22 Best Business Podcasts For Entrepreneurs in 2022

Podcasts are an incredibly convenient way to consume content, especially if you’re a busy entrepreneur. That’s why according to Statista, “there were an estimated 120 million podcast listeners in the country in 2021. Forecasts suggest that the number of podcast listeners will surpass 160 million in 2023 after increases of around 20 million each year.”^[1]

As podcast popularity continues to grow, there is a slew of business podcasts out there with invaluable information that you won’t want to miss. So, here’s my guide to 22 of the best business podcasts for entrepreneurs in 2022 that you’ll want to subscribe to this year.

1. Noah Kagan Presents

On his namesake podcast, Noah Kagan interviews entrepreneurs and CEOs as well as athletes and celebrities and focuses on all aspects of business and wealth. He really hones in on giving genuine advice and information on how to start and grow your business.

He’s down-to-earth and gives actionable advice for business owners that he would easily use himself.

2. Freedom Slay

Brought to you by Gaynete Jones, the Freedom Slay podcast is self-proclaimed to help you “slay your goals, and create that life of time and financial freedom you desperately seek.”

In Jones’ podcast, you’ll find engaging interviews mixed with entrepreneurial advice on how to start your side hustle and help it flourish.

3. Social Proof Podcast

David Shands, entrepreneur and founder of Sleep Is 4 Suckers and the non-profit organization Sleepless Society, hosts the Social Proof Podcast that is jam-packed with the up and coming movers and shakers of the business world.

Being a coach and motivational speaker David not only talks about business strategies but also gives real-world advice on how anyone can achieve the dream of being a successful entrepreneur.

4. Go-To Gal

Go-To Gal with Jaclyn Mellone: Online Marketing + Mindset for Female Entrepreneurs is a very inspirational podcast that helps build confidence for female entrepreneurs.

Focusing on building momentum for your brand, Mellone gives you tips and tactics in an incredibly relatable way. Paired with interviews with top entrepreneurs and business experts, it’s a must-listen!

5. Wisdom From The Top

From the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book, How I Built This, and creator of the podcast by the same name, Guy Raz interviews some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs on Wisdom From The Top. He engages in candid conversations with them about the trials and tribulations of making it big.

Coined “One of the most popular podcasters in history” by the New York Times, this podcast is definitely a worthy addition to your rotation.

6. Socialette

Steph Taylor’s Socialette: Bite-sized Online Marketing Podcast is beneficial for budding entrepreneurs and established business owners alike. Listeners get a ton of “bang for their buck” so to speak with short episodes packed with valuable knowledge and beefier episodes with expert interviews sprinkled in for inspiration and insight.

7. The Online Business Show

Host Tyler J. McCall touches on just about everything that you need to know to start and nurture a successful online endeavor in The Online Business Show.

In his weekly episodes, he interviews entrepreneurs that are prosperous in the online space. They share their trade secrets and approach to getting the most out of your online business.

8. Earn Your Happy

Hosted by Lori Harder, Earn Your Happy is one of the most uplifting podcasts on the list. With her very own rags to riches story, Lori is extremely engaging and features mainly women entrepreneurs to help elevate their businesses. She regularly hosts episodes with her husband, Chris Harder for a “He said, She said” perspective.

9. How To!

Slate Magazine’s Podcast How To! is not a business podcast but as entrepreneurs, we’re always looking for answers to curious questions—this podcast scratches that itch.

With host Amanda Ripley broaching topics like “How To Advance Your Career By Quitting Your Job” and “How To Stop ‘Having It All’ (Before You End Up With Nothing),” you’ll be sure to find some applicable business advice among their episodes.

10. Hello Seven

With a self-proclaimed mission to “help every woman I meet become a millionaire,” Rachel Rodgers is well on her way to doing so with Hello Seven. This is a great podcast for all those mompreneurs out there that need the motivation to forge ahead with their emerging businesses.

Rachel interviews everyday women who set out to become millionaires and have fulfilled their dreams. They discuss the highs and lows and teach you how you can be successful, too.

11. Welcome To The Most

Another addition from Rachel Rodgers—but this time teaming up with Robert Hartwell and Susan Hyatt—Welcome To The Most is a podcast that is new on the scene but already getting rave reviews.

In Welcome To The Most, the trio of hosts is refreshingly real and gives you their straightforward opinions on business and life, encouraging you to take it all to the next level.

12. The 10-Minute Entrepreneur

Host Sean Castrina knows that entrepreneurs have very little time—and it’s precious. This podcast is designed to give you a shot of strategy without the fluff.

With expert interviews, bite-sized strategy, and quick stories, the 10-Minute Entrepreneur is easily consumable no matter how busy life gets.

13. Business Unusual

Barbara Corcoran is well-known as a billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of the Corcoran Group as well as a “‘Shark” on ABC’s Shark Tank. So, of course, her podcast, Business Unusual, does not disappoint.

As an inspirational and motivational speaker on top of it all, she covers everything you need to know about how to make your business thrive in a very applicable way.

14. Product Boss

As one of the top 30 marketing podcasts on Apple, Product Boss is chock-full of useful advice from co-hosts and business partners Jacqueline Snyder and Minna Khounlo-Sithep. Focusing on product sales and strategies, these two take you through the basics in each episode with an endearing, workshop-type feel.

15. Empowering Her Podcast

From Melody Pourmoradi, author of “xoxo, From A Girl Who Gets It,” certified empowerment coach and the creator of the GiRLiFE Certification Program, comes the Empowering Her Podcast. This feel-good podcast is all about empowering women to empower our next generation of leaders.

With inspiring stories and actionable advice, Pourmoradi shows you exactly how to let your light shine to pave the way for our future female leaders.

16. So Money

A heavy-hitter in the finance world, Farnoosh Tarabi, Editor-at-Large of CNET Money, an award-winning financial strategist, TV host, and bestselling author, hosts So Money, which has been praised as the Top Podcast To Grow Your Business by Inc. Magazine among many other accolades.

Farnoosh gives you an intimate view into the lives of top entrepreneurs and personalities to find out the secret to their success and rounds out the week with her “Ask Farnoosh” episode to candidly answer her listener’s burning questions.

17. Side Hustle School

For host Chris Guillebeau, it’s all about the side gig in his podcast Side Hustle School. As the New York Times bestselling author of The $100 Startup and The Happiness of Pursuit, among his other books, he primarily uses a Q&A format to answer listener questions and use them as a launching pad to discuss the challenges of having a side hustle.

Every week, he features a Failure Friday segment about which Chris says, “I believe we can learn as much from failure as we can from success, if not more. It’s with this principle in mind that I offer you a weekly segment called Failure Friday: a collection of short stories all about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure.”

18. Build Your Tribe

The Build Your Tribe podcast, hosted by New York Times Best Selling author, business coach, and entrepreneur, Chalene Johnson, and her son Brock, who is quickly following in her footsteps, appeals to a wide audience. They cover topics from digital marketing strategies to how to build social media and many others.

Giving advice that you can easily insert into your daily life, this podcast has something for every entrepreneur.

