Consider It Solved

What's your challenge?

Getting staff to finish their training? Getting people to a meeting? Keeping one group of employees from picking on another (the newbies, the night shift)?

Whatever your challenge is, try some of these simple - but effective - approaches to building a stronger team and getting it DONE!

• Communicate. If your day is like mine, you're busy with phone calls, emails and tasks on deadline every single minute. Stopping to wander the halls and talk with staff feels like a colossal waste of time. But it's not. It's one of the most important things you can do to communicate your values to your team, and shape them into the team you dream about. Don't forget that communication goes two ways, too. Listening is every bit as important as talking. A minute of praise, a thank-you for a job well done - that's one of the most motivating things you can do. Yes, it takes time. But spending a few minutes every day on this simple task will save you hours fighting a crisis that you may not have seen coming. So shut down your email, don't take any calls, and get out there and talk to your people!

• Spell it Out. What are your goals? That's another way of asking how you would know when your biggest problem is solved. When I asked you the question, "What's your challenge?" what immediately came into your mind? Write it down. Now, write down what you would see if the challenge was perfectly solved - that's your goal. One of the first steps in solving any challenge is knowing where you want to end up. Sometimes we get so focused on the problem, we forget to focus energy and creativity on the solution. So write it down. And focus on the solution; it's your goal.

• Be Positive. We're not really talking about the "power of positive thinking" here, although that certainly has merit. What we're talking about is spending more energy focusing on the goal than the problem. You'll be surprised how that changes your energy level, and how it helps you begin making progress toward achieving that goal.

• Make a Plan. You started by talking more to your team and listening more to them too. You've written down one of your major challenges, and your ideal outcome for that challenge. Now it's time to make a plan.

When my youngest daughter was only 2 we enrolled her in a neighborhood Montessori Preschool. Within the year, she learned that no task is too hard if you just break it down into individual, small steps. It was a good lesson for all of us, as we watched this tiny child learn to cook, clean, read and write - all by breaking each task down into small, easy-to-manage steps.

Learn to write out your challenge, spell out your goal, and then outline, step by step, what needs to happen to achieve that goal.

Pretty soon, you'll be achieving your goals, one by one, and aiming for higher, more exciting goals.

You'll be able to take those challenges and consider them solved.