Friday’s results confession hangs in many team’s schedules. I used to attend and organize thesemyself, too. During those years I observed repeating symptoms:
Sales guys get nervous before such meeting. Managers feel horrified about who will be late for their meeting. If anyone comes three minutes late a blood pressure goes up and ego experiences life’s betrayal. Such meeting is accompanied with looking forward to the end. Eventually sales guys get exact instructions of what they should do next week. They rather nod: “Actually yes, hm, You (my boss) are right, sure sure…” and it all ends with a feeling of emptiness.
Hey, remember. It is Friday! You have done a lot of great tough work and today is the day when You all shall enjoy Your results, laugh, sort of celebrate it a bit — buy cookies, make a toast with whatever you’re drinking, make a little party for a few minutes, tell jokes, funny stories from meetings. And also give space for creative ideas.
Loiter to that meeting. Stop by in the office kitchen and tell a joke from a meeting You had this week. So what? Tell what went great, what You’ve reached. Tell wich clients were entertaining and what Faux Pas happened.
Create an environment where everyone can openly say “I screwed this up”, then You laugh about that and then of course You find a way how to fix this and avoid that for next time. In such environment people are not afraid and are ready to learn.
I am not saying You shall not care about KPIs, results and numbers but when somebody made a little bit less sales meetings than the week before he does not have to be publicly punished and embarassed. What You as a manager can say is: “Oh dear, what happened? You had a pebble in Your shoe?…” laughter. Come on. The fact that he is the only one with less meetings that day will motivate him for next time itself.
Do You want a high performing and motivated team? So You better figure out how to let them leave for a weekend in a greatly positive optimistic mood. Next week they’ll come back to work invincible, ready to rock.