19. Smart Passive Income

Based on his blog of the same name, Smart Passive Income with host Pat Flynn is a must for every entrepreneur. Pat vulnerably shares the ups and downs of his path to creating his online businesses, so that you can learn from his trial and error.

Mixed with interviews of some of the most currently sought-after entrepreneurial minds, you would not want to skip a single episode.

20. Online Marketing Made Easy

Amy Porterfield’s mission in Online Marketing Made Easy is to “make EVERYTHING you listen to as actionable and profitable as possible,” and we are here for it!

Geared towards budding new online entrepreneurs, she shares actionable advice that you can easily put into motion. As the creator of Digital Course Academy, she regularly interviews her students that have found success through her program, creating relatable content for her listeners.

21. It’s About Time

Work-life balance is the ultimate goal these days. In Anna Dearmon Kornick’s Podcast, It’s About Time, she shares heartfelt advice on how to attain that goal and better manage your time both in your business and home life.

Though this podcast is especially conducive to busy, working mom life, the content is applicable to everyone who wants to achieve a better balance. Kornick says about her podcast, “If you’re ready to step away from the overwhelm and spend your time on what matters most, you’re in the right place.”

22. Make Me Smart

The daily COVID-19 News and Culture Podcast, Make Me Smart, keeps up on current events and world news regarding business and the economy.

Host Kai Ryssdal is an Emmy award-winning broadcaster for his investigative journalism in “Big Sky, Big Money,” a PBS Frontline documentary about money in politics. Along with a guest host, Ryssdal tackles the topics of the day, in his words, to “help make today make sense. Because none of us is as smart as all of us.”

Final Thoughts

Podcasts are an incredible and fast way to learn and grow from other successful entrepreneurs. With the accessibility of podcasts, we can get advice, learn something new, and spark ideas in the pockets of our day. You can start with these 22 best business podcasts in 2022.

Featured photo credit: Soundtrap via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]

^

Statista: U.S. Podcasting Industry – Statistics & Facts

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The Importance of Leading With Empathy (And How To Do It)

Whether you’re a corporate executive or entrepreneur, you’ll need a good understanding of effective leadership. Without strong leaders, everything crumbles. Leaders can create structure and organization and directly contribute to productivity.

Good leaders inspire teams to thrive and ultimately affect a company’s bottom line. Strong entrepreneurial leaders manage remote teams in a way that leads to the growth of that entrepreneur’s business. Good leaders inspire you to be better; bad leaders leave you frustrated.

The Importance of Leading With Empathy

One of the keys to effective leadership is leading with empathy. In a time when the world is embracing the need for more diversity and inclusion, leading with empathy is even more essential. People don’t want a leader that doesn’t make them feel represented and heard.

Empathy comes from a place of someone not wanting to understand other human beings. Empathic leaders cultivate strong teams because those they are leading feel valued and understood. Empathy, therefore, is an integral part of leadership and growth.

Why Strong Leaders Lead With Empathy

Here’s why leading with empathy is essential to becoming a strong leader and how to become a leader people want to follow by understanding and leading with empathy. Use these strategies to become the kind of leader that inspires change.

Empathic leaders not only care, but they also lead with a more intentional understanding of the people they’re leading. Leading with empathy creates charismatic leaders that teams and consumers want to follow. It is an irresistibly compelling leadership quality.

Each of us has experienced terrible leadership. If you’re a career professional, you’ve had a boss that micromanaged everything within the organization. The leader told you what to do, and it felt like they were looking over your shoulder the whole time you did it. Micromanaged leaders don’t inspire those they lead.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve undoubtedly had a customer who gave you the same experience.

They hired you because you’re a leader at what you do, but they tried to micromanage and rush you as you fulfilled the work. You felt triggered by the passive-aggressive emails attempting to rush you. You want to be a good leader, but the client treated you like an afterthought. They were not leading with empathy.

Empathic leaders do not micromanage people. They are emphatic and try to understand the best ways to interact with people. They are people first because they know that’s what leads to more production. Understanding people produce better results.

Strong empathic leaders:

• Study the best ways to communicate with other humans
• Don’t micromanage people or projects
• Equip customers and teams with everything they need to succeed
• Are diverse and inclusive in everything they do
• Understand that people are more committed when they feel a leader cares
• Have a genuine desire to see those they lead succeed in life
• Are committed to learning how they can lead better

Leading with empathy makes good leaders better. Empathy allows leaders to understand that dictatorship leads to bitter and unproductive teams. Strong leaders use this to manage progress instead of forcing people to do things.

How to Develop Empathy as a Growth-Focused Leader

With an understanding of the importance of empathy in leadership, you’ll need to know how to be more empathic. Growth requires a willingness to learn about yourself and how you can grow as a person and leader.

An empathic leader is a constant learner. They value education and the personal growth that comes from learning more about themselves and leadership.

1. Understand That Empathy Comes From Education

Empathy is a trait that develops when you watch videos on YouTube about leading with empathy. You learn more about empathy when you read leadership books that talk about the topic of empathy in leading people. You can cultivate empathy when you read articles (such as this one) about leading with empathy and understanding people.

Learning how to lead with empathy creates authenticity. People can sense what’s real and what feels manufactured. Not many people want to follow a leader that feels unauthentic. We’ve seen too many examples of unauthentic leadership.

Education of leadership and empathy teaches you how to understand people. It helps leaders see that mistakes happen and there are lessons in each circumstance. Empathic leaders don’t expect those they lead to be perfect—that’s unrealistic.

2. Have Conversations With Those You Lead

The only real way to understand your impact and effectiveness is to ask. You need an unfiltered view of how empathic you’re coming across.

You can create anonymous surveys for those you lead to fill out and provide honest feedback. You can have group meetings and talk about what’s going on. The point is to have conversations and see how you’re coming across as a leader.

When you receive the information, be open. Don’t take offense or put your guard up. Empathetic leaders are listeners and willing to make changes that help them be more decisive leaders.

Another thing to keep in mind is your body language. Most communication is nonverbal, and your body language could be giving off the wrong vibe. Empathetic leaders are conscious of what they say and how they’re saying it.

Being fully present in what you say and do will help you communicate more effectively and give off the correct body language. Don’t interrupt when someone is talking to you. Let your body language communicate compassion and a desire to understand people.

Value the conversations and feedback you can receive as a leader. Learn and make adjustments. Empathic leaders are committed to growth. Don’t stay stuck in a position that pushes people away from wanting to follow you.

3. Put Aside Any Judgment

As much as we don’t want to admit it, human nature can be judgmental. We tend to judge a book by its cover before we’ve ever picked up the book. Judgment is the root of hate and the opposite of empathy.

Empathy and judgment don’t exist on the same plane. Too many leaders are seen as dictators because they lead from a place of judgment. It’s almost instant when someone feels judged. Judgment is repulsive and not a good leadership quality.

Being an inclusive and empathetic leader means you try to understand the other person’s position. You don’t form a judgment until you have all the facts, and even then, you try to understand the importance of context.

We are humans, and life is short. Learning how to understand the position that someone else is coming from helps you become a more empathetic person and a more decisive leader. You can’t know what someone is going through, and empathy can make all the difference.

