Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
Being a GREAT and APPRECIATIVE LEADER at Christmas (# 1-27)
As we approach the end of the year, it's a great opportunity for you to show your human side and offer a word and/or gesture of thanks to your employees.
This episode contains just a few tips and ideas from the Leadership Detectives on how perhaps you could do that, in addition to the good things you may already be doing.
Regardless of your religious beliefs, please accept our wishes for a great Christmas and Festive Break this time of year!
Now more than ever, it's critical that customers find accurate information about your business. LocalWorks by Yahoo Small Business makes it easy to add, edit, and publish business information across 70 plus local directories from a single dashboard. Ensure your business is found with LocalWorks and save 10% today by using code LWPODCAST. Visit Yahoo Smallbusiness.com slash local to find out more.
SPEAKER_02:Hey guys, welcome back to Leadership Detectives. Great to be talking to you here now during the festive season. So we're coming up to the end of the year. It's a great opportunity for you to be able to show your human side and to say thank you to your team. Thank you for their contribution, for their commitment, for the hours that they've put in, for the effort that they've put in, and for the sacrifices they might have made along the way for the business. You can wish them all the best for the festive season. Look, here there's just a few ideas from Neil and myself on ways to do that. We hope you find them useful in addition to the things you're probably already doing. Enjoy. Good morning, welcome. Good to see everybody again back here on all Friday morning. What have we got here? 18th of December, leading up to a nice break for everybody. Um, so yeah, good to see you all here. Neil, how are you doing? Good to see you. You well? I'm good, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, very good. And yeah, it is um it's amazing to think that we are coming towards the end of the year now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:This year's the weeks have flown, and the year seems to have flown, even though a lot of that year we've been not able to do the stuff we want to do. It's just incredible. And this week in particular, it's it's just been full. The calendar's been full of stuff, and everyone I talk to seems to be really busy at the moment. Um, I don't know whether it's coming up to year end that's making them busy or whether it's getting ready for next year. It's a real seems to be a bit of a mix.
SPEAKER_02:I think there's a bit of people have got through the whole restriction that they felt with being confined to home and etc. And now that's life, right? So you've just got to make things, and everybody just seems to be going. It doesn't feel like that's an inhibitor anymore, it's accepted. And what have I got to do to make life work and make work work? Right?
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, and I was talking to someone this morning that they said their their company strategy was survive, adjust, thrive. So that was how they went through the kind of COVID lockdown, and and and actually it's really interesting. All of the businesses I work with at the moment are all looking like they're gonna have one of the best years they've ever had from a I mean, typically I work with sales side, so typically from a sales side, and actually, because costs are much lower this year, yeah, as well. And that's right across you know, agriculture, technology, uh financial firms. It's a it's a real mix. So obviously, consumer firms and um uh well say consumer, but shops aren't struggling. Shops have had one of their best years ever, and they're paying back tax even. Yeah, um, and then uh you've got um pubs and restaurants, hotels are obviously all struggled and events businesses. Um, but no, I think I think so. For some people, they're adjusting now and they're looking at how do they thrive in this environment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, and I think that's probably what's keeping people busy too.
SPEAKER_02:I think also that notwithstanding the fact that there are lots of people that have lost their jobs, right? That that isn't good. And and hopefully some of those people are getting some kind of um inspiration and and focus from where they find themselves now to for when the time gets for them to get back into it, right?
