Tag Archives: management coaching

Is the Dream Employee for You?

Over the past several years of working with companies we’ve developed a process called The Dream Employee. It’s a great way to find out what motivates your employees. By going through a simple questioning process with each one of your team members at your company on a monthly basis, we help, support and encourage them to achieve their own personal goals and dreams.

When you know your employees on a personal level, it helps them to see the connection between their goal or dream and their work that they are doing in your company. It helps create collaboration and makes a connection to their job that helps with retention, motivation and engagement to the company’s vision.

People that are achieving their own personal goals or dreams are internally motivated so you don’t have to do all the motivating every day, every month or every quarter.

All you have to do is help them make the connection between their job and their own personal goals. Your company culture changes once they realize that you really care, and show them that their work is a vehicle that can help them achieve some of their goals and dreams.

The Dream Employee is a benefit that you can give to your employees that is different from what other companies are doing. This gives you an advantage in the marketplace.

Reach out to us for a free consultation to learn more about what this could do for you and your company.

by Scott Ballard , September 6, 2020

How Do Your Employees REALLY Feel About Your Business?

Have you ever thought about how your employees REALLY feel about your business? It may be that you haven’t thought about this or don’t think it’s important. Then again, maybe it’s a question you are afraid to ask!

Do you really know how your employees feel about your business? About working there? What does working there feel like to them?

I know some of you are thinking — I don’t really want to know; and that’s very real and understandable. However, everyone needs to think about this. How your employees feel about your business is what they’re going to reflect to your paying customers and to each other.

How your employees feel can create a culture that is really positive, collaborative and progressive, Or, how they feel can create a culture that is filled with negativity, backbiting and all kinds of other problems. These negative kinds of things can, and will, slow down the progress and growth of your business.

The Survey Solution

You may ask what can be done to help people like you with this challenge? At Confidence Coach, we come in as a third party and send out an anonymous survey to find out how your employees feel about your business. We ask them their opinion on how it’s running, how they feel about their managers, and maybe what they think of the systems you have in place. We do this anonymously so that they feel protected and can be totally honest. They know we won’t reveal their names.

We create the survey (with your input) and use questions in such a way to really find out what and how they’re thinking. Then we’re able to provide that information to you as the owner or CEO of the business. This will help you get a feeling of where your company culture is. It will help you know how employees are interacting, and how that’s being projected to your customers. This is incredibly valuable information.

We have a lot of success stories of people who have used this tool to help figure out what is going on in their company with their employees. It’s a secret weapon we provide for people on a quarterly basis. This gives ongoing information so you can make good decisions and can understand what’s happening in your culture.

We spend a lot of money as business owners and CEOs to figure out who our paying customer is. We are always trying to get to know their likes and dislikes, what’s going on with them and how we can serve them better. But most of us are missing a great opportunity if we are don’t know what our “first customers” (our employees) are thinking and feeling. The Survey Solution is a great tool for this.

If you’re interested, please reach out and schedule a free consultation to talk more about this. Also, you can check out a video on YouTube where I talked more about The Survey Solution.

by Scott Ballard , August 25, 2019

Everyone Has A Dream

When we do executive coaching, it’s clear that every CEO, business owner, or entrepreneur comes to us with the dream to build something. That’s the mission that drives companies from a kitchen table to a billion-dollar empire. Unfortunately, there’s one thing almost everyone forgets. It’s the reason why disengagement is up to 80% and turnover is the highest it’s been in decades. We forget that our companies are made up of people.

Each of those people has a dream, right? Everyone has hopes outside of work. But those hopes and dreams are often seen as liabilities to mitigate instead of assets to leverage. But think about this: If I could connect my job in accounting with my dream of learning to ski, how much more would I put into my job? If I knew my company was supportive of my dreams, how much more committed would I be to that company?

We work with business owners and help them implement a program called The Dream Employee that asks each employee the question: What are your dreams, goals and aspirations?

It can make a huge impact in a company when employees know and are shown that you really care about them and what they care about. For example, when they run a marathon, maybe you make a fun video about it and send that out to customers and employees to celebrate their achievement. It’s so important to celebrate and acknowledge their wins with them as they achieve their dreams and goals.

This isn’t just about being nice. When people are in the process of achieving their dreams, that’s where real productivity happens — that’s where growth and creativity and connection happens. A bonus can’t do that! A bonus can’t motivate your employees longer than a week. A bonus can’t drive connection amongst your team. As an employer, you can’t compete in this world anymore with just a paycheck. Employees want to live for a purpose, and if you can help give that to them, you’ll have the most motivated team of employees you could dream of. There’s nothing like purpose to drive your team towards real productivity and customer connection.