The people you are leading will see your desire to better understand what they’re going through, which will lead to them wanting to follow you. Judgment might be a natural human emotion, but you can set it aside and embrace empathy.

Lead With Compassion—Not Dictatorship

Empathetic leaders are passionate about leading by example, not a dictatorship. When people feel dictated to, they’re less likely to want to take action. Inspiration comes from a place of empathy, and empathic leaders motivate change. You can be a boss without making those you lead feel low.

The leaders that last and inspire people to follow them are individuals that are committed to their personal growth. They understand that to be a better leader, they have to be a better human.

Empathic leaders devote time and energy to becoming the best version of themselves in every area of their life. Personal development work helps leaders become more compassionate and empathetic.

Invest time in your own growth so that you can lead from a place of abundance. As you understand the need to cultivate awareness, you’ll see where you have not been empathic. You’ll then make changes and adjust—all of this creates stronger leaders.

Final Thoughts

Life offers many different perspectives. It’s essential for leaders to understand that how we feel about the world isn’t the only way or perspective.

Each of us experiences life differently. We don’t know what someone else has gone through or what they’re currently experiencing. We don’t know what’s shaped the way somebody does something. Empathetic leaders try to understand all points of view. Leadership isn’t just our way or the highway.

A good leader is a complete leader. Empathetic leaders measure all the factors of every circumstance. They are slow to speak and thoughtful in the actions they take. Good leaders understand the consequences of not being empathetic.

Leading with empathy is a skill that you can and should learn as a leader. It may not be where you are right now in your leadership journey, but if you commit to learning to be more understanding, it will ultimately help you lead.

Featured photo credit: Mimi Thian via unsplash.com

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5 Talent Development Hacks To 10x Employees’ Performance

In this fast-paced uncertain world, managers are being forced to do more with less. What if there was a simple way to do this?

What would it be like to have a time machine and go back to a pre-covid world? Your staffing levels are workable. Hardly anyone calls in sick. No one has resigned recently. Stress levels are normal for a busy environment. Productivity is good. Your team’s mental health is stable. Team morale is enhanced by close physical contact. You mostly feel in control of your environment.

Unfortunately, that time machine doesn’t exist just yet. However, managers can use the current situation to find new and innovative ways to increase employee engagement and performance through the much-underutilized skill of talent development.

In this article, I will discuss five simple talent development hacks for managers to improve employee performance, improve retention rates, and reduce stress.

What Is Talent Development?

The Association Of Talent Development defines talent development as:^[1]

“Efforts that foster learning, employee engagement, talent management, and employee development to drive organisational performance, productivity, and results. To some, talent development is an important tool for unleashing human potential. To others, it is a set of practical capabilities for driving organisational results by creating the processes, systems, and frameworks that advance training and development strategies, succession planning, and learning opportunities.”

This article focuses on what managers can do to unleash human potential. Most managers are unaware of the power they have to unleash human potential within their employees. It is such an untapped leadership skill. This is in part because talent development traditionally sits within the human resources systems and frameworks.

Managers Are Being Forced to Deliver More With Less

The covid pandemic has led many companies to reduce staffing levels. When someone leaves, often they are not replaced, creating more stress and pressure on existing employees. This pressure leads to more resignations, compounding the problem.

The stay-at-home covid protocols have led people to rethink their working lives. Many are now opting to leave stressful jobs and start their own businesses working from home.

According to the World Economic Forum, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August 2021 to start their own business. It was part of a period known as “The Great Resignation.”^[2]

Today, a company’s biggest threat against losing valuable employees is not other companies but technology.

Covid introduced people to a whole new range of technology that allows people to work remotely from anywhere in the world. This, combined with the explosion of SAAS applications, allows budding entrepreneurs to start businesses with little capital and marketing expertise.

However, all is not lost. Managers hold the key to not only stopping the mass exodus but increasing employee performance, productivity, and engagement exponentially.

Just as diamonds are made when subjected to extreme pressure, so has covid opened the possibility for managers to unearth the hidden diamond mines within their employees.

5 Ways to Use Talent Development to Improve Employee Performance

Below are five ways that managers can use talent development to improve employee performance.

1. Exchange the Management Hat for the Leadership One

Effective managers wear two hats: one representing management tasks, the other representing leadership skills.

John Kotter, in his book Leading Change, defines managers as “primarily being responsible for planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership, on the other hand, defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”

As a manager, which hat do you wear most often? The manager or leader?

To use talent development strategies to improve employee performance, you will need to be wearing your leadership hat.

The best definition of leadership I have encountered is: “taking people to places they would not ordinarily go to by themselves.” (unknown source). If you want to get more from your people, you need to take them to places they never imagined themselves going.

When conducting sales training in organizations, I would find standard sales training would only marginally increase sales performance. Whereas, conducting mindset training would triple sales and referral rates. This resulted from shifting people’s beliefs about what was possible.

The technique used to achieve these results is discussed in the fifth hack, later in this article.

Wearing the manager hat will keep things from falling apart, but it won’t get you 10x performance results. If you are not getting the results you want, then ask yourself: what hat have I been wearing lately?

The more you invest in a leadership mindset, the higher the return you are going to get from your employees.

2. Discover Your Employees’ Strengths and Tap Them

The book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, outlines how the company Gallup conducted a study with over 2 million successful managers, teachers, and employees. They found that productivity and engagement increased significantly by developing strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses.

Despite this overwhelming evidence, companies still insist on developing employees’ weaknesses at the expense of their strengths.

You only have to look at the field of sport to see the truth of this. If a swimmer is good at the 100-meter distance. Does the coach turn around and say, “let’s now practice the 1500 meters so that you can get good at that too”?

What does the coach do? They focus on 100-meter distance and tap into every bit of natural potential to create a world-class champion.

What if leaders thought like this—where every day, they help employees tap into their strengths and become world-class performers?

There are many tools on the market for assessing employees’ authentic strengths. One simple way to get the ball rolling is to ask employees what they love to do. The things that people love to do are the things they are naturally good at.

The reason for this is when you succeed at something, it provides positive reinforcement. This makes you feel good, leading you to hone that skill while reinforcing positive feelings towards yourself.

The more you help your employees develop their strengths, the greater the return on investment for everyone. The compounding effect kicks in when you do this with all your employees.

How much time and money do organizations waste forcing people to be good at things that will only yield marginal results at best? However, the biggest loss is performance and results. This simple talent development hack can improve your employees’ performance and results within a very short time.

3. Develop a Mindset That Everyone Has Talent

Think of all the people who report to you. How many do you believe to have genuine talent? If you said everyone, then move on to the next talent development hack.

If there are people in your team you do not believe are talented, you would be wise to fix this sooner rather than later. You cannot afford this mindset. It is costing you and the company a lot of money in lost performance and revenue.

Start by asking yourself why you believe this person is not talented? Is it a perceptional bias on your part? Could it be they are working on their weaknesses and not their strengths? While you hold a mindset that your employees are not good enough, then they will always remain underperformers. Learn why this is the case in talent development hack #5.