SPEAKER_01:So um yeah, and that's true. I mean, and and you know, individuals need to take ownership for their own skill sets and their own networks and their own. But actually, do you know again? The businesses I'm working with are all hiring, yeah, or have hired, you know. One of them I spoke to this week, I think third they've increased their workforce by 30 percent.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Because they need more people to keep up with the work they're doing. Um, another one, yeah, another one's about 25% increase. You know, these aren't big companies, so it's going from like 25 to 35 people, yeah. But you know, they're they're hiring. Um but I think you know the topic today was was basically all about leading as we go into the Christmas period because there's a a lot, it's really important that leaders well leaders are seen to lead this time of year, but I think there are some there are some specifics that leaders can do over this seven-day period now as we're coming up to Christmas and between Christmas and New Year, yeah, to really just um close the year off in a positive way. So I don't know. What were your initial thoughts on it?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think I think you know, one of the things we wanted to focus on was also about how people talk to their teams as we close out the year. But you're right, I mean, take stock, and and I think we've got some stuff coming up in a few days as well, right? Where we're going to look at kind of reflecting and looking forward.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We can talk a bit about that maybe at the end here. Um, but I think one of the focuses we want here was about recognizing the team, right? What what how how do you say thank you to your team? How do you wish them well for the festive season they find themselves in? How do you wish them well as they go forward? But thanks is probably the word you and I wanted to focus on a bit more here today, right?
SPEAKER_01:Um, yeah, I think it is. I think um, you know, what I've seen, and this is, you know, uh leaders at this time of year can really, you know, we've talked about communication all throughout the whole of this year as we've been doing these. Um we've talked about uh valuing your employees and recognizing your employees, and this is a great time of year to do that. Um, and I saw a guy, I was talking to one of my customers this week, and um he wrote a personal note to each of his employees to say, Thank you for the year, I really appreciate what you've done. And one of the guys who's not a youngster, been in the company a long time, was so overwhelmed. He phoned him up, so this first time I've ever had anything like this, it felt really special to know that I and the fact it was handwritten. Wow, you know, I thought, wow, that's a really good idea. So there's you know, there's tip number one. So write a personal message.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I tell you what, guys, we're just gonna kick out some ideas here, right? Neil, we're just gonna say, here's some things you could do, here's some ideas on how you might that it's by no means um, you know, uh a conclusive list. I'm sure there's a lot more to that, but let's just kick out some ideas of the things you could do to say thank you, to recognize your team, to let them know you know they exist, to let them know you appreciate their contribution. Um, I think I think that's really what we want to do here, right?
SPEAKER_01:Um, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And um and also not just your team, uh, but also your customers, because your customers are what keep you going. And during this year, a lot of customers have been very loyal to people as well. So saying thank you to customers, whether that's via Christmas cards, whether it's by sending them gifts or whatever it might be, you know, that that's really important too.
SPEAKER_02:Let's pick let's pick up on that one on saying sending gifts, right? Guys, this arrived, this arrived for me, um uh for yesterday from Amazon, uh, delivered by my current boss, right? So my current boss is actually Neil on the screen there, right? Is that a nice surprise?
SPEAKER_01:We're partners, we're partners in crime, but is that a nice surprise?
SPEAKER_02:Complete surprise that that was gonna come, even though I know Neil's style. So think about that, guys, because you can have such an impact just by putting a little bit of thought into it, spend a bit of time, send whatever you want, right? Oh, that's alcohol, it could be cheese, it could be a book, it could be a Christmas decoration, it doesn't matter, right? So I guess that's another example, Neil, right? You can use the current channels, call it Amazon, right? I'm sure other channels are available, right? But you you you could just go on there, you've probably got your employees' home addresses, and you could just send them something, right? Whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I um one of the things I've done ever since I've been working for myself is every Christmas I send, I mean, I do it during the year as well, but typically always at Christmas, I will send my customers something to say thank you. And I try and do something that's really relevant to them. So you know, I might send them a journal to try and encourage them to, you know, I'm I'm coaching them, so I'm trying to focus on what might they might need, or a book that might help them think differently about how to lead as they go into the new year.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and I think if you can send thoughtful gifts through like that that help that show that you really understand them and you want to help them, that's uh certainly the feedback I get is that's well received.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Actually, just carrying on on that theme of sending a gift that way. Um, the team that I worked with a couple of years ago were based in Austria, Spain, and Germany. And we always had conversations about being British and what you have in in Britain. So I sent the I didn't have a huge number of employees, I had a small number of senior guys, but I sent them all a hamper structured on English uh food, right? So English tea, English cake, um, English cheese. I mean, imagine sending English cheese to Austrians, for goodness sake, right? But but they just loved first they didn't know it was coming, but I also knew which ones had young kids, so included something that were for the kids, and all of them said to me when that box arrived, the kids going, Wow, dad, what is it? And then opening the box and taking item by item out. So think about that. Just you said you'll personalize it, right? They were so excited to find British stuff because that meant something to them, and they were so excited to find stuff that all the family could enjoy, right?