Everyone has to live and work in their own greatness. If you can harness and build that up, you can make a huge impact on your team. Together, you’ll have an even bigger impact on the world.

We’ve been talking about The Dream Employee quite a bit lately. If you want to know more and see how it would work in your company, just reach out to us and schedule a free consultation.

by Scott Ballard , July 14, 2019

What’s your limiting belief?

Ask yourself this question today — What’s my limiting belief about my employees?

We’ve discovered that a majority of business owners and CEOs have limiting beliefs about what their employees are capable of doing, being, or creating in their business.

Is this something you struggle with too?

Are You Limiting Your Employees?

Do you have limiting beliefs in any of these areas in regards to your employees?

what they can or can’t do;
what their responsibilities are; or
what they can produce for your business.

If so, then these may be getting in the way of your business experiencing more profit, more growth, and actually more return on your payroll investment.

What do you believe about your employees on an individual basis, as a department or group?

Are you transferring your limiting belief to them?

Are you decreasing their ability to produce, collaborate, and deliver a better product or service to your customers?

If this idea shakes you a little bit, then I’d love to take you through the Engagement Multiplier. This is a process that we have to check where you’re at as far as your beliefs go about your employees.

You Set the Tone

As the leader you set the tone of the company. Along with that tone is a belief about what your employee is capable of doing; what they can accomplish; how good of a job they can do; how they show up to work. In order to set the right tone, you need to check in with yourself and be really honest. Ask yourself whether you have labeled and believed that your employee is only capable of certain things.

If you are limiting them by your beliefs of what you think they can do — you need to change! Stop your limiting beliefs around your employees, so that they can be set free to be more productive and do greater work. This in turn will give you more time and money from your business.

If you find this compelling and want to have an honest exchange about it, reach out to us and schedule a free consultation. Let’s change your limiting beliefs and empower your employees to do their very best.

by Scott Ballard , June 9, 2019

How to find your Employee’s “Why”

Helping your employees find their big “why” can also help you communicate your company’s “why”. It’s a conversation that you’ll find fruitful in managing, supporting and leading your team. If they understand their “why”, then you can communicate better what the company’s “why” is, thus connecting the two of those together. When people get clear about their “why”, they gain confidence. They get committed to the task. They have a sense of courage that takes them to a new level of performance.

Finding the “why” of your employees is critically important in order for you to get the most leverage out of their talent and ability as they help you build your company — whether you have 10 or 10,000 employees. You need to help them identify their why and then connect it back to their job or work. This is an ecosystem that can provide you with long-term internally motivated employees by finding their why.

Ask them these questions:

Why are they working at your company?
Why are they doing the work that they’re doing?
What is the purpose of their job?
Are they clear about it being a vehicle for them to achieve the things that they want to achieve in their life?

Have you helped them draw the connection between their job and and their big “why”?

This is an area where you have to start asking questions — even in the interview process when you’re on boarding somebody. Why are you here? How do you see this as a fit? How does this fit into your life? How does this fit into the big “why” of your life? And then, support them in what they tell you.

So “why” is a great question. It’s simple but it can dramatically improve your employee engagement with all your employees.

Everybody’s looking for an edge in business – and one such advantage is finding the “why” of your employees, your team, your managers, and your leadership. When you can do that and connect the “why” for them personally with the “why” for the company, then you’ve got something! That is what we call an unfair advantage in the marketplace because your people are internally motivated with the big “why”. This is the secret sauce of your advantage.

We look forward to hearing what you’re finding when you’re asking “why” questions. Let us know because we’d love to talk to you about it.

by Scott Ballard , April 21, 2019

Your Most Valuable Asset — Hope

I want to talk about something that you may not think about from a business standpoint as an entrepreneur, business leader or CEO, and that’s HOPE.

You can lose almost anything in your business or your personal life but if you lose this you’re sunk! For example, you can go through bankruptcy, experience a bad partnership, downturn in sales, layoffs, slow economy, but if you just keep going forward, you will have a bigger future.

The one thing you can’t lose is the Hope that it’s going to be better tomorrow and in the future.

Because if you do, it’s almost impossible to get it back.

So what are you doing today?

What are you doing in your life personally and in your business to protect the hope that you have for today and for the future?

Think about it.

We spend time with our clients protecting their hope. We are there to encourage and help them.

It’s a mindset and it’s a resilience that you have to continually work on and build on.

A foundation of hope is really what’s going to see you through the down times so that you can have the high times, the better times, the bigger future.

