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home  /  Success stories/ What prevents me from working are the main professional problems. What qualities hinder any employee?

What prevents me from working are the main professional problems. What qualities hinder any employee?

It is clear that the more effective our work, the higher the result. And this affects our characteristics and value as an employee, material remuneration, etc. However, we are not always able to organize our activities in the right direction. There are factors that prevent us from working effectively. Which?

1. PostponementonTomorrowTogo, WhatCandoToday


The email is bursting with unsorted letters, the contract that was required to be submitted a month ago has not been signed, and the accepted project remains at the development stage. The reasons for delays may vary. Some people don't like working according to a schedule. Others begin to feel stupor from the importance and tight deadlines for completing the work. Some find it difficult to separate the important from the unimportant, while others are afraid to admit their incompetence to their colleagues and stall because they do not dare to ask for advice. The use of deferments usually affects not only you, but also your colleagues. In fact, you do not put off work, but are afraid of having to make a decision, because it causes powerful emotions. The reason may lie in early childhood, when you did something that caused a negative reaction from parents, teachers or other significant adults. It was then that the fear of making a mistake appeared, which intensified over time. Fear of punishment overpowers the desire to act.

Whatdo?
Talk to a colleague you trust and ask for his help. Select 1-2 main tasks from those you are putting off. After completing them, take on the other 2 and so on. Well-set priorities and Feedback Colleagues will help you rely on yourself better and save a lot of nerves.

2. Reluctanceadmit, WhatthiscompanyNotyours


On weekdays, you do everything possible to reset your alarm clock. You are chronically late for work and are forced to come up with a reason for your lateness every time. There are no prospects for development, you count every minute until the end of the working day, and sometimes you call your boss and say that you are sick, although anyone would envy your health. You are so tired of endless survival that you simply don’t have the strength to think about other options. You may be tormented by a feeling of guilt that you will just leave the company like this, which, however, plays into the hands of your superiors. It may also seem that you won’t be able to find anything better.

Whatdo?
If you are in doubt about whether to leave or stay, then ask yourself just a few questions: “If I had to start my career over again, would I choose this path?”, “If yes, then why?”, “If not, then why.” ?, “Why do I keep doing this?” Think about what the worst thing will happen to you if you leave this job. Determine the time frame you need to make a final decision. If the situation does not change, it's time to update your resume and improve your qualifications. Also pay attention to whether you often complain about your work situation to colleagues and friends. It's possible that the endless stream of complaints is tiring those who could support you.

3. Inabilitydelegateresponsibility


Surely you follow the principle: “If you want to do something well, do it yourself.” In some situations this undoubtedly pays off. If you always act in accordance with this principle, then you are simply guaranteed an endless stream of work. Many employers make excellent use of this, increasing the employee’s workload more and more, because they know that, on pain of death, he will not say that it is hard for him, because he simply will not want to admit his imaginary weakness. It also happens that the removal of certain responsibilities leads to misunderstanding and resentment. You may feel that your rights have been violated or insulted. Reluctance to delegate responsibility is nothing more than overcontrol. Reluctance to share work with others is an expression of distrust. Most often, overcontrol is inherent in people who, from childhood, bore great responsibility for younger brothers and sisters, who grew up in alcoholic families, where they had to take on many responsibilities around the house, or who did not receive enough attention from their parents, which required constant stress in order to be good and earn their praise.

Whatdo?
Think about what exactly you want to entrust to your colleague. Set aside time and space so that the person can watch you do what they are supposed to do. After that, let him get down to business under your supervision. For the final step, act as a “learner” or watch a colleague teach someone else. If it seems to you that no one else can do this except you, remember the saying “even a hare can be taught to smoke” and try again.

4. Desirelikecolleagues


How will they treat a boss who avoids conflicts with subordinates or redoes all the work for them? Naturally, without respect. Or maybe you yourself have recently joined a new team and are bending over backwards to please your colleagues? At first, such attempts touch you, then they irritate you, and then they cause a persistent desire to mock you. Most often, women are prone to this behavior, because... their self-esteem depends on relationships with others, while men's self-esteem is associated with competence. The desire to please is most often expressed in the fact that a person does not just work, but works hard to earn the approval of colleagues. The actions of such a person are carefully planned and organized, because... he simply does not give himself the right to make a mistake. Such people cannot say “no”, even if a colleague’s request may disrupt their plans.