Good leaders are not afraid to ask the tough question: how might I be contributing to my employees’ underperformance?

As a leader, you have the power to fix this. No one lacks talent. If your employees are not operating to their full potential, then empower them to do so, whether that be in your department, the company, or somewhere else. Great leaders empower everyone to succeed.

4. Are You Tapping Into the Power of a Group Mind?

Is your department working as a group mind or a set of individual minds?

The classic team-building survival game of being stranded on an island with limited resources always shows that many minds will always outperform one. When participants are asked to rank items in order of importance for survival, individual scores are always less accurate than team scores.

When people come together and operate as one mind, the power of that is inestimable. For this to happen, you need to ask yourself: Am I or the company’s culture fostering individual mindset over group mindset? What type of reward systems and incentives does the company use? Ones that reward individual or group mindset?

What type of leader are you, one that fosters individual or group performance?

Here is a simple talent development hack to foster a group mindset.

Get the team to brainstorm all the barriers preventing them from being the top-performing department in the company or field. If they already are the top-performing team, then get them to brainstorm how they can still improve their current performance.

Prioritize the list, with one being the biggest barrier. Start with the top barrier, and ask the group to brainstorm how they can remove this barrier. It must be something they can do as a group, not something that somebody else has to change or do. Influencing other people or groups is allowed provided they develop the strategy and implement it.

As an added benefit, study the group dynamics to see who are the leaders, influencers, strategists, communicators. When you observe exceptional skills, get those individuals to share their strategy for success with other team members. You can also extend this activity to include other teams in the company.

Apart from the fact that group minds always outperform individual ones. This activity is powerful because people do not argue with their own data.

If team members come up with their own solutions, they take ownership of driving success. If you, as a manager, tell them what to do, you retain ownership for driving success.

5. A Little-Know Neuroscience Concept That Will Increase Performance

Within the field of neuroscience, there is a concept called mirror neurons.^[3] Mirror neurons were first discovered in 1995 by accident. A group of researchers in Italy led by Giacomo Rizzolatti were monitoring neural activity in the brains of monkeys as they made reaching movements.

Mirror Neurons

One day, a researcher inadvertently mimicked a monkey’s movement. From this, the researchers noticed that when the monkey observed the researcher’s mimicked action, it sparked neural activity in the monkey’s brain that was identical to when the monkey had made the reaching movement itself.

Mirror neurons produce automatic mimicry. They create a similar state in an observer’s brain to the state of the person performing the action. Thus, the thinking and actions in one person directly influence the thinking and actions in another person.

Emotions Are Also Transmittable

Further research discovered that when one person sees another person expressing emotion, they activate the same areas of the brain associated with that emotion in the observer, making emotions transmittable.

In one study, volunteers inhaled a disgusting smell. They later watched a video of someone else smelling something and expressing disgust. Researchers noticed that volunteers, regardless of whether they were the participant or the observer, produced neural activity in the brain’s area associated with feelings of disgust.^[4]

Seeing the look of anger or joy on other people’s faces causes mirror neurons to trigger similar thoughts and emotions in us. If you think back to a situation when you were in the presence of someone happy, you felt happy. Conversely, if you were in the company of someone who is depressed, you felt depressed.

Horror movie producers use this concept well. They know that seeing someone else look frightened makes you feel scared as well. Mirror neurons assist movie makers to whip up emotions in their audiences.

Mirror Neurons Give Leaders the Power to Change the Way People Think

Mirror neurons highlight how easily we are influenced by other people’s thinking and emotions. However, it also gives you as a leader the power to change the way people think.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

The key tactic used in the mindset sales training to triple sales and referrals was mirror neurons. To consistently get these results, I would hold a vision of the participants achieving extraordinary sales results.

It was a three-day training program and for the first one and a half days, the participants would argue and complain that what I was saying was a load of nonsense. Then halfway through the program, they would stop arguing and get excited about the possibilities of what they could accomplish.

In the last activity on day three, participants were asked to complete a task that should not, by all the laws of physics, have been possible. The participants, of course, did not know this. However, every training group successfully completed the activity because they believed they could. I was never ceased to be amazed at the ingenious ways the groups approached achieving the task. Interestingly enough, no two solutions were ever the same.

How did I know it was the concept of mirror neurons and not the training itself that got the results?

When I was leaving the company, they paid a consultant to document the training so it could be replicated after I left. At the end of the third day, the consultant approached me and said that it was impossible to document how I conducted the training.

There did not appear to be any rhyme or reason to my facilitation strategies. They did not know how I was getting the results that I did. It was some years later when I started studying neuroscience that I discovered the secret to the exceptional results.

In another example, I taught primary school teachers the concept of mirror neurons. One teacher taught the intellectually disabled class—students with an IQ below 75. Her students outperformed the control group in basic maths and spelling. The other teachers in the experimental group saw significant improvements in both student grades and behaviors over the control group.

Leaders Can Harness the Power of Mirror Neurons

As a leader, you can harness the power of mirror neurons by holding a vision of what you want your employees to achieve. The trick is staying focused on where you want people to be and not on where they currently are.

At the sales training, had I bought into the limiting beliefs of the participants during the first one and a half days, they would never have achieved the results they did. I kept my focus and ignored all their protests and complaints.

Always remember to have your employees catch your mirror neurons rather than you catch theirs. This takes practice and focus, but the rewards are life-changing.

Next Steps

So there you have it, five talent development hacks to improve your employees’ performance, improve retention rates, and reduce stress.

The journey begins with one small step. The starting point is accepting that as a leader, you have the power to take people to places they would not ordinarily go to by themselves. Even implementing just one of these talent development hacks will have a big impact on you and your team’s performance. I would like to encourage you to implement just one hack in the next week.

You have so much power to change the lives of the people who report to you. Are you ready to step into that power?

You have it within you to become a world-class leader with these five talent development hacks. Imagine what the future will look like for everyone when you do this.

Featured photo credit: Campaign Creators via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Association for Talent Development: What is Talent Development?
[2]	^	World Economic Forum: The age of entrepreneurs: Why 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August
[3]	^	American Psychological Association: The mind’s mirror
[4]	^	ScienceDirect: Emotional Contagion

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How to Inspire Your Team to Achieve Better Results

Everyone’s needs are highly subjective. That fact does little to help you devise a one-and-done strategy for inspiring your team to achieve better results, but that’s okay.

If you’re a leader who prioritizes success and wants to achieve the best results for you, your team, and your organization, then you’re willing to employ several strategies to drive inspiration. As you experiment with them, you’ll need to test and measure the outcomes of each mechanism.

The results will help you unearth what works. And since there is no one-and-done strategy, you’ll continue the cycle of employing and experimenting. In doing so, you’re building a robust and dynamic list of ideas on how to inspire your team to achieve better results, and that’s the kind of leadership that team members want to work for.

Here are some tips on how to inspire your team to do well and achieve better results.

1. Start With “Why?”

Learning how to inspire your team to achieve better results starts with knowing their “why?” Certainly, every leader on this planet is familiar with Simon Sinek’s book, “Start With Why?” so you, too, understand the value of getting clear on what motivates your team.

