that can help. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more and ensure your employees don’t quietly quit on you, because they are likely to quietly quit before they actually quit. Email [email protected] to organise a free and confidential chat about your business.

The days of wondering if you should hire a coach for your small business are over. According to research studies curated by the International Coaching Academy, 86% of companies who’ve hired coaches said they’ve made their investment back. Professional coaching has also shown to improve time management by 57-percent, work performance by 70-percent and business management by 61-percent.

We know that successful business owners seek out support from trusted advisors who can help them achieve their goals. The question is, how do you find a coach who’s a good fit for you?

The catalyst for seeking out a business coach is usually a feeling of dissatisfaction or frustration with your business. It might be that you are working longer hours than you really want to. It might be that you feel unable to delegate things to your team because they regularly let you down with things. It might be that you feel you have reached a plateau and feel unable to get past your current stage of turnover or profit level. Whatever the reason, here are our top 10 tips on finding a business coach that suits you.

1. Understand the purpose – what are you looking for from a business coach? Someone to bounce ideas around with? Someone to challenge you? An ear to call upon for support and advice on how to grow, improve or change things in your business? Someone to help you create a high performing team? Get clear on what you want from hiring a coach before you make the first move.
2. Get clear on what success looks like – what is it you want to achieve in working with a business coach? A good way of doing this is to map out what you want to be different in your business after 3 months, 6 months, a year down the line.
3. Assess the chemistry – before committing to working with a coach make sure you have had chance to make an assessment as to whether you are compatible with one another. Will you feel comfortable enough to discuss your vulnerabilities with this person? A great coach/client relationship is built upon trust.
4. Be prepared to share more than just your business – coaching looks at your business in the context of your whole life. A good coach will explore where your business, and your role within it, might be out of alignment with your natural talents, core values and vision for your life.
5. Be open to challenge – whilst you want a coach who is on your side, you also want to establish the boundaries with them so that they can help you to uncover some of the ways in which you are getting in your own way or holding back your team. A good coach will help you to push beyond your current comfort zone and will recognise your excuses – even if you are unaware of them.
6. Make space and time – there is no point investing in a business coach if you don’t have the time to implement any of the ideas and actions you develop through working with them.
7. Seek out diversity – keep in mind that your coach does not need to be an expert in your field of business and there are often benefits to finding a coach who doesn’t know your industry inside out. A coach is there to help you expand your thinking, so it is good to seek out someone with a diversity of experience.
8. Establish how they operate up-front –having clear expectations between client and coach is crucial to the success of your relationship. How frequently will you meet your coach? How long will the sessions last? Are the sessions held in-person, via video call, phone or a mixture? Can you contact them in between sessions – if so via what communication channel (email, what’s app, etc)? How and when will you review the coaching relationship – is it for a set number of months to begin with, followed by a review?
9. Hire someone with a growth mindset – remember that famous quote – if you think you can or can’t, you’re right. Make sure your coach is someone who is themselves someone with a growth mindset and can help you to see the positives and opportunities in challenging situations.
10. Be prepared for the long haul – change doesn’t happen overnight so plan on at least a 6-month / year long relationship with your coach. Once you’ve achieved your initial goals, it’s wise to continue coaching.

If you are a business owner, we believe you are the expert in your business. You are in that unique position of being responsible both for the vision of where you want to go, as well as the everyday execution to get you there. Hiring a DICE business coach helps you to step back and assess where you are professionally and personally. 

We start with an in-depth look at your goals and vision. We shine a light on what you are doing now and what is working well and what isn’t working for you. We then work with you to create a plan for what you want to achieve – turning vision into action.

To find out more about our coaching services, drop us a line: [email protected]

The phrase ‘I am so busy’ is often bandied about in businesses and it is a pet hate of Co-Founder Kate Cousens. Herself a reformed workaholic who used the ‘busy’ term as something of a badge of honour, Kate is now passionate about helping clients to reform the habit of busy-ness and get more done in their businesses through mastering the art of hyper-focusing. In this blog, Kate shares her top tips on how you can do the same.

I would love to ban the word ‘busy’ when it comes to the working world! When you love your career or your business, like I have and do, it can become all-consuming. I know that there are always more things I want to achieve and that my ‘to-do’ list could be never-ending if I allowed it to be. I call myself a reformed workaholic, but I am still wired to want to work every waking hour I can, making myself ‘busy’, but I have learned that it is better for my mental wellbeing and my family for me to self-impose boundaries that stop me from doing so.

I have spent a lot of time in various types of therapy exploring where the drive to be busy comes from, and I can share that it is deep-rooted in that I like to be needed. I like to make myself indispensable, and ultimately, I am prone to attributing my self-worth with it. Put simply, if I am busy, I am important, I am needed, therefore I am worthy. Thankfully I am self-aware enough to know when this is a useful driver for me and when it starts to go into over-drive, tipping into overwhelm.

Personal disclosure over, but this is a pattern I recognise in others straight away whenever clients say to me they are ‘so busy’ and that they don’t have enough time in the day to do everything that needs doing. My solution, and something that I have learned to master the art of, is hyper-focusing.