Let us know how you’re protecting the most valuable asset in your business — “Hope”.

by Scott Ballard , April 14, 2019

After Action Review

Have you ever wondered how you could get better and improve your business or company in a systematic way? We’ve created a series of questions that we call the After Action Review in order to do so. It’s really taken from the military and they use it on all their training and exercises but we’ve adopted it and use it after coaching, training sessions and also for different things that we are doing within our company. We have found it to be really valuable and it’s a way to improve every time you do something. There are a series of five questions that we ask which I wanted to share with you today so that you could use them as a tool to improve what you do as well.

The next time you do a presentation, hire your next team member, make a sales call, do an employee review or whatever it might be — ask yourself these questions afterwards and watch yourself get incrementally better and better at what you do.

After Action Review Questions

What went right? Write down what went right on the project, process or event. Highlight and capture that.
What worked well? Were there things that stood out to you or maybe you got feedback on? Note if there was something that got a great result.
What needs improving? These are things that you saw that could make it better or improve the process or experience. Is there something that needs to be changed in order to get a better result next time?
What did you learn? Is there something that you learned from this experience or from this process that you maybe didn’t know before that you need to remember?
What was the biggest take away (from this event, process, project)?

Once you take inventory like this, then you know next time you can create more value, solutions, and an even greater experience for you, your company, your customers and/or your employees.

It only takes a couple of minutes to answer these questions (or 5-10 minutes if you want to include team members’ answers too) while it is still fresh in your mind after an event. At the end of a project or event, it’s a great way to really analyze and evaluate what went right by going back and reviewing what happened. I think you will find that it will transform your business one step at a time. You can learn more about us at confidencecoach.org.

by Scott Ballard , December 2, 2018

Looking Back and Learning

I want to talk to you a little bit about your business and the memory you have of why you started it in the first place. As you are looking back, how would you answer these questions:

What was the initial thought?
What was the initial dream?
What was the initial hope?
What did you envision your future to be, both personally and professionally, when you started your business?
Where did you see yourself being 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road with the business?
And, have you lost touch with those thoughts, those ideas that you had at the beginning?

Today I want to ask you to go back to that original thought or idea and revisit the enthusiasm, passion, and conviction that you had to start and build your business, to make a difference in the world, to provide a great solution or product for your customers or for the world at large.

Sit down and ask yourself these questions: What was I thinking at the beginning? Why did I start this company? What was my original purpose?

And then ask yourself, do we still have the same purpose or has that changed and evolved? If it has, have I changed and evolved with it? Is my business taking me to where I really want to go or are there some things that I need to change in order to get to where I want to go from where I started.

So it’s really about looking back and learning today. We do this with our clients all the time. We have them look back, learn and celebrate those things that they’ve done to get to where they’re at. There’s so much to be learned about beginning a venture or company and starting it from scratch, but sometimes the ingenuity and the thinking around that can be lost when we grow.

Go back into that mindset or that first thought, that first day, that first year in your company, and think about all of the creativity, energy and the passion you had. Now, relive that and put it back into your company today.

It’s all about your mindset, your thinking.

That creative thing that started what you built. Think about your first year, your first step, your first sale, your first transaction. You need to bring that back into focus today because that brings freshness not only to you, but now you have a team, you have customers and you have this business. It needs a shot of energy and you’re like, man, I can’t seem to get motivated, I can’t seem to get excited about what we’re doing. Well, go back and remember what excited you at the beginning. What was it that triggered the idea that you were going to be an entrepreneur, that you were going to have this great adventure, build a great company and make a difference in your life for you, your family and your friends. Go back and put that hat on again.

My challenge for you it to take 30 minutes and go back to Day One and remember what that was like and how it felt. Learn from what that has taught you and then reengage in the same enthusiasm and passion that you had for this company when you started it. Then, report back to us how this will change you from this point forward. How did this new thinking to go back to the beginning, to that passion, change the way you’re looking at your future now?

It should be a much bigger future! There’s a bigger future out there because there’s bigger problems and pain and things to be created for a much better result for your clients and your customers with this kind of thinking.

So first day, first thought, first action, first excitement — go back and relive those things. Share those with your team, with your leaders, with your employees. People love to hear the story of how you started.

