The Issue with Middle Management
Building Leadership Through Middle Management
Throughout multiple blog posts from With Purpose, we focus on the three foundational pieces for any business.
These three pillars are people, processes, and profits. Through all forms of content, we have talked and written about it. You can find more blog posts on it here:
With that said, we want to break down and expand on the foundation, informing and bringing value to your business.
Building up the foundation is what we do with our clients when we bring business & leadership consulting to them. It is what we can do for you.
So, leadership. Your people, do you care for them?
You can’t run the show. To grow and expand, you need to hire people to take over roles and responsibilities that you did first.
It is an investment for you to hire more and more employees. When you have more, you can do more.
Your people help you build, grow, and scale your business beyond anywhere it has been in years past. You have the power to not stop it from doing more.
Don’t let your business become stagnant from your unwillingness to continue investing IN your employees, not just getting more.
Allow them opportunities to grow and develop. Build upon their skill. Let them gain more leadership experience through their teams and responsibilities.
Why?
This investment into growth and scaling improves the backbone of your entire company: the middle managers.
They’re the ones that got promoted continuously to the seniority they work to achieve. These managers know the business. They know how it’s been running.
But naturally, they cannot keep up on how to continue running it.
From an environment of being told what to do to lead a team of their own, it leaves a gap in skillsets.
They got the promotion that allowed them to do more and be more. But these managers cannot have that if you as a leader don’t give them additional training and resources to thrive.
Bring the training that will allow them to become a more significant part of your organization. Pass more responsibility and trust down the ladder.
If you can’t allow middle management to thrive, don’t expect the rest of your business to flourish.
As I said, they are the backbone. Middle managers control the business through understanding upper leadership. Then influencing the lower leadership and beyond to follow suit with business plans.
Middle management brings the ability for communication, projects, and people to thrive inside the organization.
Business and leadership development is just that. Resources to thrive beyond the one meeting a year that discusses leadership development.
What proper Leadership Development should look like for your middle managers and teams:
- Teaches how to be an influential and effective leader.
Being a leader is a complex role to play. Some naturally assume the responsibility, others have a lot of empathy and no influence, and the rest manage without leading.
No matter the category your people fit in, building up these skills is essential because there is always room to grow as a leader.
These skills translate across all areas of life and inside the organization. They learn the qualities to become a better manager, partner, employee, boss, community outreach, etc.
More than just the individual. Everyone around them becomes built up as well. Imagine a community that thrives together.
That is what leadership development brings.
As another benefit to leadership development, communication will rise to new heights.
- Grows communication throughout the business.
As I previously mentioned above, middle management means you need good communication. Information is constantly shifting from the top-down and the bottom up.
Middle managers need the skills necessary to become effective at gathering and reproducing the information with clarity to another party.
If it’s ineffective, clarity is lost, and miscommunication becomes common. Everyone must be on the same page to push the business forward, relying on middle management to make it happen.
Growing communication skills help that, and it also benefits communication between teams, management, customers, vendors, and all other aspects regarding contact around the organization.
These last two points lead to our third and final point.
- Assists in job training and furthering skillsets.
Learning isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a one-and-done sort of principle. Learning is a lifelong concept that should have continual focus throughout careers. Leadership development can teach and benefit middle managers more than ever.
Through development, managers of any seniority can work on weak points in business. Another benefit is it will also excel in what they already know, love, and understand.
Why wouldn’t you want to invest in your employees?
Wouldn’t you want to see your organization thrive through middle management?
Give your employees the resources and abilities to thrive. Not only for the employee, but the team, the company, and the community they’ve built
Leadership development for your employees with a focus on middle managers is substantial to the overall well-being of your company.
You allow them to grow personally and professionally, benefiting not only the people around them but more increased change culturally in your business.
Invest in your people, invest in your business.
Get started with leadership development. With Purpose provides these services to businesses of any size and industry.
With an emphasis on your people, processes, and profits, we will help uplift you and your business to grow where it wants to be.
With Purpose will help your individual needs. Through a non-cookie cutter approach, your business will gain the attention and support it needs from experienced and qualified consultants.
How can we help you? Schedule a call today!:
The With Purpose Emphasis on Processes
Why Processes? What is that?