Traditionally, hyperfocus was described as an experience of deep and intense concentration in some people with ADHD. In this case, I’m talking about hyperfocus as a theoretical state of being where you obtain an intense focus on an action to the point that it results in extreme productivity.

Hyper-focusing on important work tasks throughout the day is what I attribute to getting so much done in my business. I am a perpetual do-er and creator. Over the last few years, I have created a huge amount of material that supports clients in all areas of running their business. From business strategy and marketing templates to a full CPD accredited 15 month leadership development programme – you name it, I have created it to support DICE clients (and if I haven’t yet, then I will!).

It is this hyper-focus that has enabled us to franchise the DICE offer, teaching other passionate business professionals to use the breadth of training materials we have covering every aspect of business strategy development, people leadership, workplace culture, employee engagement and communications. It is what enabled me to write a complete business operation manual, outlining every single process we do with clients so that we can teach our methodologies and practices to franchisees.

My business partner and Co-Founder, Steve Lloyd, will tell you that this hyper-focus of mine does come at a price – in that I will block out chunks of a week to get specific tasks done – often leaving Steve to pick up the mantle with any arising issues with clients during that time! But that is how we roll – we are a great team and Steve supports me when I need to get into this mode.

So, what is the secret to mastering the art of hyper-focusing? It starts with stopping the bad habits of multi-tasking, or multi-failing as I like to say! You can’t focus on everything – you need to prioritise what is important and then create space to get it done. It starts with the decision that you are going to run your day, rather than letting your day run you.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Stop the alerts!

We all get distracted and lose focus at times but with the average internet user getting distracted every 40 seconds, it is time to close down your email inbox, switch off any and all notifications on your computer, and put your phone on ‘do not disturb’ (better yet, switch it off and hide it!).

• Be realistic on your time

I am someone who always under-estimates how long something will take, often thinking I can achieve more than I realistically can in a single day. Get honest with yourself and do your best to limit your list to one or two things at a time. Use your diary to plan out your day, and if you don’t get everything done in the time frame, block out your next available day and repeat until the task is complete.

• Impose boundaries with yourself

You need to be strict with yourself when you are hyper-focusing. That means no procrastinating – this isn’t the time to clear out the kitchen cabinets or that messy drawer – you need to get that thing on your to-do list done. Eat the frog, stop putting it off!

• Impose boundaries with others

Make yourself un-contactable. Put on your email ‘out of office’ message, chat to colleagues, clients, and family members about what you are planning to do and ensure you have their support. Give them a time when you will be available if they need you for anything, but other than that pretend you are on a desert island and let them fend for themselves (yes, that means you kids!).

• Avoid distractions

Stay away from the things that distract you. It might be that you are used to scrolling through your social media feeds, watching lunchtime ‘Bargain Hunt’ or making a brew every 30 minutes. Whatever it is that you are prone to being distracted by, stop it! These things might seem fun and give you some relief in your day, but they do nothing for your productivity. I mean it – step away from the kettle! Get yourself a flask if you need to – this is time to knuckle down!

• Choose what is important and stick to it

If you are committed to getting something important done, stick to your guns and do it. This means staying true to what you choose to focus on for that day and not falling into the trap of running on autopilot. By that I mean that when you switch on your computer when you’re on autopilot you automatically open your email inbox and the Internet tab. Don’t fall into that trap – be very deliberate in how you set yourself up for your day and escape autopilot mode!

Hyperfocus goes deeper than time management – it is about managing your attention so that you waste less time. It really does maximise your productivity and helps you to do more purposeful work. We can all make ourselves busy if we want to, equally we can all get things that are important to us done if we want to through a hyper-focused approach. Give it a try and see how you find it. I’d love to hear how you get on, so please get in touch via social media with your experiences!

Kate shares her thoughts on failure in business and what it means to fail fast.

As someone who loves reading business books, I have come across the concept of failing fast, but it was only recently that I found myself having to put it into practise.

It was whilst completing my final assignment for the CIPD Level 7 Advanced Diploma in Human Resource Management that I found myself having to approach it with a ‘fail fast’ mindset.

Whilst completing the assignment, I had to send different sections of it off to be marked and critiqued. It was a 7,000-word assignment but was split into five smaller assignments and the problem was that I literally repeatedly kept failing each one! Now I should say I am someone who doesn’t like to fail (does anyone?), and I have always pushed myself to be an achiever academically, so it was seriously disheartening. To the point that one evening when I received yet another fail on a section that I was convinced I had done well in, I burst into tears in the middle of a performance of Shakespeare at Stratford-Upon-Avon. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I was on the front row! My poor 14-year-old daughter was mortified, and it was a big lesson why not to open emails up during an interval of a show!

It was after this incident that I decided I really needed to stop being so emotional about it and reminded myself of the fail fast concept. In a nutshell, the definition of failing fast means to start working on something, immediately gather feedback and then use that to determine your next steps. It is closely linked with the Lean Start-Up methodology as written about by author Eric Ries.