Whatdo?
Ask yourself, how did you behave as a child? Have you done anything specifically to earn your parents' praise and approval? Instead of thinking of yourself as a puppy who wants to be petted, think of yourself as the puppy's owner—as a person whose respect you want to earn. Learn to say no. If it seems to you that a disaster will follow after refusal, then think about all the people you know. successful people. Surely, when they said “no,” they achieved their goals faster and did not waste their energy on unnecessary requests.

5. Straightforwardness


Some people get truly great pleasure from cutting the truth, no matter what. It seems to them that they are the only ones capable of telling the truth in person, because... the rest simply don’t dare do it. At a meeting, they may interrupt a colleague with a question: “How much longer are you going to talk?” or: “You came up with another idiotic idea.” An attempt by others, colleagues, or management to ask for restraint risks running into such a person’s misunderstanding, and this may be followed by statements that if it weren’t for him, no one at this job would call a spade a spade. In most cases, speaking directly is a demand for attention. Often this feature is a defensive reaction that has been established since childhood, when in order to attract the attention of parents, the child said something funny or offensive, and this was guaranteed to lead to results.

Whatdo?
When you feel like making a snarky remark, count to five. If your goal is not constructive criticism, but to attract attention to your person, then it is better to simply remain silent. If you really don’t care what others think of you, then you should ask yourself: “Why are you so persistent in expecting a reaction to your words?” You may be annoyed by certain people, but it is best to respect their boundaries. Take a closer look at colleagues who enjoy universal respect. Pay attention to his demeanor, listen to what and how he says, how he answers questions. Try this image on yourself, because perhaps it will suit you.

Of course, this is not the entire list of what may interfere with your work. You may well be able to supplement it yourself, having gained experience with similar difficulties.

Of course, every manager wants his staff to be more efficient, productive, effective... you can write any other word. The question of productivity sometimes arises very, very often, especially when affected current problem. So what do you need to do to become more effective? or let's turn the question around: What prevents us or our employees from being more effective?

I will offer several interesting approaches that I personally use in my work, and you, of course, can use it in yours and write your opinion in the comments to this article based on what you have read.

So let's get started:

Are you striving for perfection? Do you want to be the best of the best?

Perhaps you say: What kind of question? - of course?!

But let's be honest with ourselves - Did you succeed? In most cases, did you manage to become ideal, perfect? - of course not, so we draw a simple and very cynical conclusion:

Stop torturing yourself, give up unattainable ideals and concentrate on what you like, what you get pleasure from and perhaps, I emphasize perhaps, through small, insignificant changes you will become more perfect.

Let me give you a simple example: You can strive to become an ideal/perfect leader, spend years on it and not achieve success, or you can let go of the situation, read the article: and success will come to you! Of course, your staff can become ideal, but this is achieved by completely different methods of corporate training.

Learn to concentrate or Learn to concentrate!

Everyone knows the saying well: If you chase two hares, you won’t catch a single one, but the question is: what if you chase three? four? — I think the answer is obvious, but why do you need this?

Imagine that the basis of any achievement is moving from point A to point B, it’s very easy to do, and then - when you are about to move, at every meter of your path you are distracted and asked completely innocent questions: What time is it? Where are you going? Have you seen an elephant? — It would seem that the questions are simple, but if you answer them, it will take you a very long time to reach point B.

Therefore, concentration is the basis of many problems, including in your company. At one corporate training I was asked: how to quickly increase the efficiency of corporate training? I answered: It’s very easy to do, just remove distractions, for example turn off mobile phone or put them aside. And it works! It is important that instead of the distraction factor, a factor begins to arise called: what to occupy my mind and at this moment the correct information can and should be offered.

What distractions do you know? and how much do they affect work?

Get rid of negativity!

Get rid of yourself and your employees from any negativity, it is the negativity that drags you and your staff down. As soon as you hear any negative thought or news, try to work through it through constructive criticism and analysis. Strive to create an environment to inspire yourself and your company's employees.

For example, in my personal presentation I point out: Involving and inspiring listeners of corporate trainings and business seminars to take action!

And in my opinion, this is very important, because the negativity begins with the daily routine, and then it all sucks in step by step and now we are being controlled! Who controls? - you ask - the answer will be simple: your negative thoughts!

Take responsibility! Teach you to take responsibility!

Unfortunately, but this is a fact, many do not like to take responsibility; they try to shift even small, trivial, everyday issues onto the shoulders of others. Take action! You yourself must learn to make decisions and take responsibility for these decisions, and not wait for someone to approve it.