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's interesting actually, because I had a conversation, I don't think it was this week, I think it was last week with someone about this topic about sending gifts and stuff like that. And he said, I'm not sure we've got budget for that. I said, I said, I don't care if you got budget, get your credit card out, spend the money yourself. Because these people have worked hard for you all year, and you know, you earn more than them, or typically you earn more than them, you know. They will work harder for you. You know, don't feel bad about spending your own, it doesn't have to be a lot, yeah. You know, but don't be feeling bad about getting your credit card out and actually do it, and actually it means more if it hasn't come through the corporate credit card, it means a lot more, it means a lot. So gifts and things like that, obviously, that's a really and and written messages are incredibly powerful if you put some personal feelings in there of how you appreciate what they've done, even if it's an employee that or a customer that you haven't got on with necessarily during the year, so long as they are um so long as you can find something good, and there'll always be something good you can say about them, um, then put that down in what you write to them.
SPEAKER_02:That's an interesting thought, actually, because there must be something from your relationship that you might want to drop in as a comment that makes it personal. So it doesn't look like this has come straight out of the printing machine and just shoving out the normal stuff, right? So if you want to make a comment about an event that happened in the year or an incident that happened in the year, or a negotiation that you did, or an outcome that you had, or a team that you trained, or whatever, that would be really good to do, right? I think it's really worth doing that. It's a really good point, actually.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so we've talked about writing and gifts and stuff. What other things do you think leaders could do to recognize their teams and their customers as we go through the next seven days?
SPEAKER_02:I think one of the most simple ideas is you could just pick up the phone. You could just pick up the phone. I remember I had a boss that would Christmas Eve, that was what his that's what his engagement was. Sat there in the morning, picked up the phone and phoned people and said nothing more than to say, have a great festive, have a great break. In fact, he was Canadian, so it was happy holidays, right? And and it was just to make that phone call, never mentioned business, never even asked me about the deals I was doing, am I going to make my quarter? Never touched it, right? Yeah, because otherwise you might feel there was an anger. It was just um uh a personal message out from him, but the phone call incoming uh wasn't always well timed. I might have been dealing with things, but but to get that call and then call him back and find out it was nothing but a personal call. So make a call, guys. Make a call, just pick up the phone.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's I I 100% agree. And actually, it the idea of blocking out Christmas Eve morning to do that, I think that's a really powerful uh idea. I've never done it personally, but I have had phone calls from people to say, you know, just wishing you happy Christmas, enjoy your time with the family. Um, make sure you take time for yourself over the Christmas period and make sure you don't switch your technology on. Keep your laptop on. If I see, I don't want to see an email from you over the next three days. 27th, 28th, when you're back in, we're back into closing the year. But over the next few days, I don't want to see you online. I don't want to see it. So I think that's important as well. Set that expectation um uh of what you how you want your team to behave during that period as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Take the downtime and and make sure this is quality time with the people that you may have spent less time and energy with during the year because the business asked you to, or because the business laid that requirement on you and you decided to spend the time at work.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting actually. I was thinking about I got a phone call. So there's a guy we work with uh called Andy Secchi from uh Romania, and he doesn't do on Christmas Eve, he does on New Year's Eve. So New Year's Eve, he phones round anyone he's worked with through the year and says, uh, thank you. You know, I really enjoyed working out. You know, thanks for all your support in the in the last year and good luck for the new year. And it's it's a five-minute phone call. Um, and actually, if you think about what so phoning your customers, yeah, and just saying, you know, thanks, it's been a great year, or it's been a tough year. You know, it's been a tough year, really appreciate your support, or you know, thanks for sticking with us, and just a phone call just to say thank you and hope you enjoy the Christmas period with your family, it just means so much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think you hit another important topic there, Neil, as well, about the timing, right? So it would be nice that this is a pre-Christmas message. That would be nice. But when we publish this, we've probably got about two or three days to go before Christmas, right? So if you haven't had the chance to watch this and you're watching this on Boxing Day or sometime after that when you're recovering from overindulgence, um, don't go, well, that's it, I missed it, it's all over. You could still, the message could be towards the end of the year, thank you for the year. So it doesn't have to be a Christmas wish, it's still a festive wish, it's still an end-of-year wish. Uh, so still do it. Don't don't go, I've missed the cutoff, it's all over. All right, so that's really important to think about, guys. It's never too late, it's never too early to say thank you. And to take it out.