Begin your plan with exploration meetings. Gather the group together and using open-ended questions, brainstorming sessions, or team-building activities, drive an outcome list of motivational and engagement strategies. You should also meet with your team members individually because they may not feel comfortable sharing their true motivations with their colleagues.

2. Brainstorm With Experts

You don’t need to have all the answers to be an effective leader. If you think you do, that’s a huge red flag. Put ego aside and focus on the results you want to achieve—how to inspire your team to achieve better results.

One of the greatest gifts of leading a team and being part of a team is that you are surrounded by experts. Every one of the people that you work with is an expert. So, expand your reach and meet with other employees and leaders within your organization to inquire what works for them.

Set time with them, and ask what inspires them and their teams to achieve better results. Be sure to not only inquire about what motivates them but also how you might employ this motivation.

3. Enlist Ongoing Support

Some of the best strategies come from supportive resources you’re already using to improve your and your team’s results. Giving them access to a coach, helping them connect with a mentor, and providing a regular platform for exchanging ideas and best practices increase their productivity and outcomes.

Now, how can these supportive resources help inspire your team to get better results? Don’t overthink it. You want results. They want results. Brainstorming with enlisted resources will not only give you new ideas but also provide support in heightening your efforts.

The accountability alone motivates you and your team toward desired outcomes. The question is, how do you enlist these ongoing support resources to move the needle further?

4. Consult Your Guides

The Universe is robust with guides to help you overcome challenges and grow and learn new things, including how to inspire your team to achieve better results. Start with your mentor, network, and your circle of influence. Ask about their own experiences around inspiration.

What gets them jazzed about their job? What fires up their team? What strategies have they found exceptional for motivation?

But don’t limit your research to those you know. Reach out and exchange best practices with people in your network and those whom you are connected to on LinkedIn. Also, dig into your professional associations and groups for experts who are willing to share their intel.

There may also be group chats and breakout sessions at conferences where you can brainstorm with a group of peers from other organizations. Of course, books, articles, courses, Ted Talks, seminars, and conferences are all fonts of information.

You should be regularly learning and developing yourself, now that you have one strategy that you really need to hone.

5. Set Some Goals

Call it your inspiration, motivation, or results-driver goal plan. Whatever you label it, it’s your blueprint on how to inspire your team to achieve better results.

Set it up as part of your quarterly goals, first to design a plan that you’ll employ but also to nail this process and become your own subject matter expert. It’s a win-win. You’ll not only learn what works and get great outcomes, but you can weave it into your own personal development plan as well.

It’s another win-win as well. You’ll not only learn strategies you can employ and experiment with, but you will also be working on your own professional development plan. To set this as a goal for yourself as well as your team and establish metrics for each quarter.

6. Develop a Plan

Let’s go back to how to inspire your team and achieve better results. You have done your due diligence, spoken with your team, set up a brainstorming session to gather action steps, and have pulled into your research expert wisdom. Now, it’s time to create a plan.

If one of the strategies is a clear winner, start with that and bring in a few more. If it’s too challenging to conduct a multipronged approach, take it one strategy at a time. Map out the strategies you plan to employ, the reason you’re experimenting with them—this is based on your questions and research—and your timeline for implementation and measurement.

7. Experiment and Recalibrate

Before you put your plan into action, measure the current outputs of your team. Establish a baseline to see if the strategies you employ have any impact.

For your present assessment, do a deep dive into how they are currently doing. Don’t forget to measure the qualifiable outcomes as well as the quantifiable ones. You might find this a great opportunity to enlist an outside vendor for support. Not only do they have the appropriate assessments, they can expertly handle the measurement and may also have inspiration strategies for you to try.

8. Take a Temperature

I like the military expression “boots on the ground.” The true perspective of what is happening comes from people who are part of the journey. While you’re an integral team member in this plan to inspire your team to achieve better results, you need to take the temperature of your team members. That’s where the wisdom lies.

Don’t just rely on formal measurements. Instead, set regular check-ins, offer an anonymous feedback survey, and spend time with them to get a feel for their energy. Certainly, results will vary due to what is happening with your team members and within the organization, so don’t dismiss them.

Based on what you’re discovering, eliminate strategies that aren’t working or change them up so they work better the next time.

9. Compound on Inspiration

If you sense inspiration happening, find the source and compound it. maybe you decide on regularly bringing in guest speakers to inspire your team and get better results.

While the speaker is presenting, you can feel the energy lift in the room and your team is excited about what they are learning and the possibilities for their future work. They are also grateful for the morning break in their routine and the lavish breakfast that you’d provided. But two days after the program, you noticed their motivation waning.

Don’t ignore the warning signs. Talk to them about what you could do collectively to keep the inspiration alive.

What strategies would they suggest for the routine deployment of what they experienced that morning that could continually serve as a motivation ignitor? Add these ideas to your plan and compound them.

This might include identifying a team member as the leader for future speaker series to keep the momentum going. Empowering team members to use their strengths and gifts in new ways and then acknowledging their efforts is not only critical in helping you develop and employ a motivation plan but is also a critical strategy for inspiring your team to achieve better results.

10. Rinse and Repeat

Once you have a few strategies that work, clean them up and continually employ them. But while this seems easy enough, keep in mind, if you don’t regularly tweak and enhance it, your efforts will become obsolete over time. That’s why it’s important to always continue research and exploration into best practices.

Yes, there will be a few tried and true approaches that you routinely get great results from and should never abandon, but there are new ones being developed each day. At this point, it’s time to start back at “why?” and regularly revisit each step and refine your inspiration plan.

Final Thoughts

You’ve come full circle back to the fact that there is no one magic bullet on how to inspire your team and achieve better results. It’s a compilation of many strategies that will get you there. And while it takes time and work, it’s the impetus for what you want to achieve as a leader.

If you don’t prioritize this, odds are you won’t last long at your organization. This is your primer for how to make an impact and succeed in driving outcomes.

Of course, no one knows your group better than you. So, trust your gut and lead with confidence in designing, deploying, and directing your plan to inspire your team.

Featured photo credit: Andreea Avramescu via unsplash.com

The post How to Inspire Your Team to Achieve Better Results appeared first on Lifehack.

5 Key Principles in Building a Successful Team

I believe there are numerous values in the athletic arena that translate well into many facets of life. Building a successful team in athletics uses concepts that can be used by a leader in any endeavor.

In this article, I will share five concepts or principles that play an important part in team building in athletics. I would appreciate the reader applying how each concept might fit into their leadership position in building a team.

Here are five key principles of effective team building.

1. Caring

In athletics, coaches must demand consistent hard work from their athletes every night during practices.

John Wooden, the iconic UCLA basketball coach preached that “There is no substitute for hard work.” His players bought into his teaching are validated by the fact that they won seven NCAA basketball championships in a row and ten in the last twelve years he coached.

Why will individual players and teams work so hard for their coaches? There may be multiple reasons, but I believe the most important one is because they know the coaches care for them beyond the narrow confines of a court or a field.