Attitude towards mistakes. Work on mistakes.

As usual, there are two extremes here:

  1. either people ignore the mistakes they have made;
  2. or, on the contrary, they begin to engage in self-flagellation.

You need to be able to work with mistakes, turning mistakes into a starting mechanism for success. It is very easy to make a competitive advantage out of mistakes and failures; by the way, at corporate trainings I analyze several cases on this topic.

Correct work with opportunities?

On the one hand, opportunity is great, in fact it means new profit, but on the other hand, opportunity can become an illusion, a mirage, and it is very important to understand:

What's actually possible and what's really not!

The system for assessing opportunities against reality, the ability to correctly set priorities is key in corporate management and everyone knows this, but they forget when opportunities burst into our heads, overshadowing the mind of thinking.

The ability to say NO!

Correct business processes imply minimizing the occurrence of emergency situations, therefore:

  • learn to say NO to tasks that distract from business processes;
  • learn to work through those situations that do not fit into your business processes;
  • learn to understand “what is important” and “what is not important”, because it is understanding that shapes the attitude towards the decision, and therefore the distribution of time and money.

Education!!!

Training cannot be ignored, but keep in mind that training can be both highly specialized and multidisciplinary. Multidisciplinary training gives the maximum effect, as it allows you to expand your range of thinking, and therefore learn to find and implement new things.

But most managers focus on narrow-profile training, on “magic pills”, clear algorithms that may be good in a stable economy, but will become absolutely useless when solving a little non-standard tasks, not to mention stressful situations and crises.

By the way, using the above criteria, you can make a test questionnaire on employee productivity, the task is as follows:

Answer the questions yourself and invite employees to take part in the survey.

It is calculated simply: each Yes, this is 1 point; every No, that's 0 points.

Employee Productivity Questionnaire:

  1. Do you strive for excellence, strive to be the best of the best?
  2. Can you concentrate?
  3. Do you know how to work with negativity?
  4. Do you know how to work with responsibility?
  5. Do you know how to deal with errors?
  6. Do you know how to work with opportunities?
  7. Do you know how to say NO?
  8. Can you study?

Yes, reflexively, we answer the first question Yes, immediately falling into the trap of illusions, but the remaining questions allow us to concentrate on the result, and this is just the beginning! The list of questions can be significantly expanded.

How many points did you score? and how many points do your employees have? let's try to draw conclusions:

And of course, answers to questions can be made much wider than points by providing/forcing specific answers to be written.

Now write what you really want to learn to do, what issues to work through, and if you wish, you can contact me for advice or corporate training.

Your opinion is welcome, write in the comments and share this article with your friends on social networks.

On the path to maturity and effectiveness, the team may suddenly find that growth has slowed down. One of the symptoms of the restrictions that have appeared is low level desires for change and their low results. It is useful to analyze the most common mistakes, because this makes it easier to solve team problems.

1. Unsuitability of the leader

Leadership is perhaps the most important factor, which determines the quality of the team’s work. A leader who is unwilling to use a team approach or who lacks the ability to use this style of leadership will suppress any team-building initiative.

A good leader always pays special attention and shows personal example how to bring questions to complete solution. There are several components of success. An effective team leader:

  • is honest in relation to the beliefs of other people, and they also consider him honest;
  • uses delegation of authority as a means of achieving goals and developing the team;
  • has clear and equal evaluation criteria for all subordinates;
  • willing and able to provide and receive trust and loyalty in return;
  • has sufficient strength to maintain the integrity and position of the team;
  • is able to perceive the hopes, fears and needs of his employees, respects their dignity;
  • faces facts honestly and directly;
  • encourages the development of each group and each individual;
  • installs and maintains effective techniques work;
  • strives to ensure that work is a source of satisfaction and inspiration for everyone.

2. Low qualifications of employees

The collective is more than the sum of individual gifts. You need a balanced mix of employees who can work together. In any team there is a need to fulfill various functions, and analysis of such “roles” helps to create a balanced and full-blooded team. We can distinguish an “idea provider,” an “analyst,” an “organizer,” a “critic,” and several “executors.” It happens that each employee takes on one or more of the listed roles. If there is no one to fill a certain role, then the team has to fill this gap.

If team members lack basic work skills, then useful results are unlikely to be obtained. It is necessary to achieve a combination of professional and human qualities, which together only allow one to successfully cope with the job.