A couple of months ago, there was a blog post written about who With Purpose is and what we focus on.
The main idea surrounds how we handle People, Processes, and Profits when doing business and leadership consulting.
(You can find that brief blog post here: https://withpurposellc.com/who-is-with-purpose/)
For With Purpose, processes are the central pillar that helps our clients build, strengthen, or scale their business.
Without the right processes in place, anything can be lost in a system without control. Many easy changes like folder management to losing out on revenue because you lose prospects in a mix.
Processes affect many different areas of your business, so we want to spend a few moments talking over why and how your processes need to change.
First off, why do processes need to change?
There are a variety of reasons why your business processes need to change. The bulk of the time, businesses don’t have them, are inefficient, or need scaling up the power they hold.
Sometimes, simple tweaks to how a business is running can generate more revenue or efficiency. Or better process costs or having the expenses remain the same to scale.
What this means is, processes change to save time, money, or both. to execute the necessary steps.
When businesses grow, many additions are made inside of the organization. Revenue, employees, products, departments, locations. Anything can change or grow into something greater.
With more people talking, more systems implemented, and more complex, you need processes to keep everything in check (BizJournals)
When communication needs to be at its highest, and everything running smoothly, it’s a daunting task trying to keep everything accounted for.
Second, how do processes change?
The beginning of change begins with clarity. Reflect on the reasons why you need a change to the processes in your business.
What is going well? What isn’t? What do I want to see happen with this change?
Asking yourself questions that clarify your mission will allow you to see what is essential for change. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, you never will be able to accomplish anything.
You cannot make progress on how a business should be designed if you don’t know the direction you want to head toward.
Now that you have analyzed what needs to follow, start to redesign the processes on what to do. A straightforward example of what to do is to create a flow chart.
A flow chart will allow you to map out every single detail that is necessary on the board. When many people are involved, a breakdown of the entire structure is best to describe in detail.
Then, you should simplify. Make it easier. What can be changed or adapted to produce a better flow or less wasted energy in your business?
What can you cut down or out that will make the start-to-finish go faster and smoother than ever before?
Define it all with clarity to allow a better comparison between all the different ideas.
Next, figure out the KPIs you will need to measure the results you desire.
In the clarity part of this blog, a question asked was: where do you see the need for change?
Then, communicate that flow chart. Communicate it a lot.
As I have said in previous blog posts, communication is the most important thing about a business.
Communicating that flow chart with everyone around the company- whether you are a one-man team or there are thousands of individuals- is key.
Overcommunicate so everyone in the organization knows their roles and responsibilities to keep the flow chart at top performance.
If everyone is on board, then you finally make progress. A machine can be completely shut down or inoperable because one gear is unwilling to turn.
Knowing and acknowledging those KPIs is what will drive the results you desire.
As the saying goes, the grass is only green where you water it. If you focus on specific indicators, you will have the best opportunity at driving in those numbers.
On top of that, it gives everyone inside the organization an understanding of what is most important.
If there is no level of importance, you can’t gather people to put in the work toward results.
It won’t bring in what is necessary.
Make the grass greener by bringing in business consulting from With Purpose!
Whether you have big issues, want to grow, scale, or just want to have better leaders, you can find what you need.
With non-cookie-cutter development, we strategize with you to help you grow the business you desire.
By working on your business and not just in it, With Purpose will help you focus on the necessary components to drive results.
Schedule a call today by clicking here.
Fixing the Workplace Environment
It is not an employee issue; it is an environmental issue.
What would you consider the mood of your workplace environment?
Is there enough encouragement, empowerment, trust, or something similar?
The workplace environment is essential for lasting success in an organization.
Whether good, bad, or indifferent comes to mind, there is always something that can be changed.
Improvements are essential to redefining what the definition of fulfillment means.
As a company grows, or different leadership positions change, this is bound to happen. But be sure to realize, this is different from the core values the company may have.
If the outlook toward the company shows a different set of emotions on the negative end, this is a red flag.
A business cannot thrive for a long amount of time if the people inside of it don’t have the positive emotions to support them.
Although there might seem to be a problem with it looking around, the morale is what sets the company up for success.