I would love for you to send me a video or an email of how you started your company too. Where did the idea come from? Why did you do it? And what was that like at the beginning? We’d love to hear from you and learn your story. We’re at www.confidencecoach.org. We hope you share this with somebody that has started a business but maybe they’ve forgotten why they started it. Let’s celebrate today being entrepreneurs, business owners, and people that are risk takers that are going to make a difference in the world!! But let’s not forget that first day — that first thought. Make it a great day.

by Scott Ballard , October 14, 2018

Getting on the Same Page with Employee/Employer Relationships

Here’s a simple exercise you can use if you are having difficulties getting on the same page with your employees, managers or supervisors. Perhaps you can’t get on the same page due to a past conflict or a personality issue. I’m going to give you a solution today that is a question you can ask that will transform and improve difficult working relationships. It helps owners and leaders get on the same page with their employees, creates strong bonds, builds collaboration and helps people work together better.

Is there someone in your organization that immediately comes to mind? Someone that’s hard to work with them or you’re having a struggle, problem or an issue with? Then this question should help turn the situation around.

This is the step you need to take and the question to ask them. Get them in your office or in a place where you can talk to them one-on-one for a few minutes without any interruptions. Ask them first if it’s okay to ask a personal question, and if they are agreeable, ask them “What matters most to you in your work here at this company and personally in your life?”

Now, you may just want to ask “What matters most to you about the work that you’re doing here in the company?” And that’s far enough. But, if you feel like you can go deeper, you should also ask them the question “What matters most to you personally?”

And then be quiet and listen.

What this does is it changes their whole feeling about you because what we are finding by using this question is that nobody in their life or very few people in their life are really sitting down and going – Okay, what’s going on with you? What matters to you and what is happening in your life that might be affecting this work thing or what are you really struggling with at work? And by asking this question, you open the door to have a conversation.

Now, the second part of this is after asking this question, you have to be willing to listen. You have to be willing to turn yourself off and really listen to what they’re saying. And then after they have answered that you might want to follow up with the question of “why?” Why does that matter to you and why is that important to you?

In doing this, you will open a door of understanding to be able to manage, to work with and understand what makes this person tick. We have found that it has undone a lot of problems in relationships – managers vs. employees, owners vs. employees, and has turned those dynamics that are “versus” into, “Oh, you’re a human being too!”. Your people have things that matter to them, and you need to know what those are in order to lead them well.

My challenge to you today is if you know somebody who immediately came to mind (or a bunch of people!), take five minutes and ask a couple of people this question, and then let us know how that works out.

If you’d like to know more about how to interact and build strong, healthy relationships in your business, reach out to us at Confidence Coach. We’d love to help you with this. Also, if this has been valuable to you or you know somebody that this would be helpful to, please pass this information on to them.

by Scott Ballard , June 24, 2018

Do You Know How Your Employees REALLY Feel About Your Business?

You know how you really feel about your business, but have you ever thought about what your employees really feel about your business? It may be that you haven’t thought about this or don’t think it’s important, but then again, it may be something that you are afraid to ask!

Do you really know how your employees feel about your business? About working there? What does working there feel like to them?

I know some of you are thinking — I don’t really want to know; and that’s very real and understandable. However, everyone needs to think about this because how your employees feel about your business is what they’re going to reflect to your paying customers and to one another. This also creates a culture which is either really positive, collaborative and progressive, or it’s a culture where there is negativity, backbiting and all kinds of other problems that slow down the progress in your business.

You may ask what can be done to help people like you with this challenge? At Confidence Coach, we come in as a third party and do what we call an anonymous survey to find out how your employees feel about your business. We ask them their opinion on how it’s running, how they feel about their managers, and maybe what the systems are. We do this anonymously so that they feel protected and they can be totally honest because they know we won’t reveal their names. We create the survey and use questions in such a way to really find out what and how they’re thinking, and then we’re able to provide that information to you as the owner or CEO of the business. This begins to help you to get a feeling of how your culture is at this point. It will help you know how employees are interacting and how that’s being projected to your customers. This is incredibly valuable information.

We have a lot of success stories of people who have used this tool to help figure out what is going on in their company with their employees. It’s kind of a secret weapon we provide for people. We normally do this on a quarterly basis. This enables you to have ongoing information so you can make good decisions and can understand what’s going on in your culture. We spend a lot of money as business owners and CEOs to figure out who our paying customer is, what they’re about and what’s going on with them, but we miss the opportunity if we are forgetting about our own employees, our “first customers” and what’s happening with them. This is a tool to do that.

If you’re interested, please reach out and contact us. We’d love to demonstrate how this can work for you. Also, if you know somebody else that this would be help, please pass this on. Maybe they have some questions about what’s going on with their employees or want to know how their employees are feeling. If so, forward this article to them and then subscribe to our YouTube channel where I’ve also talked about this.

Make it a great day!

by Scott Ballard , June 17, 2018

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