A developed employee can be identified by the following characteristics:

  • energetic;
  • knows how to cope with his emotions;
  • ready to openly express his opinion;
  • presents it well;
  • can change one's point of view under the influence of arguments, but not force.

3. Unconstructive social climate

It often turns out that people are united in a team of different ages, with very different backgrounds, with different values ​​and life plans. This can objectively lead to difficulties in creating a constructive social climate.

Employees' dedication to the team's tasks is one of the signs of a positive climate. Commitment to the team must be developed consciously, since it rarely arises on its own until each employee personally decides to devote his energy to collective goals. Growing loyalty is an indicator of the maturity of the team. Emotional bonds between employees are strengthened, and they are better able to actively pursue shared goals, and ownership brings great satisfaction. There is a warmth in the team that combines directness and honesty with concern for the well-being of everyone. The team approach encourages everyone to be their own person.

Another important aspect of collectivism is support. In this case, the team allows each individual to feel stronger and more confident. If disagreements arise between employees, it is better to speak about them publicly. When important issues remain unspoken, the team climate becomes defensive: people hide their views, preferring to be convenient rather than natural and useful to the common cause.

4. Unclear goals

The first step to success is to understand what you are striving for. A capable and mature team of people is usually able to achieve a goal if everyone is clear about the desired results. Team members are more likely to devote themselves to a goal if they share it and consider it to some extent their own goal. Achieving such agreement may not be easy, but experience has shown that it is an essential prerequisite for successful teamwork.

If there is no clear vision of the goal, then, as a result, individual team members cannot contribute to the overall success. Even when goals are clear to everyone, it is important to find a compromise between personal and collective interests. An effective team allows each employee to satisfy their personal interests and contribute to the realization of collective interests.

Collective and individual goals need to change over time. There are many examples of teams that had clear goals at the beginning, but paid for their inability to adjust them later. A team that looks forward, anticipates difficulties, uses all opportunities, and specifies goals depending on the accumulated experience. Such a team will ultimately achieve success.

5. Ineffective working methods

Smart work practices and effective decision-making are essential to any team. The following questions deserve special attention:
  • how decisions are made;
  • what are the methods of collecting and presenting information;
  • what are the relationships inside and outside the team;
  • Is resource management efficient?
  • whether the decision analysis process has been developed;
  • how new tasks are assessed;
  • what are the criteria for measuring effectiveness.
In a good team, working methods are so refined that they become an informal but strict discipline. People learn to apply quality criteria to their actions. Individual employees acquire personal skills that are generally recognized and used within the team. There is a spirit of competence at meetings and there is rarely a dull moment. The team is moving forward quickly, while high level personal attention and ease of communication ensure quick resolution of all relevant conflict situations.

6. Lack of openness and confrontation

To be successful, team members must be able to express their opinions about each other, discuss disagreements and problems without fear of appearing ridiculous and without fear of retaliation. If team members are unwilling to express their views, a lot of energy, effort, and creativity is wasted. Effective teams do not avoid sensitive and unpleasant issues, but rather tackle them honestly and directly.

A clash of views, when properly channeled and used constructively, leads to increased mutual understanding between employees. Positive conflict results in openness, reduced tension, improved relationships, and increased trust. Distrust and hostility grow from negative conflicts.

7. Unconstructive relationships with colleagues

At work, you usually have to deal with other teams, but sometimes the quality of such interaction is low. Quite often, connections are unsatisfactory and common goals are lacking.

When talking about their work, managers often use terms from the field of sports: “play to win”, “score points”, define “style of play”. These expressions show what people think about their work and what mental images they use to explain what is happening.

The team leader has a special role in strengthening ties with other teams, and he can do a lot to prevent hostility and the emergence of cooperation.

Every morning, when we come to the office, we find ourselves in a situation where everyone around us seems to have conspired to distract each other from performing their work duties. We devote 20 minutes to communicating with girlfriends, another half hour to a coffee break, and then a few minutes on the Internet - photos of desserts and cats can’t wait. Ultimately, the matter is not completed, although it did not require enormous effort or time. "How so? After all, I was at work!”, you think.

Any advice from leading time management coaches tells us that we need a series of long stretches of time to complete certain tasks. For example, drawing up an important report requires three hours of working time and must be devoted to work without breaks or communication with colleagues or superiors. By the way, this explains the habit of some employees of arriving earlier or leaving later - at this time no one bothers us to work.

I have no idea how long my employees work. I just know that they are doing what needs to be done.