Rick Majerus, the outstanding University of Utah and St. Louis University basketball coach, would share with fellow coaches the famous John Maxwell quote:

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

I attended many of Rick’s practices, and the work ethic of his players was exemplary because the young men knew how much he cared for them. One of Rick’s Utah players, Andre Miller, had an outstanding NBA career.

We were together in Chicago one night when Rick had to take an early flight the next morning to Salt Lake City. When he recruited Miller out of South-Central Los Angeles, he promised him and his mother that he would be at Andre’s graduation.

We had to discipline one of our players and decide how many suicides—a tough running drill never enjoyed by athletes—he had to run. I had an appointment, so our assistant coach, Jack Hermanski, administered the hour-long punishment.

Years later, the athlete would call Jack periodically and curse at him for all the running he had to do. He ended all these calls by saying, “I love you, Coach.” He knew and appreciated how much Jack cared for him, despite the running.

2. Team Ego

The great Boston Celtic player, Bill Russell, said this about his teammates who won eleven NBA championships in the thirteen seasons he played in Boston. When they entered a building for practice or a game, they left their individual egos outside the door but brought in their Team Ego.

The Celtic teams believed that if an opponent were to beat them, they better bring a great game because they knew they were going to. They knew they would not win every game. They were not over-confident, but they knew that they would play hard, smart, and together.

A coach knows when his players buy into Team Ego. I coached a player who was leading our Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference in scoring. Needless to say, to finish the season leading such a respected conference in scoring would be quite an honor.

We were going to play the weakest team in the conference. This could be a game where he could have appreciably increased his scoring average and created more separation between himself and the player behind him in the standings.

Our player only cared about the team. He validated that by taking only one shot in the entire game. Instead of padding his scoring average, he passed the ball to his teammates for their scoring.

It is a great feeling for a team builder when their team is so proud of their team success that they sacrifice individual achievements for team accolades. This is key to learning how to build a team.

3. Listening

Successful team builders put great value in the art of listening, and learning how to listen well is an important concept on how to build a team.

Most of us are familiar with this saying emphasizing the importance of listening, “That is why God gave us one mouth and two ears.” Frank Tyger articulated the same sentiment in another interesting way when he wrote, “I never got into trouble with my ears.”

Athletics is a great venue for young people to learn the importance of listening. In all sports, coaches teach the fundamentals of their sport, followed by a system or strategy of play. This is a high or advanced way of teaching for the listener to absorb.

In the classroom, the teacher presents their subject matter. When the test comes, the students give back the knowledge they learned from the teacher. In athletics, the athletes must learn both the fundamentals and the system if they are to be successful.

The test is the game. During this test, there is an opponent trying to disrupt the players from executing their fundamentals and their system. So, the players must first learn the rudiments of the sport and the system of play, then execute their knowledge under duress. It would be analogous to someone taking an exam with another person moving their hand up and down in front of his eyes.

The second difference in athletic and classroom listening is that each player has the responsibility of learning in concert with their teammates. Therefore, I must listen to two entities—myself and the other players on the team. Whereas in the classroom, I learn only for myself.

In the athletic arena, if one player fails to listen, he can destroy the entire play. Games often come down to the last possession of the game, and the difference between success and failure ultimately is listening.

Coaches must also model listening for their players. Our volleyball coach convinced me to use plyometrics to enable our players to jump higher and quicker. I made the mistake of implementing them at the end of our practices.

Our two captains came to me after a week of this workout saying they feared injury when we did these drills at the end of practices. They were our two best workers, so they had to be listened to.

They were right. Our practices were very demanding and at the end of practices, our players were fatigued. Plyometrics are very strenuous exercises and, when tired, could lead to injuries. We listened and made the adjustment to doing them during our initial conditioning drills.

Great team builders are active listeners and develop teams where listening is preeminent throughout their organizations.

4. Credit

Two outstanding coaches have something to say about credit. John Wooden said, “Give all the credit away.” My college coach, Gordie Gillespie, whose teams in football, basketball, and baseball won 2,402 games and who was inducted into eighteen Halls of Fame in his illustrious career, would tell coaches at clinics, “It’s not about you.”

I was fortunate to be with Coach Wooden on numerous occasions and worked with Coach Gillespie for twenty-five years. I never once heard either of them talk about their extraordinary coaching careers. It truly was not about them. It was about their teams and their players.

If you are the leader who built the team, accolades will come your way. At the same time, you know you could not have achieved success on your own. You needed the people you built the team with, so give them the credit they rightly deserve.

There was a coach in college basketball who was famous for letting everyone know he was the one responsible for his team’s success. His arrogance was obvious at coaching clinics. The great coaches remained available after their presentations to interact with their fellow coaches.

The above coach presented as if he invented the game and when he finished speaking, he had no time to visit with the lowly coaches. He did produce some good teams but had little respect from his coaching peers, and I am sure his team members were tired of his conceit.

Successful, admired coaches credit their players, with special emphasis for those on the team who receive little recognition. In basketball, the players who score get most of the credit, so these coaches give credit to the players who passed them the ball enabling them to score. They give accolades to the players who receive little or no recognition from neither the media nor the fans.

In coaching or in any organization, leaders must be surrounded by talented people to achieve success. It is most important for leaders to credit their contributions and efforts.

5. Culture

Finally, learning how to effectively build a team means knowing how to create a positive culture. I once read where a business leader wrote that when you take a new job, you want to immediately think about the legacy you want to leave behind you. I disagree.

I don’t think the successful team builders I have known thought about their legacy. They did, however, give much thought to the culture they wanted to build.

Once you determine the culture you want to establish, then you can bring people to your organization who fit that culture. Coaches who build successful teams know the expectations they have for the players they recruit. They study their character, their academic commitment, and their athletic work ethic.

When Gordie Gillespie and I arrived at the University of St. Francis, our president, Dr. Jack Orr, presented the culture he wanted us to build in the athletic program. It had four components:

1. Use athletics to improve enrollment.
2. Run the program with integrity.
3. Recruit athletes for graduation.
4. Create an activity for every student.

We believe we were successful in realizing this culture because we were able to hire coaches who fit and believed in the culture.

When we came on board, there were forty-five student-athletes in three sports. At our zenith, we had three hundred and seventy-seven athletes in fourteen sports. We never broke neither NAIA nor NCAA rules to win. We did unknowingly break some rules but immediately turned ourselves in. Integrity was an absolute must.

When our teams played a senior athlete, we expected that athlete to graduate. We were not perfect in this regard, but 92% of the seniors who played for us over a twenty-five-year period did graduate.

To establish an activity for every student, we established a comprehensive intramural program.

When Jack gave us this culture, he finished by saying, “Winning will be a bonus.” Due to the culture and the coaches who fit into it, we did win. When our conference had participated in ninety national tournaments, we had sixty of the ninety appearances.

Summary

Successful team builders remember these five principles of effective team building:

1. Caring – “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
2. Team Ego – Do not bring your individual ego to the venue. Do bring your Team Ego.
3. Listening – “I never got into trouble with my ears.”
4. Credit – “Give all the credit away. It’s not about you.”
5. Culture – Know the culture you strive to build at the beginning of the journey.

