MBA1688 Guest Teacher – Jessica Burlingame – How To Revitalize Your Work-From-Home Team

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Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA Show Practical Business Building nuggets every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100mba.net and today's episode is a guest teacher episode. On today's guest teacher episode we have Jessica Burlingham and she'll be teaching you how to revitalize your work from home team. This lesson is incredibly insightful. The best part? It's simple. The tips she shares today are easy to implement and don't require a lot of investment of time effort. You can install these habits in your business right now. Let's be real. People are burnt out. We're at the end of a very trying year. People have been working from home, juggling work, life, health, family in so many ways. People are stressed and need a boost. They need to feel recognized. They need to feel like their leader hears them. This is your chance to answer their call and Jessica Burlingham is here to help us do just that. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's guest teacher, Jessica Burlingham is the founder and principal of Agon Advisors Innovators in dynamic talent development. She's a trained theater director, educator and performer with Shakespeare and Company and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She holds an MBA from Columbia University. And she's here today to give us some solid tips on how to revitalize our work from home teachers team with changing the way you lead, doing some simple things that recognize your team and help you get out of a jam, really. And come out looking strong. Come out looking like you know how to be a leader. I'm going to pass it on to Jessica now, but I'll be back with my own takeaways and to wrap up the lesson. But for now, take it away, Jessica.

Hi everybody. I'm Jessica Burlingame with Agon Advisors. Thanks so much for joining me. Today I'll be offering you four stealth moves to revitalize your work from home team. Whether you lead a team of two, of 10, or of 100, or if you are your own all star team of one, let's dive right in. First, let's talk about why a few stealth moves might serve you right now. Lots of us are facing unprecedented demands to work and to lead from home, which can be exhausting. But we still need to deliver maybe at a higher level than ever and maybe with less support. And we need all the vitality and energy we can get to make that happen. These four stealth moves may offer you and your people some of the support you need through this time. You may find as we go through this lesson today that you're making some of these moves already. In that case, today may give you some ideas to elevate your existing power moves into straight up superpower moves. Because let's face it, we probably all need our inner superhero more than ever these days. And yes, I do believe we all have an inner superhero. So let's dive into each stealth move one by one. Stealth move number one is to say whoops in public. That's right. You say whoops, you made a mistake, you own it and you move forward. You may make this move under many circumstances. Maybe you'd even say it to yourself from time to time. You might be saying to me, now, hold up a minute. Don't I look weak if I admit that I messed up? Isn't it better to try and fix a problem before anybody notices or just to power through it and hope for the best? Maybe. But the superpower stealth move is to say whoops in public and then to keep going. Don't hide a mistake, but don't let it crush or unduly Phase you either. Now, let's be clear here. As Deloitte leaders Jeff Tuff and Stephen Goldbach put it in a wonderful book called Detonate, celebrating failure can be an excuse for mediocrity. That's not what we're talking about with stealth move number one. What we are talking about is acknowledging and moving on from inevitable recoverable mistakes to get you and your team back on track to your best work together ASAP. What are some other benefits of stealth move number one saying whoops? Well, at some point, 100% of humans are going to make a mistake. If you can model the trust in yourself and your teammates to say whoops and then keep moving towards a solution, you might free up a whole lot of time and energy. And you might also reinforce that you and your team are in this together, even when you're physically apart. To recap, Superpower stealth move number one is to say whoops. And then move on. Let's all move on now to stealth move number two, which is to say I don't know. You heard it. The superpower stealth move of saying I don't know. You might make this move when you're fielding a question from a client that you can't answer right away. You might be stumped as you look to fix a mistake or resolve an issue. And you might be confronting real uncertainties within your business. As you listen, you might be saying back to me in your mind, wait a minute, don't I look dumb if I admit I don't know something or under prepared? Isn't it better to guess right away and hope I'm proved right in the long term? But the superpower stealth move here is not just to admit in public that you don't know something, but also that you're working on it and or you'll find somebody who does know and or you are open to others input and knowledge as you seek the answer that will serve your team. What are some other payoffs to this stealth move? Chances are that over the course of a career, or probably even a day, you'll need some information that you won't have exactly when you need it. Being honest about that inevitable moment when it happens can liberate you and your team from scrambling to save face in the short term and from any damage control that approach might require later on bonus points for stealth move number two. One of your teammates might actually know that thing that you don't. And this stealth move of admitting you don't know then both gets you quickly to an answer and even more importantly perhaps even gives that teammate a chance to shine, revitalizing their day for sure, and hopefully yours with ripple effects for the rest of the team as well. To recap stealth move number two is to say I don't know and move on. As we move on to stealth move number three, consider the superpower of saying thank you. Maybe your teammate came through with an answer you didn't have. Maybe your assistant saved you from a scheduling fumble. Maybe your client shared some feedback that helped you up your own game. You might be saying to me now, hang on. I say thank you all the time. How's that a stealth move? First off, if you're already saying thanks frequently, you are ahead of the game. Thank you. Second, from that base, you might consider how to superpower your thank yous by making them as personal and specific as possible. A simple thank you might give the hearer a general sense of being appreciated and some positive feelings. But a personal specific thank you can offer meaningful data about the exact value that you recognize in any teammate's specific action or contribution. It might also help establish a valuable team norm of recognizing and celebrating your value to each other as you continue your day to day. What are some other payoffs of stealth move number three? Saying thank you? Well, we all want to be seen for who we are at our best. That's what Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall share in a beautiful book called Nine Lies, about a free thinking leader's guide to the real world. Now, as a leader, you might give great attention to the feedback that you offer your people. Saying thank you is a little different. It's offering attention, recognition, maybe even gratitude. And how could that not give your teammate a lift? It might just lift you up too. Bonus points. You might offer a personal, specific thank you for something the other person might not ever have noticed they did if you hadn't flagged it. Finding hidden treasures on your team Always, always a win. To recap stealth move number three, say thank you and make that as personal and as specific as you can. Moving on to stealth move number four, Last but not least is to say I'm sorry.