The thing is that that failure isn’t something us humans generally relish or seek out. It goes against everything we are taught from a young age, especially those of us who didn’t grow up in the era when everyone was given a medal on Sport’s Day, regardless of where you came in the race!

But if failure is a part of the process of success, as American businessman and author of ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, Robert Toru Kiyosaki says, then why do we dislike it? Why aren’t we embracing ways to fail fast?

If, like me, you run your own business, then there is an argument to be had that creating a culture where people aren’t afraid of failing will lead to greater innovation. Failure is an essential ingredient when you are experimenting and trying out new things – as anyone who has ever watched amateur cooking shows will know (Celebrity Masterchef springs to mind!).

My business is called ‘DICE’ and we talk about the concept of business being a game which you might not always win but there is always the opportunity to roll the dice again. In other words, when you fail, do it quickly and try again.

If we can encourage people to fail fast – if it is safe to do so, of course – then we can learn lessons from what went wrong and make changes to improve things in the future. And this shouldn’t be behind closed doors – the crucial element in cultivating this approach as the way your business does things is to communicate the lessons learned widely amongst the team as soon as possible. This succeeds in reinforcing that failure is something that is ok to do around here, and ensures the same mistakes aren’t made twice.

So, how can you encourage a culture where failure is supported and not feared in your business? My advice is for leaders to consider the following…

• Develop the boundaries around failure – what is acceptable and what will be tolerated as a means to innovate? Often people hide or cover up things that they have done wrong because they are fearful of the consequences of something ‘bad’ happening to them. What is ok? This has to be set by the leaders and then clearly communicated so that everyone is clear and people don’t have a concern that they will be punished or blamed for something in the future. That is the fastest way to undermine the fail fast concept and erode trust amongst your employees.

• Create an environment where employees are given time to experiment and be creative to come up with their own solutions to things. At Google they have the 20%-time rule which is that employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time, in addition to their day jobs, working on what they think will most benefit the company. This might sound radical, particularly to a small or medium sized business owner, but the concept can be adopted on a smaller scale to suit your desire to innovate and make changes.

• Embrace failure when it happens and communicate it internally to your people. Let your employees see that it is ok to make mistakes, that we are an organisation that learns from things that haven’t gone to plan and that we aren’t afraid to show humility – no matter who it is who has made the error. It is super powerful if even the CEO can admit they got something wrong. Rather than be afraid of it, use it as an opportunity to show true leadership.

• Create fun competitions or challenges for your employees to come up with solutions to things you are considering, or that have you head-scratching around the board table. The best ideas can come from anywhere – again, it is all about the culture and tone you are setting in your business.

I am pleased to share that I finally passed the assignment and was given a Merit (when all I set out for was a pass), so clearly all of the feedback from the tutor and the various iterations, made it much better. This is ultimately what failing fast does. So next time you fail at something, don’t be disheartened, do it fast and try again – you are one step closer to success.

If you want help creating a culture of innovation, where failing fast becomes part of your DNA, get in touch. We can help.

Everyone has their own thoughts and feelings on what makes a great leader. Often, we find that leadership can be a difficult thing to describe and understand but there are often common qualities that we can recognise in leaders we admire or have had the pleasure of working with.

Being a great leader does not mean you have demonstrate all these qualities, however making small yet incremental improvements in certain areas can make a big difference. Over time these can turn into behaviours and habits which impact on your own leadership qualities. So, what are some of the common qualities of great leaders? Here are just a few to get you started…

Courage people need leaders who have the courage to make the difficult decisions and the ability to say no when it might be difficult to do so. A leader who will stay the course, follow the right path even in tough times. People are far more likely to show courage if they see their leader demonstrating it.

Communication isarguably one of the most important leadership qualities. Being able to forge a connection through communications which is real and personal and being able to adapt your communications style to suit the different needs of an audience is truly inspiring.

Generosity leaders don’t take all the credit! They are quick to celebrate other’s successes and offer enthusiastic praise when it is due. They want their people to be successful and achieve their best. It is not all about them!

Humility being able to say they don’t know something, getting their hands dirty and jumping on the tools when the need arises, is the skill of a great leader. They don’t let their position of authority make them feel that they are better than anyone else.  

Self-awareness great leaders have a clear view of their strengths and weaknesses and aren’t afraid to own them. They know where their zone of genius is and have effective strategies to compensate for their weaknesses.

Approachability great leaders are hungry for different viewpoints and opinions, they welcome feedback and challenge. An environment where people are afraid to speak up, offer insight and ask questions leads to a culture of fear and over time this reduces innovation and stifles growth.

Accountability leaders know that it is important to hold themselves and others to account to achieve results. They set targets, they measure results, and they communicate what needs to be done. This builds strength, understanding and a committed team.

Our leadership development programme is accredited for Continuous Professional Development. We help leaders improve their abilities in the above areas, and many more. If you are looking for any support with your leadership skills, or those of your team, get in touch. We would love to help.