Featured photo credit: NeONBRAND via unsplash.com

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17 Ways to Get Your Team on the Same Page

In the ever-changing, ever-complex world of work, team dynamics has never been so important. Teams previously working closely together have been forced to physically disband, go through various life-changing experiences, and in some instances, come back—well, kind of.

It’s likely now your team all have a very different view of what their “new normal” looks and feels like, collectively and individually.

Hybrid working, changing personal motivations, and constantly changing business strategies have made some previous leadership approaches to teamwork redundant. Listening and displaying emotional intelligence are skills all leaders will need now and into the future, but teams and individuals are after different things.

Want to create a new normal that your team can thrive in? Let’s dig into 17 ways how to get everyone on the same page in this new, uncertain world we’re living in.

1. Get to Know Your Team (Again)

If you don’t know the person behind the job title, you’ll never fully understand them. You may have thought you knew your team members before the pandemic, but everything has changed in the last two years.

Use a tool like FindMyWhy to get to know what motivates the people who make up the team. Some of these new motivations may be an eye-opener for them as well as you. I would recommend revisiting this or something similar at least twice a year as one event in a person’s life can completely change their motivation for work and ultimately, their contribution.

2. Let Your Team Get to Know You (Again)

It’s key you let your team know how you operate best, as well as letting them know your motivations for turning up every day. Your personality traits will dictate how they communicate with you.

Need the details? Tell them. Just want an overview? Tell them. 16Personalities is another free tool that you and the team can do together and enjoy reporting back the scarily accurate findings. Appreciate who they are and not what you want them to be, and you’ll be able to get everyone on the same page.

3. Ask the Team How Best to Operate Together

Remote work, busy periods, it’s likely your team already knows the ins and outs of the daily operation better than you do. They live and breathe it every day. They know what works and they know what causes blockages.

Rather than you dictating to them what you think is the best approach, ask them to suggest the way forward and let them own it. You should be able to leave the team to run itself for long periods if necessary.

4. Set Out the Non-Negotiables

Not every task the team completes is urgent, (if everything was urgent, nothing would be urgent) but there may be a few key deadlines or meetings that are core to the success of the group. Re-establish what these are so everyone knows they need to turn up to the weekly meeting or have their data ready by the end of the month. This will help you get everyone on the same page.

5. Establish Clear Workflows

Clarity on who is doing what and why is key. A recent report by Panopto found that employees spend up to six hours a day duplicating work—six Hours!^[1] This was down to simply not having access or awareness to something that had already been done.

Increasing the team’s operational transparency will massively reduce the loss of effort and wasted time reinventing the wheel.

6. Save Documents in One Place

This seems relatively simple, but having one platform to store documents in is a bit of a no-brainer. This allows the team to coordinate better and get everyone on the same page.

Yet, teams still resort to saving all sorts in legacy files, personal drives, and folders. This may require a slight behavior shift from some, as per the next tip.

7. Encourage Knowledge Sharing

Individuals in teams may feel that knowledge is power and will tend not to proactively share that knowledge to retain some sort of status or power dynamic. This can be creations, access to systems, or just information they’ve picked up.

Praise this kind of sharing, and create a culture that reduces one person’s dependency and “go-to” individuals. The team improves when group knowledge increases.

8. Have Fun

Make room for fun. Don’t just wait until the darkest weeks of December to finally put on a festive jumper or funny hat. Getting everyone on the same page also requires sharing some laughs among the team members.

Sprinkle some fun throughout the year that allows the team to blow off some steam. That may include you, as a leader, being the butt of the joke.

9. Discourage Overworking

Burnout is drastically on the rise, so it’s vital that the culture of overwhelm and overwork doesn’t creep in. On the odd occasion, pulling an all-nighter may need to happen. But as a regular part of the team dynamics, no way.

If the team is delivering by sacrificing their well-being, it falsifies the actual resource needed to do the job. You’re there to look after them. The best way to discourage this is not only to play down any rewards or praise for regular overworking but also to be a role model yourself.

10. Learn Together

A team that learns collectively and shares experiences feels a sense of togetherness. They go through the uncomfortable moments of not knowing through to the other side of ah-ha! moments as one unit, lifting each other up and creating camaraderie.

Through this approach, culture can be established and evolved, creating collective milestones the team can refer back to in times of need.

11. Rewrite Rules With the Team

Groups of people will formulate assumptions and unwritten rules. Over time, these rules become normalized, even though they have never been written down or formally acknowledged.

Work with the team to understand what rules need breaking. Weekly 1:1s no longer adding value? Change it to bi-weekly. Lengthy monthly town halls are now too boring? Amend it.

Leaving processes for too long can increase the risk of them becoming stagnant, so it’s important to constantly re-write the playbook to stay relevant.

12. Increase Diversity of Thought Together

Groupthink occurs when groups of people reach a consensus without critical thinking or disruption. It happens when teams work too closely in a silo and don’t habitually bring outside thinking in.

Encourage visitors from other teams to join in on meetings or small initiatives to share their approach or ask basic questions that the team may have forgotten about—things like “Why do you do it this way?”, “What does that mean?”, etc.

13. Be Open and Share Your Thoughts

Teams of people generally are competent enough to be able to do the “doing” and satisfy the objectives of the role. However, some may like a bit more “why” and reasoning behind the direction the team is taking.

This is where you can share your vision or emphasize the team’s vision and how it plays its role in the bigger picture of the organizational system. You are likely to be able to see a little further ahead, so give the team that view so they can connect with the broader “why.” Telling the team the “why” of the job can help get everyone on the same page.

14. Role Model Psychological Safety

There’s a nice balance to be sought in regards to psychological safety. The team should feel comfortable enough to ask you and others in the team questions, provide feedback, and suggest ideas that may not be fully formed.

Creating that feeling in the team is critical for continued leadership development as well as increased performance, so you must listen for any negativity and explore with the team why that might be happening. It’s also a great sign that failure is somewhat celebrated as a First Attempt In Learning (F.A.I.L).

15. Advertise Your Availability

We’ve heard the phrase “my door is always open,” but actions speak louder than words.

What generally comes with that phrase is a full calendar that shows no gaps and an excessive amount of back-to-back meetings. Your team can see that and will immediately think you are too busy for a quick natter or to be their soundboard.

Alternatively, they may wait until a formal meeting to share their now, maybe, diluted idea. Tell people when you are around for calls or ad hoc stuff, and your team will quickly follow suit.

16. Establish Communication Etiquette

For remote teams, text-based communication is king. Emails, Slack, Teams, and Skype messages are a core part of day-to-day modern office-based teams.

However, text, tone, and timing can all be viewed in slightly different ways, which can cause unnecessary friction. One person’s expectation for a response within an hour may not be managed if the receiver likes to reflect and reduce communication distractions until the end of the day.

By setting some agreed ground rules and etiquette, the team knows how and when to approach their colleagues when a query needs answering, and this will help get everyone on the same page.