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Let's let that sink in for a moment. Saying I'm sorry can acknowledge both that you care for your teammates experience and that you feel genuinely accountable to that person regardless of their seniority or of any other variable in your relationship. Now you might be saying to me hold on, I need my people to take more ownership as we're working from home and I can't check in as much. How does telling them I'm sorry help with that? First of all, I hear you working from home almost always requires more ownership and autonomy with less day to day support than we're used to. But you might consider reframing how you understand. Saying a sincere I'm sorry. Doing this with a teammate might model your own sense of radical ownership of your actions at work. You might even convey a sense of accountability not just towards the tangible performance metrics that you're accountable for, but for the subjective experience of each teammate that you work with. Again, let's be clear here. You can't 100% control your performance against metrics every time. And likewise you you can't guarantee on 100% optimal experience for each of your people either. But openly working towards that ideal day in and day out might help you find the kind of lift and vitality you need during challenging times. What are some other payoffs of stealth move number four? Well, it might elevate your team's overall sense of psychological safety, which Google's project Aristotle identified as the number one driver of great team performance, or for our purposes, a superpower. All of our stealth moves today, in fact, might help you enhance your team's superpower of psychological safety. Again, whether you're leading two people 10 or 100, or if you are your own all star team of one to recap stealth move number four is to say I'm sorry, helping support your team's psychological safety to do your best work together, even when you're apart. As we wrap up our time together today, let's take a moment to recap. The four stealth moves to revitalize your team while you work from home are to say sincerely and with respect, whoops, I. I don't know. Thank you and I'm sorry. Each of These moves can convey to the other person, I value you. I'm listening to you. I'm with you in this. For me personally, each of these moves has superpowered my own work with clients and colleagues in settings from boardrooms to, interestingly enough, theaters, which are the first workspaces that I ever truly loved. Together, these moves help reinforce that nobody works for you because everybody works with you. And that's what we at Agon Advisors call the status mindset. Thank you so much, everybody. Again, I'm Jessica Burlingame with Agon Advisors. If you're interested in continuing to learn with us, you can Visit us@agonadvisors.com that's a G O N Advisors with an O Com. Thanks again for joining me today. Back to Omar.

What a powerful lesson by Jessica Burlingham. I especially love her tip on saying I don't know. Sometimes as entrepreneurs, we feel like we have to be an expert at all times, that we have to have an answer for everything. If an employee or a customer asks us a question, we feel like we need to respond immediately.

We don't.

This is just not real. You can't have all the answers all the time. If you don't have an answer, that is correct a hundred percent. This is sound advice. Just say, you know what, I need to get back to you. I don't have an answer for that right now, but I promise I'll go look into it, get you an answer, and get back to you. I found when I did this, my clients, the people I work with, they trust me more. They take everything I say a lot more seriously because I don't just say yes to everything. They're like, okay, great. This person actually thinks about what I'm saying to them before they reply. And when they do reply, I can trust it. Because when he doesn't have a reply, doesn't have an answer, he lets me know. I get worried. If people always have an answer, that's just not real. Saying I don't have an answer and that I'll get back to them earns me credit, earns me a reputation for authenticity and trustworthiness. Take that opportunity to say I don't know and relieve the pressure on yourself to have all the answers all the time. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. To learn more about Jessica Burlingham and Agon Advisors, go to AgonAdvisors.com while you're listening to this podcast right now, hit that subscribe button on whatever podcast app you're using right now by hitting subscribe, you're going to get access to over 1600 episodes in our archives. It's the only way to get access. It's absolutely free and it's a good.

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Also, if you want to support the show, share the show on social media. Go ahead and share with your friends and family and let them know that you love the $100 MBA. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. We're reaching the end of the year. We're in that holiday season and we're pretty much burnt out. Be mindful of your energy levels right now, your focus level. If you need to take a break, take a break. Do not get to the point of burnout. It's going to maybe cost you more in mistakes. So be mindful and take a break when needed. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 Ombier show. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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