Successful Blog

6 Ways to Credit Your Team

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By Ben Morton

Recently I was reading an article on INC entitled ‘The Difference Between Managers and Leaders‘ by Ilya Pozin where he provided some fantastic insights. Ilya’s fifth point was this:

‘Managers want credit, leaders credit their teams’

This is a brilliant point. When it’s acted upon the impact that it has on the leader’s connection with their team, the trust that it engenders, and the respect it earns the leader is huge.

What was really interesting to me though was one of the comments from a reader.

‘How do I give credit when I answer to the MD without my staff present; how will my staff know?’

This is actually a great question which prompted me to stop and reflect on how I have actually gone about this during my leadership career. So, here are my personal and very practical tips to do this.

1. They will just know…

Here’s the key thing. If you start from a position of genuinely wanting to support your people and ‘give credit where credit is due’ then you will naturally credit you team whenever you can. By consistently crediting your team to your boss, your peers, your customers or whoever it may be, these people will eventually come back to your team and say something like this…

‘Hi John. Ben told me about all the work you put into that proposal – great job and thanks’

So you see – they will just know.

2. Reactive email

When you get that email from your boss saying ‘thank you’ or ‘great job’ why not respond, cc’ing your team or the individual, saying something like…

“Thanks Nigel but it was actually Gemma who did all of the hard work on that project so she really needs the praise. Well done again Gemma and thanks.’

3. Proactive email

Instead of waiting to redirect the credit to your team why not be proactive by sending a thank you email to your team and cc’ing your boss.

4. Ask your boss to thank them

Next time you are in a meeting with your boss and you tell him or her that it was your team that put in all of the hard work why not say something like this…

‘The team worked really hard on that project Nigel and it would be great if you could stop by and say well done or drop them a really short email.’

It would take a pretty cold boss to refuse such a request.

5. Pass on credit in public

During a team meeting or company event look for the opportunities to publicly pass on the credit, praise and thank your team or individuals for all of their hard work.

6. Use the intranet

If your company has an intranet site why not post a very short news article celebrating the team or individual’s success and attributing the credit to them.

Hopefully you’ve found this list useful and there are some things in here that you will go and apply to help move you from a good manager to an exceptional leader. I know that there are lots more ways to give credit to your team and I’d love to hear what you are doing…

Author’s Bio: BEN MORTON is a Consultant at TwentyOne Leadership specialising in the provision of high quality leadership training, mentoring and coaching. He has approaching two decades experience in leadership, learning and management along with a wealth of expertise in strategic Human Resource management drawn from experience as a Board Member in small entrepreneurial organizations and working in large multi-nationals such as Tesco and TUI Travel. Having led expeditions around the globe from the Alps of Europe to the Steppe Country of Mongolia and served two operational tours of Iraq as an Officer in the British Army, Ben understands what it takes to lead people in the most difficult of conditions. He’s passionate about sharing his knowledge, experience and expertise.

You’re Only A Stranger Once

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The tagline for this blog jumped off the site at me the other day.

Liz says, “you’re only a stranger once.”

You're only a stranger once

The first time you encounter someone, whether it’s online or offline, you have a lifetime of possibilities floating between you. There’s no messy experience to muddy the waters, no shared history. As strangers, you are just two molecules floating around.

Kaboom.

The molecules collide.

Now the possibilities start to develop.

Will you share a laugh in your first meeting? Will the other person say something that violates your personal code, and immediately cut off the possibilities? Will you decide to have a second experience together?

I recently had the great pleasure to welcome a new customer who arrived via a two year long, circuitous series of molecular collisions both in real life (at conferences) and online. And the most wonderful thing is that, when each of the encounters took place, neither one of us had an “endgame” or “agenda” in mind, other than being open to meeting new people.

If you’re open to the possibilities, then the happy accidents can happen. And they happen more frequently, the more you put yourself out there. Magically, the byproduct of this open intention is that you can become a “super-collider.”

The beautiful tagline at the top of this page means something. Whether it’s your first comment, your first submission of a guest post, your first time attending a SOBCon event, your first time reading this blog, you’re only a stranger once.

Everything after that is possibilities.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: pshab via Compfight cc

Beach Notes: The Pursuit of Perfection

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By Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

sand dolphin

We watched this dolphin being modeled one Sunday afternoon at Rainbow Bay beach.

Perfection with great attention to detail and made to last. The man building the dolphin was meticulous in the finish of his dolphin, so much so that they we enjoyed it for 4 mornings afterwards before the waves finally were washing it away.

sand dolphin day 4

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Innovation. Ownership. Collaboration.

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By Sherrie Rohde

It seems that lately the words innovation, ownership and collaboration are cycling through my daily thought process and conversations at a rate that I can barely keep up with.

Innovation

Innovation is our starting place. With social media we’ve created an outlet for emphasizing every disaster, whether it’s a true world catastrophe or lapse in judgment. Instead of looking at the world with this emphasis of pain and failure, let’s look at it through the lens of “How can we make this a better place?” I’m not saying those problems aren’t real, but it’s time we step up and take ownership to be part of the solution.

Ownership

It’s a bit difficult to separate innovation and ownership, but taking innovation to action requires owning the problem and the idea with a commitment to work towards a solution.

The world would look drastically different if we spent more time identifying a problem to own, rather than fighting for more space, more time, or more money in our own little part of the world.
—Lara Galinsky, Harvard Business Review

When we have a sense of ownership, we take pride in that thing we have owned, whether it be an idea or a project or a community. I recently made the decision to identify what I’m passionate about and to learn to say no to projects that didn’t fall under that umbrella. Not only did it make life far less stressful, but it also made it easy to focus on those problems I did choose to own.

Collaboration

There comes a point where we realize that despite our aspiration for innovation and ownership of the problem, we can’t do it by ourselves. And why should we? When we connect with the right people, those whose goals are aligned with ours, our force is stronger and our reach is further.

Let’s work together to make a difference.

Identify a problem to innovate. Take ownership. Collaborate for impact.

Solve big problems.

Author’s Bio: Sherrie Rohde writes about community management at mycmgr.com. She is passionate about community innovation in the tech space with an emphasis on user experience and e-commerce. Sherrie loves learning and is energized by helping others succeed. Recently she’s collaborated with Jennifer Shaw to solve the big problem of tech education for rural women in America through bellaminds.com. You can connect with her on Twitter as @sherrierohde or Google+.