The Latest from Kristy-Lee

To break free from micromanagement and reclaim your time and control at work, you need to understand where it sits among different styles of management.

What is micromanagement?

Micromanagement refers to a management style that is typically excessive and controlling and usually exercised by a supervisor or manager. This management style focuses heavily on task-specific elements while often neglecting the bigger picture, such as overall outcomes, staff development, and collaborative teamwork.

Micromanagement can impede team efficiency and arise from several underlying factors. These factors usually encompass a lack of confidence in team members' competencies, a tendency to seek control due to apprehension or self-doubt, and a need to maintain close oversight to ensure tasks meet personal expectations.

Micromanagement frequently emerges when leaders encounter challenges in effectively delegating tasks, motivating their team, and fostering a culture of accountability. Althoug...

As your business grows, the dynamics of your team need to evolve.

The employees who helped you reach your current stage may not be the right fit for taking your business to the next level. Recognising when it’s time to reassess and restructure your team is crucial for sustaining growth.

The Growth Journey of Any Business

Something that a lot of small to medium businesses experience is the growing pains when the team that helped them get to a certain stage, isn’t the dream team you need to take you to the next level.

Every business embarks on a growth journey, evolving through different stages: idea-powered, you-powered, person-powered, team-powered, and, finally, people-powered.

The dynamics and skills required at each stage are distinct. Understanding this journey is crucial for aligning your team with your business's current stage and future aspirations. It’s also important to have effective onboarding and offboarding to allow for this kind of growth to happen withou...

In leadership, effective communication is more than just speaking clearly—it's about listening actively and with intent.

The ability to truly hear what your team is saying can be the difference between a cohesive, high-performing team and one filled with misunderstandings and disengagement. Yet, many leaders underestimate the power of listening or default to a single listening style, not realising that different situations call for different approaches.

To lead effectively, it's crucial to develop a range of listening styles that adapt to the needs of each conversation.

Whether you’re solving a problem, gathering information, or providing emotional support, your listening approach will impact the quality of the interaction and, ultimately, the trust and respect you build within your team.

In this blog, we’ll explore the four key listening styles every leader should master, as detailed in this HRM article, and how to use them to improve your team’s communication, moral...

Performance reviews are a cornerstone of effective employee management, yet many small business owners struggle to get the process right. At their core, performance reviews are an opportunity for business owners and employees to reflect on achievements, identify areas for improvement, and set the course for future success.

Done well, they can improve employee engagement, boost productivity, and foster a culture of growth and accountability.

However, when performance reviews are poorly executed, they can become a frustrating exercise that demoralizes employees and hinders progress. Instead of driving positive change, ineffective reviews can cause confusion, resentment, and disengagement.

This is why understanding the key elements of a productive performance review process is essential. It starts with a clear sense of what you want to achieve: offering feedback that not only acknowledges success but also highlights areas for growth, with the aim of motivating your employees t...

How frustrating is it when you have someone on your team who you know has so much potential, is actually really great at their job and everyone really likes them - but it’s like they are just going through the motions? They get the job done, but only just, they certainly don’t show initiative and you just want to shake them because you know they are capable of so much more, of doing a much better job.

You know they are smart, capable, skilled and you’re frustrated that you’re not seeing their best.

Here's what you’re dealing with when it comes to these people – it’s not that they are lazy – they simply lack motivation.

The Problem with Waning Motivation Levels

Why is that your problem you ask? Well, you know how hard it is to find great staff right? So, you don’t want to exit them and have to go through the recruitment process again. Add to that the fact that by proactively working to improve motivation you are actually improving employee engagement – and that can resul...

KPI’s, Key Performance Indicators, Key Success Criteria or any other term you would like to use are essential to drive employee performance, productivity and engagement.

Too often this task lands firmly in the ‘too hard basket’ because – let’s be honest – it’s not the easiest task to do.

“If it can not be measured it can not be managed” - Peter Drucker

When was the last time you contemplated creating KPIs for your team?
Done poorly, creating KPIs are an utter waste of time. For many of you who have been in the position where you have been allocated or managed staff with ineffective KPI’s, this will have undoubtedly influenced your desire to develop better targets for your future teams.

If this sounds like you, I am going to challenge you to rethink your approach today. I am challenging you to set just 1 KPI for each role over the next week, and 3 big ones for your business or team.

Why Create KPI”s?

Our team members fundamentally want to know 3 key things from th...

Giving positive feedback may seem straightforward, but when done with authenticity and intention, it can transform how your employees feel about their work and their contribution to your business. As a business owner, mastering this skill is key to building a motivated and high-performing team. Let’s explore how you can give positive feedback that resonates and drives meaningful change.

The Power of Positive Feedback                           

Positive feedback isn't just about making your employees feel good. It plays a pivotal role in employee engagement, retention, and overall job satisfaction. When you offer meaningful and constructive feedback, you help reinforce behaviours that align with your business goals and values.

Employees who feel valued and appreciated are more likely to stay with your company and perform at their best.

Business owners often find themselves balancing various tasks, from managing day-to-day operations to driving long-term strategy. In the mi...

How are you increasing the chances of keeping great team members onboard?

If you employ or manage staff in any capacity, you’ll know what a sucker punch it can be when a great staff member turns in their resignation, perhaps out of the blue, or even hints at the idea of moving on.

Finding great staff is like winning the lottery but keeping them long-term can prove tricky depending on a variety of factors. Post pandemic, we’re seeing trends that reveal keeping great staff is becoming even more challenging but there are some essential things you can do to keep great people in your team, longer.    

Why do you want to keep great staff in your team in the first place?

The most obvious reason would be because they’re great. You can trust them, they are reliable, they show up and they do great work and you don’t have to worry about them – what’s not to love about keeping great staff?

The great players in the team you already have are part of what makes the fabric of your culture ...

“I can’t make a decision because you have presented 2 great candidates – if we hired one of them we’d always wonder whether the other would have been better....”

This was the exact words that came out of the employers’ mouth after we had carefully and meticulously conducted a thorough and rigorous recruitment campaign for them, providing a strong shortlist. So strong in fact that they simply couldn’t (and didn’t) make the final decision. Whilst the team rightly pointed out that we had done such a stellar job we made it difficult for the employer to choose, I found the situation fascinating.

How does it sound to you?

Ludicrous? Funny? Typical?

At first, I assumed that really they just didn’t want to hire anyone, that it was a total waste of time and resources because they clearly had no intention of hiring – I mean surely one candidate stands ahead of the other for their needs?

But as I reflected on this, I wondered how many other small businesses are letting indecision...

In a competitive market where applicants are in short supply and the struggle to even find one person who might be suitable for your role is real, it’s easy to think that there is no need to screen and assess applicants. Well, there is no one to screen, or so few applicants so what’s the point, right?

Actually, wrong. You see, despite there being far fewer applicants to chose from, the importance of making the right hiring choices hasn’t changed. The reality is you can’t outrun a bad hire. So even if there is only one applicant, hiring the wrong person is guaranteed to cause you more frustration, more stress and cost you more than hiring no one at all.

When we had only a handful of applicants to select from, screening effectively is even more important because in these moments we can lose focus and clarity on what’s really important, out of desperation, overwhelm and stress. We waiver on the previous non negotiables, and start to consider applicants who we know really aren’t ri...