SPEAKER_01:I guess one of the things that just popped into my mind as well, and and I I can't say this ever happened uh when I was working for a corporate, but is as a leader try and take the pressure off a bit as well, so that when people are going into Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, they don't feel like I need to be getting on with stuff. I've got you know, so just take the pressure off that week before if if you can, and just uh so that you're not pushing people on deadlines for you know, well, 27th when you're back in, I need this forecast on my table. You know, just take take a little bit of pressure off by just being reasonable and sensible about what's what's acceptable.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Um I know we're we're in a different time now, right? It would have been lovely to talk about having meals with people, sitting down at tables with them, raising glasses with them, right? Oh yeah, good point. That that that doesn't work right now, but the time will come back. But it just reminds me of when I first became a manager, right? Um, and I ran um a support center, software support center team. So they were quite young, they were kind of mid mid-20s to early 30s, and we decided we were gonna have our off-site software, we'll go out in the afternoon. I agreed we'd take the afternoon out, so we got there, you know, mid-afternoon and gonna run into the evening. And we'd done all the menu and everything, what they're gonna have. And I said to my team leader, I want you to go out and find out from everybody what do they like as an after dinner drink? Because we're going to a pub, and the pub might not have the full menu that everybody enjoys in drinks. I want to make sure they get in every drink that we want, right? So go around and find out what would you like as your after dinner tipple? And they went round and somebody said, I like a Bailey's, I like a whiskey, I like a whatever, right? Um, and what I did was I then went and bought a bottle of that for each of them. So at the end of dinner, when we said, Here's your after dinner drink, they actually came out with these all wrapped up as their individual drink, right? Again, it's individual, guys. By the way, did the company pay for that? No, and I'm not being a hero, but you you try getting, I mean, the company shouldn't be buying alcohol.
SPEAKER_01:Try to get them through alcohol, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. So that was a personal gift. But again, what the reason I give you that example is think outside the box, come up with some ideas and some surprises that might just add something for them. Again, to go home with that bottle and go. I mean, they probably went home and gave it to their partner as a gift and said, Look, what I got you, I don't know, I don't care. Um, but just think outside the box about the ideas that you could do. It does mean I agree, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think there's you know, gifts, presents, fun, uh um, uh messages, thank yous, all of that stuff. I think is is is really uh really important and and personalizing it as best you can as well. Something that just popped into my head, and I was going to mention it on this um on this recording, is about have some fun over the next few days. Yeah, I've seen some fantastic examples of leaders leading fun. Yeah, and what I mean by that is you, you know, this week actually, I've had uh two Christmas do's virtual Christmas do's that I've organized for companies. Like we've done two wine tasting events, we did an escape room, uh, so this was leadership teams of businesses. I've seen people I've seen people do gin tasting evenings. Um, so there's lots and lots you can do. But the best thing I saw was um a company uh that in fact we had Vivian joins on um uh from EQS. So EQS put together a video like a TikTok video. It was this the the song on I can't remember what the song is that they that everyone danced to on TikTok, but they got every single leader in the business from around the world to the dance choreograph led by the owner of the business, and it was just brilliant, and it just a great spirit of fun. Did you watch it?
