S1 E6 Mini Workshop Excellence Without Fear

Summary   In this mini workshop, Dr. Marc Reynolds shares three practical tips for curating, uplifting, and maintaining a culture of excellence without fear-based motivation. The first tip is to lead by example and create a process-oriented company focused on growth and evolution. The second tip is to set clear expectations, communicate realistic goals, and provide necessary support. The third tip is to foster open communication and create an environment where feedback is encouraged and valued. The key takeaways include demonstrating excellence, clarifying communication, and embracing feedback.   Takeaways

• Share you evolution to excellence in your own work ethic and decision making in real time.
• Clarify communication by asking for restatements and avoiding assumptions.
• Foster open communication and create an environment where feedback is encouraged and valued.

Sound Bites

• "Curate, uplift, and maintain a culture of excellence"
• "Motivate people in a way that uplifts them"
• "Set clear expectations, communicate realistic goals, and provide necessary support"

Chapters   00:00 Introduction 01:25 Motivating People in a Positive Way 03:18 Setting Clear Expectations and Goals 05:10 Fostering Open Communication 07:36 Conclusion   Keywords   workplace culture, team effectiveness, challenges, strategic objectives, fear-based motivation, curating, uplifting, maintaining, excellence, lead by example, process-oriented company, growth, evolution, clear expectations, realistic goals, support, open communication, feedback

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
If you'rea business leader looking to foster
positive workplace culture, enhance teameffectiveness, and navigate challenges
effectivelywhile focusing on strategic objectives, or
if you just want to make work work betterthen join us for a mini workshop
where we sharethree things you can do today.
I'm your host Dr.
Marc Reynolds, and Todayis a mini workshop based on the Dana

(00:38):
Oakes interview.
One of the things Dana Oakes said was,“Part of my job was to curate.
uplift and maintaina culture of excellence.
Today we want to share with.
You three practicaltips of how to curate, uplift and maintain
a culture of excellencewithout fear based motivation.

(01:00):
Why? Why? Without fear based. Motivation?
Well, fear basedmotivation is something that's been super
common in the workplaceand in our world around us.
Fear is a great motivator to get people.
To do things. It'sa way to control people.
Unfortunately.
It isn't the best way to influenceOr help people be their most productive.

(01:25):
So instead, what we want to learnhow to do
is how to motivate people in a waythat uplifts them, that encourages them,
that makes them excitedand Thrilled to come to work every day
because they're looking forward towhat's coming next.
What are three things that you can dotoday?
First, you can lead by example.

(01:45):
Demonstrate excellence in your own workethic and decision making.
Now that sounds great.
But practically, how do I do this?
Well, one of the things to rememberIs that a culture of.
excellenceisn't Necessarily about the product.
being excellent, thoughthat will be the result.
It's about creating a processoriented company where you are

(02:09):
helping people learn how to grow, progressand become better every day.
It's about evolution and growth
more than it isabout creating excellent products.
Where we get the fear based motivation
is where the excellence in the productis the only thing that matters.
Reality is we're human.
We're going to make mistakes.We're going to make errors.

(02:31):
We're going to learn new things. We'regoing to be able to improve and evolve.
So if we can make the focus a system
that will organically create excellence
if we are focusedon continuing to grow then
that is something that is sustainable,exciting and motivating to people.
Show that it's more about.
Learning from your mistakes,and it is about not making mistakes.

(02:54):
That you Want them to take.
good risks, to innovate,to create, to try something new.
Part of that is being willingto be wrong yourself sometimes,
and highlighting that and showingwhat am I learning?
How am I Growing?
What am I thinking from this mistakethat I made that Is helping me.
to be more excellent tomorrowthan I was today?

(03:17):
The second way to builda culture of excellence without fear
based motivation is to set clearexpectations,
communicate realistic goals,and provide necessary Support.
Well, what do we mean by that?
You can use a Smart goalYou can make sure you're covering the.
Who, what, where, when, why and how.
But if you
aren't communicatingthen that's the first step.

(03:39):
Second step.
ask them to restate what they thinkyour expectations are.
Most of communication breakdown.
Is. In just human, flawed human error.
We say something and assume theyunderstand our intention of what we meant.
But the reality is.
Most of our languagecan be interpreted in many different ways.

(04:00):
So we won't know if communication is clear
until we hear back from them that whatthey're saying matches what we're saying.
We might think we're beingcrystal clear in how we're communicating,
but we can't be assured and be consistent.
In our communicationwithout that feedback.
Look for assumptionsin what you're communicating.
Take a moment to think.

