FROM THE DESK OF THERESE

Successful business during uncertain times

Impact HR Director Therese Ravell shares her reflections on topics to impart some advice that may be important, relevant and helpful to the business community.

Those of you who work closely with me, know that I sometimes describe running a business as being similar to riding a rollercoaster. The past 18 months have certainly seen me use it more regularly than I used to. There are times when we need to stay the path while we climb to the top of an obstacle, the momentum kicks in and we are moving quickly and it is exciting, an unexpected turn means we need to adjust, reach for our contingency plans to quickly hit the targets. However, if we have the right vision and values (our rollercoaster rails) everyone stays on track moving seamlessly together.

So how can we as leaders help our team stay seamlessly on track?

Leadership, Management and Coaching are the common themes. And yes, they are closely linked but different.

• Leading a team or organisation is about the WHY, creating the vision of what you will achieve together. Right now there may be more short term goals mixed in with the longer term goals. For some of our clients we are talking weekly vision statements that connect to the long term goal but make it really easy for the team to stay focused.
• Managing is about the HOW. It’s the controls and checkpoints we put in place so we know if we are achieving the objectives. For some clients, we have had to revise some of the HOWs. Personally, we can’t run the face-to-face training so we are SURTHRIVING by moving to Online and creating very personal ways of empowering our clients to achieve their personal and business goals.
• Coaching is about helping you and your team to leverage their own strengths to achieve the WHY and the HOW.

Now more than ever, we have to understand that we can’t do this by incredible willpower alone. For many successful people, the level of change is new and we can’t tap into our personal “Success Playbook”. At the moment there are uncontrollables which we need to acknowledge and move past.

Coaching for you can help you move both your own mindset and that of your team beyond those barriers and create the solutions that empower success regardless of the limitations. Success may look different, but it is still success.

Using these three things (leadership, management and coaching) our teams can commit to the business with their Hearts, Heads and Hands.

Surthrival is the outcome