17. Create Regular Recognition (GratiTuesdays…?)

Knowing that your work was well-received is a major factor in people feeling fulfilled at work. A lot of people just want to know they are doing a good job, so creating an environment where people recognize each other for a job well done is an impactful way to get your team on the same page.

Make it once a week or once a month. Whatever it is, get that gratitude train to pull up to the station on a regular occurrence so people can get their ticket and jump on.

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it. Pick your favorite tips, and implement them as we all navigate the VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity).

Our desire to feel connected in our own way with our own values is now even greater. Your team being on the same page and achieving great things together will sustain morale, give people purpose, inspire others, and generate positive ripple effects across the whole organization.

Featured photo credit: Jason Goodman via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]

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Panopto: Unshared knowledge costs money

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How to Seek Constructive Feedback From Your Team Members

Asking someone for constructive feedback, especially if that person is your team member, can be downright uncomfortable. Think about it. It’s human nature to avoid the opinion of others, especially if we believe that they won’t be favorable. After all, what if people don’t think we’re not good enough or feel like we’re a drain on the company? Do we really want to gain their input? Probably not.

But what if their feedback was helpful?

It’s natural to want to be liked. But seeking feedback is essential if you want to succeed in your career, and there are numerous tips and tricks to help you seek constructive feedback.

But before I tell you how to seek out constructive feedback, let’s start by defining constructive feedback.

What Is Constructive Feedback?

Constructive feedback is a type of feedback designed to help employees improve their performance, reach their goals, and become more successful. It’s not about criticizing someone or finding fault with their work but about helping them to see where they can make changes or improve.

Constructive feedback is also about allowing employees to learn, grow, and develop into stronger employees over time.^[1] It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process, which is why it’s broken down into four essential parts:

1. It is positive – Constructive feedback always starts with a positive comment about the employee’s work.
2. It is specific – Feedback should always be specific, and it should include examples to support your comments.
3. It is actionable – The feedback should provide clear instructions on how the employee can improve their work in the future.
4. It is timely – Feedback should be given as soon as possible after the incident.

Constructive feedback helps you grow as a professional and improve your work performance. And when given correctly, it can be immensely helpful in boosting morale and productivity.

Who Should I Ask for Constructive Feedback?

You might think that the best person to ask for constructive feedback is your boss, but that’s not always the case.

Your boss might be too busy or have a different perspective that could limit the usefulness of the feedback you receive. This is why it’s usually better to ask someone familiar with your work but isn’t directly involved in it, such as a team member.

Often, people you work with provide you with the best feedback because they see you in action every day and know you well enough to give specific and helpful suggestions.

How Should I Ask for Constructive Feedback?

It might seem awkward to go up to someone you work with and ask for their opinion of you, but there are a few ways to make it less uncomfortable. One way is to frame the question as seeking advice or help rather than feedback.^[2]

For example, you might say, “Can you help me understand what I could do better?” or “What are some things that you think I could work on?” This will make the person feel more relaxed.

It’s also important to be precise when asking for feedback. Suppose you ask someone, “How am I doing?” They might not know how to answer or feel like they have to give you a positive response. Instead, try something like, “Can you give me an example of a time when I excelled in this area and a time when I didn’t do so well?”

This will make it easier for the person to be constructive with their feedback and give you clear examples to work with.

When Is the Best Time to Ask for Feedback?

The best time is when you have enough time to focus on the feedback you’re receiving and make changes.

It’s usually not a good idea to ask for feedback right before an important meeting or presentation because you might not have time to act on the suggestions.

You also want to ensure that the person giving you feedback has enough time to think about what they want to say.

Where Should I Ask?

If you can, it’s best to schedule a time to meet with the person face-to-face or even over Zoom so that you can both be relaxed and focused on the conversation. However, if that’s not possible, a phone call or email will work as well.

The main point is to ask the person in private to feel comfortable being honest with you. Wherever you choose, make sure that you won’t be interrupted and have the person’s full attention. You don’t want them to worry about an upcoming meeting while giving you their feedback or feel like they have to hurry through the conversation.

Shoot them a link to your scheduling App, or pick a specific day and time that works for both of you in advance. Then, send a reminder the day before to make sure that both of you are prepared.

How Do I Get Better at Being Receptive?

Constructive feedback can be challenging to hear, especially if you’re not used to it.

The first step is to try and be more open-minded when you receive feedback. It’s important to remember that the person giving you feedback is trying to help you improve, not point out your flaws.

Another way to become better at receiving feedback is to practice active listening. This means that you pay attention to what the person is saying, ask questions for clarification, and restate what you heard to make sure you understand.

It can also be helpful to take some time to reflect on the feedback you received before responding.^[3] This will allow you to process the information and develop a thoughtful response.

Finally, remember to thank the person. This will show that you appreciate their help and are more likely to consider their suggestions.

What If the Feedback Is Unhelpful or Hurtful?

Sometimes, this can happen. But don’t worry. You don’t have to accept everything that is said as truth.

Just because someone gives you feedback doesn’t mean that you have to act on it. You can always ask someone else for a second opinion.

It’s important to remember that seeking feedback is supposed to help you improve, not make you feel bad about yourself. If the person’s comments are hurtful, don’t be afraid to speak up or move on.

There will always be fellow team members that are only looking out for themselves. But don’t let that stop you from seeking feedback from colleagues that you trust. The majority of people want you to succeed.

What If I’m Afraid to Ask?

The key to seeking constructive feedback is to be confident and humble at the same time. You need to let the other person know that you respect their opinion and want to get better.

Here are some ways to increase your courage:

• Visualize yourself receiving helpful feedback.
• Remind yourself that you are not perfect, and that’s ok.
• Think about a time when you received valuable feedback.
• Focus on your end goal and how seeking feedback will help you achieve it.
• Breathe and relax.

How Can I Put Constructive Feedback Into Action?

Once you’ve identified the areas that you want to work on, come up with a plan of action for how you’re going to improve. This could involve setting specific goals, seeking help from others, or practicing more.

If you want to put constructive feedback into action, it’s essential to gain accountability, set measurable goals, and give yourself time to reach your potential.

Here are eight tips to get you started:

1. Ask a friend or colleague to help you stay on track.
2. Make a timeline with specific objectives that you want to achieve.
3. Set up periodic check-ins to track your progress.
4. Join or create a study group.
5. Take an online course or participate in webinars related to your goals.
6. Find a mentor who can help you reach your potential.
7. Read books or articles related to your goals.
8. Take some time for yourself to relax and recharge.

Final Thoughts

Constructive feedback is an essential part of self-improvement, but it’s not always easy to receive or put into action. By following the tips above, you can seek and use constructive feedback that is less daunting and more beneficial for your career development.

Remember, the goal is to grow and become the best version of yourself––and constructive feedback will help get you there.

Featured photo credit: Brooke Cagle via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Entrepreneur: Employee Feedback Is Only Effective If It’s Done Right. Here’s How to Make Sure It Lands
[2]	^	Harvard Business Review: How to Ask for Feedback That Will Actually Help You
[3]	^	NPR: Receiving Feedback Doesn’t Have To Be Scary. Here’s How You Can Get Most Out Of It

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