You can look around and see people getting work done, but can the quality or enjoyment of work improve through an enhanced environment?
Harvard Business Review talks about a positive work environment and the effects it has on every individual. Some of these effects are:
- Improved Relationships
- Promoted Creativity
- Buffers Stress
- Bouncing Back from Challenges
With that said, the environment inside of your workplace should have these positive emotions flowing.
Everyone will gain the benefits that this will produce. From the confidence, the CEO obtains knowing that his employees are doing well. Leading to the emotional reinforcement that the workers get when they know a job is well done.
Everyone should be on the same page when creating an environment of positive influence. At a baseline, we should all desire to see everyone working at their natural best.
Whatever this may look like for you, I want to share how I help my clients develop their environment throughout the company.
- Building Strong Leadership
Strong leadership affects the entire business and the people in it. You should know that already.
Bad managers have a big cause in employees’ health in research shown by Anna Nyberg at the Karolinska Institute.
This study shows that a bad boss affects the physical and mental health of a person during and after work.
Bad leadership can bring bad health. This is a big deal.
Leadership is about caring for the employees that work for you. Give your employees a place to thrive.
Where trust and vulnerability are, leadership is right alongside that.
Trust shows that you value the people that work for and with you. When you can allow them to make decisions on their own without micromanaging or the fears of what might happen, the trust starts to become reciprocated.
As mentioned, leadership brings along vulnerability. This isn’t oversharing personal details or speaking on all your fears.
Vulnerability in this area means that you shouldn’t feel ashamed of not knowing an answer. That you don’t need to lie to cover up a mistake when the solution solves itself by asking for help.
Leadership should bring this mental clarity that trust and vulnerability are valuable, and you should be afraid to share them.
Do you bring trust and vulnerability as a leader?
- Creating Quality Teams
Not everything in the workplace is solo, nor should it be.
Many times, a group of people come together on a specific project that utilizes all their skillsets.
From there, the team works together to complete the mission in the best way possible.
In a book I loved reading, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni did an amazing job creating a model toward how and where teamwork fails.
Like a chain, a single broken link will disrupt the teamwork that was set in place allowing negatives to interfere with the work environment.
A couple of the “dysfunctions” of teamwork Lencioni talks about are accountability and conflict.
These two dysfunctions are always paired up with each other. A lot of people are nonconfrontational or they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
This should not be the case. When you talk with aggression, that is when feelings get hurt. That is when you lose the point of the conversation.
When you let these problems slide, you aren’t focused on a positive environment because this can disrupt more than your small team.
Don’t allow these issues to grow. Bring empathy and understanding to the conversation. This is what will bring results.
Communication is another aspect of quality teams. There are several moving parts at a single time in business.
When you have the right teamwork to flow throughout the chaos, communication will be at the center of that.
Before every play on the football field, the quarterback will choose a play that will work best for the situation the team is in. It is up to the rest of the team to follow through with their roles.
That initial communication proves that with the right people, the quarterback can see through the chaos. Then, no matter what the defense brings up, the leader can get around it with the knowledge the team will be in the right place.
That is how great games play out. This is how leadership wins. That is how teamwork thrives.
- Empathy
Already mentioned in this writing, empathy in the workplace is essential to promote a positive work environment.
Merriam-Webster defines empathy as the action of understanding the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another without the communication.
What does this mean for the workplace?
You can build better relationships and the quality of the environment around you when relating or thinking of the experiences others have faced.
As a leader. showing interest in the hopes of dreams of employees or coworkers is one of the greatest ways to show empathy (CCL).
This does two things for the individual you are talking to:
- It shows that you care for them. Employees that know a leader cares for them boost the workflow and productivity.
- You can assign them projects that allow them to thrive. When you know someone, you can set them up to excel with projects that are in their wheelhouse.
When you lead with empathy, you can lead a group of passionate people that are going to excel at their work.
That will not only elevate themselves but the company and everyone else around them as well.
Empathy naturally reciprocates from leader to employee, and amongst all the other coworkers.
There are only positives to bringing in a positive work environment (makes sense, right?).
With Purpose is a business and leadership consulting company that loves to cultivate the people and processes to bring added growth to clients.
Through thoughtful conversations and a holistic approach, we take an outside view of the company to direct our clients in the way best fits.