SPEAKER_02:Because you posted it, right? You shared it, right? It was great, it was fantastic. Actually, I don't know how they were so in sync, actually, because normally it doesn't work when you use this stuff, but they were pretty much, but it was just everybody genuinely looked like they were having fun, they didn't feel like it was oh, I've got to do this stuff. They just looked like it was like, Wow, let's have a crack.
SPEAKER_01:And what does that say, right? When you you watch something like that, what does it say about your boss and your leadership team? It just says, you know, these guys prepared to let their head have a bit of fun, they're human, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:They're human. Didn't we say that two publications ago? I think um, what was one of Carmina's feedback items? Just be human, right? Just be human. Gene's told us, just be more human, Gene McCaskill. Yeah, yeah. Guys, really important. We're saying just keep following the theme about being a good leader here. That's all it is.
SPEAKER_01:I think so. So try and find a way, and and the great thing about being virtual is you can make it happen. So if you haven't planned it, you can still do it. Yeah, you don't have to book a venue and you don't have to um you know plan loads of stuff in advance, you can just block some time out and and do it. Yeah, so try, yeah, have some fun, and and the leaders need to lead that, don't outsource it. Yeah, lead it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I think it comes back from something else you said when we did our feedback session, our topic of feedback. It has to come from a good place, it has to come from a genuine place of come on. If it's two artificial guys, it probably won't work. And if it's not you, it's not you, don't worry about it, right? But actually, maybe you're just not letting your hair down enough, right? Don't worry, about it. Don't worry about it. You can come back on January the second and be the same guy again. Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_01:It's no problem, right? So, so I think there's a there's a lot, I think it's we'll start sort of wrapping up. I think I think there's a there's a there's so much a leader can do in leading their team into the right frame of mind as they leave this year, making the your people feel special, making your customers feel special, and and that comes down to leadership, and it comes from the leader making that happen.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I tell you, there's something just coming to my head here, guys, that maybe it's a message that's not deliberately part of you know, thanking your team, but but I've certainly learned a lot of this from Neil, by the way. Just stop for a minute and just think about what you should have some gratitude for. If you do that, that will help you take this forward. Just stop for a minute, think about what's going on, think about how you've lived your life your and your year, think what you should feel some gratitude for. And I think that'll put you in a frame of mind that says, now how do I take that forward and share that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, really, really, really, really good point. Actually, that's a great place to start. And and actually, it comes down to the spirit of Christmas as well. Actually, is very much like that. Yeah, so look, let's um let's kind of wrap up, shall we, by saying happy Christmas to everyone. Thank you to for watching, thank you for your comments and support over the last 27 episodes that Albert and I put together. We you know, it's been such fun doing it. I know we've we've been able to help people, which is why we wanted to do it. So make sure you take downtime, make sure you enjoy yourself over the Christmas prey. And I'll let you close out.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah, same thing for me, guys, right? Thank you. As Neil says, 27 episodes. Um, hopefully, we brought some value for you and it's and it's been useful for you. We obviously plan to continue into the new year. We've got some stuff coming up in a couple of days to just to finish off the year and to uh to to give you a couple more messages before we walk into 2021. But thank you again. Please give us some more comments, please give us the feedback. We're enjoying the likes, we're enjoying the uh the ratings that we're getting through. If you haven't subscribed, and there's plenty of room for subscription, guys. So if you haven't subscribed, go ahead and do that, and that will give you automatic notification of of uh episodes as we publish. Again, thank you very much for your time. All the best. We will talk to you before the year completes.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, all the best. All right, mate. Good to see you today. Have a great weekend. Yes, mate, all the best. Take care.
SPEAKER_00:LocalWorks by Yahoo Small Business makes it easy to add, edit, and publish business information across 70 plus local directories from a single dashboard. Ensure your business is found with localworks and save 10% today by using code LW Podcast. Visit yahoo Small Business.com slash local to find out more. Now more than ever, it's critical that customers find accurate information about your business. LocalWorks by Yahoo Small Business makes it easy to add, edit, and publish business information across 70 plus local directories from a single dashboard. Ensure your business is found with local works and save 10% today by using code LWPODCAST. Visit Yahoo Small Business.comslash local to find out more.