Are you a leader having challenges with employees and morale? It's common.
I want to show you a very different perspective to why the energy around your work is sinking. I want you to see why teams can't get along and why your workplace is draining.
Know that these are all feelings. Every emotion carries with it energy. Positive emotions have a buoyant, uplifting effect that helps you ( & your team) move forward. Negative emotions hold you back. If your workplace is draining, you have more negative momentum than positive momentum.
It’s likely your team ends up drained at the end of every day because their job is focused on problems. They show up for work, and all they see are the things going wrong. They are drowning their potential in doubt and worry.
When you focus on a problem, you lose your connection to a broader view. You feel bad. Truth is lots of good things are happening at work, but your team has an energy that puts them in a holding pattern. They put faith in problems and forget to celebrate success. Problems and negativity stall you, and positive emotion moves you forward.
It would help if you remained solution-oriented.
Problems are not a problem. They are an opportunity. They are necessary to find solutions.
You can't expand unless you keep asking for more solutions. You usually won't ask for solutions until you see them through your problems.
As a leadership keynote speaker, I've spent decades helping leaders focus their teams on solving problems
The problems you keep trying to avoid are necessary for the expansion of your business needs.
I want to remind you how powerful your thoughts are. Everything in your business right now started with a thought.
First, you thought ( or someone else) thought you needed to create your business unit or team.
Next, you thought about your purpose, every function, every job role. Next, you thought about who would fulfil these roles. Next, you thought about hiring them. Next, you thought about recruiting them.
Every employee you have right now- at one time you thought you needed. It was a thought first. The only way you could create the work and hire the people is by moving positively in that direction. That’s how you created your workplace.
If you thought you needed to hire someone and then thought there is nobody qualified for that job. You would give up. Instead, you thought up a job, thought up a work function and hired someone.
You put this team into momentum. That’s powerful. You used positive momentum to create this workplace. You were able to see your team and their function and your purpose before it actually existed.
For your team to come together, you needed enough positive momentum to make it happen.
HOW TEAM MORALE DROPPED
What’s happened now is the momentum has gone in the opposite direction. You and your team have more doubt and worry than purpose. It’s stalling growth. You're irritating each other instead of working together. Instead of building purpose, you're focusing on problems.
You see at the beginning; you were creating purpose, jobs, products, employment contracts. It felt good, so you kept going.
You created something out of nothing. It was your thoughts and your intention that created it.
Now you set up this physical workspace, and people came together to do a job. Everything was physically set up; you did all your planning. Now you need people to fulfil their function. Just do the work.
Somewhere along the line, you stopped creating and started focusing on problems.
Momentum changed. Instead of being solution-oriented, you became problem-focused. Instead of thinking positively about your future team and creating with Purpose, you have stopped progress. Instead, you're complaining about problems.
You can never move forward by complaining. It will build up momentum negatively until it becomes so uncomfortable it causes you to reinvent and create solutions.
Negative emotions and thoughts always pull you and your entire team away from purpose. It trips you up; it disrupts harmony. It diminishes morale. It makes people feel bad. Ultimately you're protecting yourself, protecting your job and trying to stay safe. You're not moving forward; you're stalled.
Reframe what you think about problems.
When problems come up, all they really are is opportunities to find purpose. They are a reason to create positive momentum. When something isn’t working, it gives you opportunities to explore new angles. See a different perspective. It means it’s time for expansion. Problems are opportunities to set up new intentions and create new team functions.
Start creating stop stalling.
When your team has poor morale, it’s because you're in a holding pattern. Your patterns around work are holding you back.
It’s hard to see it because you can’t see your thoughts. But those thoughts as a leader and collectively as a team are moving you forward or holding you back.
If your team is stalled by sluggish morale, you need to focus on solutions. Start creating. Look at every problem as an opportunity to create a purpose.
Problems are coming up, and you're treating them like a problem. You're treating people as a problem. It’s holding you back. The only problem is the momentum of your thoughts is stalled.
Every team comes together for a purpose. Everyone is hired for a function. All that is stalled because you're focusing on problems.
You really want to be happy at work, and you want your team to have meaning and feel good about their job. You can’t get there from here. Only positive thoughts create and bring forward momentum.
Do you see that solving a problem brings forward opportunity? Complaining about problems stalls you.
If a client has a problem and you solve it you move forward to more business engagements. If you fight the client, the problem or place blame you either to go nowhere or end the relationship.
Negative thoughts and emotions always stall and limit your team's potential.
What you are focusing on is the conflict or the problem. It’s easy to focus on problems because they are physically in front of you.
Each day you show up to work things are going wrong, and you continue the battle.
But it would help if you remembered you are a powerful creator. You created everything in your life right now with your thoughts. Your intention set up this team when it didn’t exist before. It was that positive thought power that brought you here.
Now you're stalled because you keep looking at the same problems from the same thwarted perspective. Problems are presenting themselves so that you can find creative solutions. This will move you into new territory. It expands your team's perspective.
Nobody came to their job so that they could be stalled and frustrated. They came to you so they could move forward. Your job was an opportunity. If they are not moving forward, they are irritated.
If everything a team tries to do is met with conflict or resistance, they aren’t moving forward and are frustrated.
Your job as a leader is to keep creating.
Remove barriers, celebrate progress, turn problems into opportunities.
Empower people to create stronger relationships with each other and with clients. When team members complain, look for opportunities. Elevate your team's perspective. Show them their value.
Your positive energy will impact your outcomes.
You will create much greater results with much less effort because you're not wasting energy on problems. When you focus on problems, you lose the broader view. You get bogged down.
There can be no future expansion if your present isn’t asking for future solutions. You can’t see future solutions without the direction of problems.
Problems are planted in front of you to help you grow. They are necessary to expand. See problems as the good they bring.
You need to imagine a joyful rhythm of solving problems.
You set your team or business unit into motion by your own creative thoughts towards it.