With Purpose will help Build, Restore, and Advise the shifting parts throughout the organization to bring added success to your business.
Interested to learn more? Give us a call today to see how With Purpose can help grow your business!
Visit: www.withpurposellc.com/contact/
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Could You Risk Inaction?
Looking at the cost of services, courses, software, all with the hope you will get a great, or even decent return on your investment.
The ROI is important for business because it is a way to mark how much improvement is made in any category after spending time or money in something.
But what if you don’t invest time or money in ideas or services that could better your business?
The risk for an investment goes both ways. The first risk is investing, and the investment fails. You could lose time and money on that interaction.
The second risk is not taking the chance. Not acting on the opportunity can keep you in the same spot you have been.
Is that worth it to you?
Some would call this the “cost of inaction” or COI, not taking the step that could put you in the right direction. Whether it will free up your time or add more money into your pockets, it is a choice you make that could reap rewards.
If you could look 1 year into the future and see that nothing in your business has changed, would you be happy or disappointed?
With the resources you have now could you greatly impact the business you are working in with a positive reinforcement?
Sometimes the cost of inaction is more disappointing than a bad return on your investment.
You might not have lost something when you didn’t take action, but the experience, learning opportunities, and maybe even a more adaptable business could be a better return than nothing at all.
Many potential clients I have talked to always go along with the same mindset that takes them away from taking the right step forward.
The lack of a growth mindset halts their business altogether and restricts them from taking any steps at all, unless they are backward.
No matter how good the investment sounds, they can’t get their mind out of the negative emotions that go into decision making. The cost of inaction leaves all of these businesses to sit and soak in all of their problems.
This isn’t me trying to tell you every investment you come across is the “next best thing” and to throw all of your money into it, but to show that sometimes not taking action is more damaging.
The knowledge and experience can take you in the right direction, if you allow it to flourish.If you want more business and leadership content for encouragement, education, and empowerment, join the With Purpose Newsletter. Looking out for those emails will keep you up to date with With Purpose and the content we produce.You can join by clicking here:
The Overlooked Part of Growth
In the business world, the only time growth is relevant has been on a spreadsheet. Numbers, graphs, and especially revenue.
But there is another part of the growth that has been completely overlooked.
Recently, this has shown to be a bigger issue than most might see it to be. The growth of people.
Not the number of employees you have, but how the development of their work is going.
Giving better opportunities, giving better training, or even more training than what they have now.
The reason for this is, nearly 59% of employees claim they had no workplace training and that most of their skills were self-taught.
Over half of the workers surveyed didn’t have any formal training for on-the-job duties. They had to learn everything as they went using hope as their growth strategy.
Companies should invest in their employees. Not only with the initial training after the hiring process but also throughout their time inside the company.
You don’t stop watering a tree the moment you see a leaf. Why stop developing an employee the moment you see revenue generated?
There was a quote that I recently came across from Cardinal John Henry Newman that says, “Growth is the only evidence of life.”
And as I mentioned with the tree example, it is more important than ever to help employees learn.
Not only for their benefit but the companies as well. Here is why:
First off, employee retention.
Work Institute’s 2018 Retention Report stated that one in four workers leave their jobs and one-third of that turnover was due to unsupportive management and a lack of development opportunities.
Employees leave their employers for the simple reason of not having the development they need!
Taking a look at more numbers, a midsize company (1,000-9,999 employees) spends around $941 on average to train each employee.
This number looks quite large, but it came from the time invested, money spent, and salaries of the managers. Seeing this it is easy to understand why it turns out to be.
If an employee leaves the company because they weren’t invested in, the money you would spend is higher than that $1,000 mark.
A Gallup article mentions, “The cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary.”
If your employee had a salary of $50,000 a year, it would take between $25,000-$100,000 trying to replace and train someone new to even have a start at the new job.
This is an extreme difference, and one decision can change it all.
Are you sure you would still be willing to pay something like that?
Second, development is essential.
Employee growth and development will help both the individual and the company that is around it.
This engagement with your employees shows that the organization they work for values them.
This benefit helps retention, and it is natural to have reciprocation to engage with others in the workplace.
Engagement shows through many different ideas, but for this, we will focus on development.