(04:21):
How might someone else.
Interpret what I'm. Saying differently?
Get rid of assumptions.
Be clear.
One way to dothat is to speak so that any average
sixth grader could understand you.
It needs to be simple, short, concise,and to the point with simple language
and not making any assumptions thatpeople understand what you mean or the.

(04:42):
Context.
Doesn't mean you have to be.
exhaustiveBut if you can really clarify it down
So sixth grader understandthat you'll be in good shape.
The third. Thing I'm going to suggest.
For building a culture of excellencewithout.
Fear, based motivation.
Is to foster open communication.
Create an environmentwhere feedback is encouraged And valued.

(05:04):
Not just giving lip service,
but where it's followed upon where you're expected to report.
It's okay to make a mistake.
It's okay to ask for more timeor to ask for help.
That requires that you take Time.
to get feedback and to apply Feedback.
Make it a regular part of meetings.
Regular part of your interviewwith employees.

(05:27):
Just put that inas something you always. do.
Ask for feedback towards yourself.
How could we have made this meetingeven more effective?
It only needs to take a minute.
Two minutes. Three minutes.
One idea of how To improvenext time is all we need.
to keep moving forward.
Most importantly, it'sto put systems in place where people feel

(05:48):
safe to give feedback that is candidand gives the entire picture.
They may think, well,that's an anonymous survey.
Not necessarily.
One of the problems with this anonymoussurvey is you don't have a person
on the other side asking follow upquestions and digging deeper
and really getting an understandingOf what is really.
going on.

(06:09):
Often with surveys and feedbackquestionnaires what happens is
people write to the questionand they'll give you
a piece of information,
but they'll only give youas much as they think needs to be heard.
When sometimes There are.
patterns among all the commentsor comments that are made
that if there's a live personon the other side,
they can dig deeper into thatand really understand.

(06:30):
the real Challenge or the.
real opportunity ahead of them.
That's one of the reasonswhy we offer the service of third-party
skip-level interviews,or we also offer a whistleblowing service.
We offer being a third party,where we protect an employee's anonymity
and make sure that they are advocatedfor without the fear of reprisal

(06:53):
or without fear that they're goingto be labeled as a complainer or whiner
or that they're going to be fired.
You might think.
but doesn'tthat just enable a culture of whining?
And the answer is no.
We make sure that we empower peopleto solve their own problems.
We aren't just a sourcefor people to vent and complain.

(07:13):
We really are there to sort and sift outpatterns among a company culture
and moral, legal,and ethical problems that need to be.
Addressed.
It's not just a hindsight tool.
It's a way to predict and See problemsor opportunities.
that are coming down the pike.
It becomes a predictive tool.

(07:35):
Here at the end, let me give you the shortlist of things that you might try today
to improve your practiceand to make work Work better.
First, Along the lines of leading byexample, share something you are learning
or working on with your team, Show themwhat learning excellence looks like
not just by what you dobut sharing what's going on in your head,

(07:57):
your thought process, how you learn,how you think, how you question yourself.
Number two.
One simple way to improve the clarityof your communication
today is to get in the habitof asking for restatement.
For example, you might give a directive
or explain something, or share something

(08:19):
and then ask something along the linesof Could you please.
Confirm your understanding of.
The task or of what I shared?
I want to make sure I've communicatedeverything clearly.
This makes itso that it's not Their fault.
if they don't understandbut that what You're doing
is acknowledgingthat communication is a two way. street.
It's not just what you say, it'salso how it's heard.

(08:40):
You want to make sure That if.
clarity needs to be made,you want to do it now
and not down the road when it's too lateand time and resources have been wasted.
Three.
Foster open communication, where feedbacktime is a regular part of meetings.
Put it on meeting agendas,put it on your calendar - five minutes.
Or less for feedbackat the end of a meeting.

(09:01):
Regularly go back to thatfeedback and report what happened.
What you did on it.
You want them to say,‘I heard this feedback.
And so this week
I did this, this, this, this.’If you model it, they'll get the idea.
And if you keep asking them to reportOn the feedback that we discussed
last time they'll understandthat they need to pay attention to that

(09:24):
and be ready to report and hopefully takethe initiative moving forward.
As always.
I'm sure that most of whatwe talked about, if not everything
you already know My goal heretoday is to make Sure that.
I'm reminding you of the thingsthat you know, and that you have
some clear waysthat you can make work work better.
Next time for our mini workshop,we're going to explore the power

(09:46):
of externalizingyour thoughts and plans with your team.
See you next time.