I had a client — I’ll call her Lucy. She was super bored in her job and desperately wanted a change, something challenging. Work was feeling like a chore and Sunday nights were giving her the bad kind of butterflies.
Lucy had had some difficult feedback around one interaction with a colleague. It felt like she was walking around with a target on her back and though it was unfair, it had really damaged her confidence. When I met Lucy, she was frustrated that her hard work wasn’t being recognized, and she was in a funk. And she was looking for a job.
Lucy was carrying her lack of confidence into interviews outside, and into the conversations about her future at her organization. And when that stuck energy made the conversations go badly, she figured it had to do with her and her abilities. It made me sad to see her. She was so talented and passionate about her work and she was doing what I see so many people do.
She didn’t have the confidence to have the right conversations.
Here’s the thing. People want to feel excited about work, they just don’t realize there’s a process to it.
And when they see others thriving, they think those people have something they don’t or are sucking up to the boss, or are willing to work ’till they drop.
Here’s what we did with Lucy that made a lightbulb go off.
I asked her, “What stories did your mom tell about you as a child?” “That’s easy!” She said, “On plane rides I used to go up and down the aisles asking everyone about themselves and where they were going. I’d come back with all sorts of information about grandmothers headed to see their grandkids, students headed on summer backpacking trips, and families headed to the beach.”
I remember Lucy giggling with nervous disbelief when I suggested she share this story. But she did. Suddenly she went from any other salesperson talking about the growth she’d delivered, blah, blah… to someone passionate about people and eager to serve her customers. And she felt authentic talking about it. She got an amazing next position that met her challenge (and then some!) and hasn’t looked back.
Knowing your team’s strengths is one thing. Helping them understand the value their strengths bring to an organization makes their confidence soar. And when that happens, they roll up their sleeves. They don’t get as sensitive or defensive about the feedback you know will help them grow. And you get to focus on other things.
Helping your team make that connection is what I’ll be talking about in my upcoming free webinar…
The Confidence Toolkit: How to Have Confidence in Every Situation, from Navigating Your Career to Inspiring Your Team
January 28th @ 6:00 – 7:00PM
Save Your Spot Here
In this virtual workshop, you will discover…
- How to give your team the recognition they want, so they have more entrepreneurial spirit
- The one thing most people do that doesn’t work, and how to avoid it
- The secret to avoiding the dips in trust that will alienate your reports
We’ll also have plenty of time for open Q&A, so you can ask me about YOUR specific work situation or challenges
Why am I calling it the “Confidence Toolkit?”
Because confidence isn’t something magical your team just “has.” It has parts and it gets built.
It’s hard to get the outcome you want when you don’t know what those parts are.
Take the first step to figuring out your team’s path to confidence. Join me.
Sign up here for a confident 2020.