Training, advancing careers, and growing leadership abilities are all a part of this.
A full 87% of millennials say professional development or career growth opportunities are very important to them in a job.
The bulk of the workforce has a high value toward this growth.
Not knowing where you can go or feeling like you are being stuck in the mud does not bring satisfaction to the individual.
To look at that satisfaction, only 29% of employees are “very satisfied.” This is toward their current career advancement opportunities available within their organization.
Finding ways to boost that number is the greatest way to benefit the work environment all around.
When you have a work environment that you feel you can thrive and grow in there would be no reason to leave.
Going back to the tree analogy, you can only grow in an environment that suits your needs.
If your employees aren’t engaged in their work, they will find somewhere else to go that will give them the care they need.
Building leaders and employee development are some of the strong suits of With Purpose.
The slogan of With Purpose is a heart for people and a mind for business is not something to gloss over.
We want to take care of and develop the people first because that is what matters.
To grow your business, you also need to grow your people. This is all possible through what With Purpose can provide you with.
Tailored to you. We help businesses grow to their needs, not a cookie-cutter because one size does not fit all.
Give us a call today to see what With Purpose can do for you!
Trust in the Workplace
Often searching out the graphical symmetry in chaos, while still maintaining the personality and emotion of the subject. The excitement and anticipation as we waited to see the next piece of unpredictable chaos was.
Time Management
Can’t seem to follow through with requirements?
Don’t have enough hours in the day to do what you need to do?
When you are in your day-to-day tasks it can feel like there isn’t enough time to complete your work, let alone spend time resting and relaxing.
Wanting to use the productivity managers in your daily life seems like it can be false hope. You know yourself better than the free app on your phone, right?
Stop trying to use these different tools and resources in your life if you are not going to adapt to them. Putting your to-do tasks in an app is great and all, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of efficient and effective workflow.
When dealing with real time management, you have to create a real list with tasks you do in order so that you don’t spend time debating what to do next.
It is a waste of time deciding the next task. One of my favorite quotes ever comes from Stephen Covey saying, “Don’t prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities.”
When you want to get your work done, you make sure you get the most important pieces done first so that you can get on with your day.
This is the most basic strategy you could or should use. There are many different strategies implemented by thousands that follow the same model. The bottom line is finding what works best for you and your team.
When saving time and a little bit of effort, what will you fill that empty space with? More work? More family fun? Better relaxation and peace of mind?
Everyone has the same 24 hours that you do. The same people feeling capable of doing more share the same amount of time with the people that are doing more.
The amount of time that you have in a day doesn’t matter if what you are doing isn’t meaningful to you.
This might feel a little bit off topic from a Time Management blog, but it is still relevant. Boredom and burnout happen when you are not interested in your work and what you do.
If you are burnt out or bored with what you do, you will most likely be sluggish through the workday and throughout the weeks following. How does wishing for more time matter if you aren’t using the time you have now?
This is some food for thought to bring what you are doing into focus. To be aware and transparent as you go about your business and life.
If you and your employees struggle with time management problems, contact With Purpose. This is to see how your team and business can develop and grow beyond where you are today.
To invest in both yourself, the people around you, and the business you run produces the greatest ROI.
Previous and current clients of mine were sometimes skeptical of what I bring to the table. Later, they told me after the beginning stages of my services that the value I brought in was surprising. You can have the same.
So you never forget, live your life With Purpose!
Perseverance
Think about someone like Walt Disney who battled with bankruptcy and almost giving up on his dream. Or maybe even Steve Jobs, who not only started his company from a garage, but got fired from the company he built.
These are just 2 examples from hundreds of the greatest. What did they have in common? Perseverance.
The Art of Perseverance was the name of one of the most recent podcasts that I created (If you want to check it out, click here).
This is an extremely and timely important issue to discuss, so I want to share a little bit more about this with you and expand on what I have previously written about.
There is a reason why the greatest business people of all time hold their title. Most didn’t have a handout to help them start a career.
The ability to keep going no matter how difficult the situations they faced were. They kept their mind right and put one foot in front of the other no matter how beat down or tired they were from life.
I share these stories with you just to share that you are not alone in your struggles with business. You can reach the dreams that you strive for. You can run the business you want if you keep working hard for it.
Especially in business, not many things come easily. I have had my fair share of struggles, and I am still going through them. I help my clients deal with the many business struggles that they are presented with.
When it gets difficult, giving up should not be the first thought that comes into your mind. If you truly want it, you will find the solution for it.
Perseverance is the ability to prove to yourself that you got what it takes. The confidence boost will be off the charts when you can hit a home run when no one expects that to happen.
Think about it, some of the greatest highlight reels on ESPN are game winning plays with only a few seconds left.
Just because the game is won in the final few seconds doesn’t mean you weren’t hustling throughout the whole game with the absolute desire to win.
Don’t knock yourself down because you are losing in the first quarter. Keep up the strength to put one foot in front of the other to reach the goal that you desire most.
Business is difficult, we both know the struggles. But they don’t have to define the end result.
If the problems in your business are too big, or you can’t do it on your own, With Purpose is always here to help. Whether it deals with your People, Processes, or Profit, you should invest in the solution.
Who is with Purpose?
For the people, the processes, and the profits. That is why and how With Purpose truly operates at the core level.
Bringing the value to all of our clients is surrounded by those 3 principles, or pillars of a business – that is what I like to call them.
Everything a business does is based upon those pillars, with multiple subcategories when wanting to be a little bit more specific. This is what I truly mean by them:
People: employees, customers, vendors, investors, board members; this is the life of your business. Without the people, there would be no reason for a business to stay open.
When working alongside the people, proper leadership, communication, and the working environment are all essential. With that, when working alongside clients, With Purpose helps lubricate the gears that sometimes get stuck around this area and ensure that they don’t get stuck again.
Processes: what you do, how you do it, and why you do it; it all needs to be effective and efficient. There is a method to a business’ madness but sometimes it can be a little too foggy to uncover.
Building out a streamlined and strategic process to enhance the business’ flow that everyone can agree on and thrive in is what will allow the ROI of consulting to skyrocket. It isn’t enough to just point out the issues a business can face.
Fixing those problems at the root source will allow for business to ultimately produce the results it desires.
Profits: the money, the value, and the costs of business. It isn’t always enough to pump as much money as possible into a business. It is said that the more money you make, the more expenses you have. I have seen it time and time again.
Cutting unnecessary costs is like pruning a field of flowers. You have to cut away from what isn’t needed to see the beauty of the business truly thrive. It is difficult to realize how certain aspects of money affect a business, but with an outsider prospective like business consulting provides, it is all for the best. Sometimes you don’t know what is holding you back when you are caught up in the day-to-day hustle of business.
People, Processes, and Profits. The 3 pillars of any business. The 3 pillars that I help my clients improve and grow for the strongest foundation possible.
Long-term success in your business will greatly appreciate you for focusing on these pillars. Overwhelming as it may seem, the fog can be lifted away by using our services at With Purpose.
If you are interested in seeing how With Purpose can help you grow your business, you can schedule a call by clicking here:
And as I always love to say: Live With Purpose!
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Energize Your Business
Often searching out the graphical symmetry in chaos, while still maintaining the personality.
The excitement and anticipation as we waited to see the next piece of unpredictable chaos was electric. These straps are all hand-made from our two good friends in Saigon, who are leather-makers, singers, and entrepreneurs.
The excitement and anticipation as we waited to see the next piece of unpredictable chaos was electric. These straps are all hand-made from our two good friends in Saigon, who are leather-makers, singers, and entrepreneurs. Also remember that money spent on traveling and experiences is always a better investment than buying new gear (if you don’t need it).
The excitement and anticipation as we waited to see the next piece of unpredictable chaos was electric. These straps are all hand-made from our two good friends in Saigon, who are leather-makers, singers, and entrepreneurs. Also remember that money spent on traveling and experiences is always a better investment than buying new gear (if you don’t need it).
I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the …Steve Jobs
The excitement and anticipation as we waited to see the next piece of unpredictable chaos was electric. These straps are all hand-made from our two good friends in Saigon, who are leather-makers, singers, and entrepreneurs. Also remember that money spent on traveling and experiences is always a better investment than buying new gear (if you don’t need it).