Jason Fried identifies two key problems that distract us from work: M&M are managers and events, as he calls them. The task of managers is precisely to constantly ask you: “How are you doing with your important partner? How are things going? And we immediately begin to talk about successes, or more often we say: “Well, I’m just finishing up.” But all this is the least evil of our work. The worst thing is the meetings. Jason Fried calls meetings "a terrible, toxic way to spend time at work." Do meetings and managers really impact work in a positive way? At least when there are too many of them, definitely not.

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Jason Fried suggests several ways to get rid of the negative influence of M&M:

    Organize a time when colleagues will not interfere with each other’s work. For example, “silent Thursday”, when in the afternoon everyone will do their work without being distracted by extraneous issues, email, social networks and meetings. Surprisingly, even in half a day of high-quality work you can accomplish much more than in several days of work as usual.

    Move all meetings online. Without five-minute waits, pats on the shoulder and other corporate rituals: we can read messages at the time and in the order that is convenient for each employee.

    And as Jason Fried says, the smartest thing to do is cancel unnecessary meetings. Of course, it is impossible to completely abandon such events, but reducing the quantity to increase the quality is a brilliant idea! Then each employee will have more time to complete their work and this time will be distributed according to an individual plan.

What does a manager who is afraid to point out a mistake have in common with a newbie who does not dare clarify the task? What qualities hinder both experienced professionals and green trainees, which need to be gotten rid of immediately - a psychologist, psychodiagnostician, coach, NLP specialist told the portal Anna Sukhova.

- Anna, what qualities, in your opinion, hinder the work of both a newbie and an old-timer?

Psychologically, newcomers and old-timers behave in completely opposite ways. I suggest some comparative analysis, which will help managers draw conclusions about their employees and teams, find effective ways communications.

Beginners: increased anxiety, afraid of everything, outwardly they seem very brave and active, but I make more and more mistakes and blunders. Beginners are embarrassed to ask clarifying questions, they are afraid that they will think badly of them and therefore they prefer to be clever where it is not at all worth doing. The main problem for beginners is ineffective time management: there is a lot of fuss, but few results. They are also hampered by excessive gullibility and the lack of a communication filter in the team.

Old-timers: These people behave confidently and self-centeredly. Everyone knows about everyone, and, naturally, they are always dissatisfied with employees, management, anyone and anything, just to explain to themselves why they work with insufficient motivation. Of course, laziness, lack of motivation and recognition force the old-timer to sometimes behave provocatively and arrogantly. Are they touchy, use various manipulative methods, “stand up in a pose” and just openly idle, “because no one will appreciate their zeal, what’s the point in doing this”?

Unfortunately, both old-timers and newcomers have primarily psychological problems, and we must understand what specific psychotype is in what situation?

Read also: Approaches to developing high potential employees: what actually works

- Do you have any clear examples of the discrepancy between a person’s character and the position he or she occupies?

In my consulting practice, I often encounter incongruence of temperament, character and personality in relation to the position held. The most common problem is when a leader who does not show rigidity avoids directive behavior at work. First of all, this discourages the team from a discipline point of view.

Familiarity sets in, and the manager simply loses authority, to the point that he cannot make a remark - subordinates manipulate dismissal “I’m ready to write a statement right now,” inaction “in this case, I won’t do anything at all,” and misunderstanding “I don’t know.” “How to do it, you are the leader, you will tell me.” In other words, subordinates with a soft leader begin to behave provocatively and defiantly.


- But qualities that are bad for one are wonderful for another. For example, an “aggressive” sales manager can cost an entire department. What do you allow in the qualities of your employees that you don’t really like in general?

I believe that every person has his own potential and professional talent, the task of a creative leader is to think through the system and select an employee for each of its elements with the necessary leading motivation. Employees are best suited with achievement motivation, they can perform large volumes, they are psychologically dependent on personal professional results. At the same time, the power motive is necessary in the team in leadership positions, as well as in administrative and supervisory areas. Such people are simply priceless - they truly enjoy their work when they feel power and recognition. People with a motivation for harmony in communication are perfect fits in the personnel structure, in middle positions. The best job for them is to be in charge of employees' birthdays and control people's meals. The security motive is people who are cautious and fearful, they are the ones who can be good lawyers, double-checking all the details, excellent analysts, scrupulous accountants - people with increased anxiety will never take an important step without consulting and sharing responsibility with someone.

I believe that the main important quality is loyalty to the company, the rest can be learned, and vice versa, no matter how amazing a professional is, he will never be manageable if his loyalty to the company is absent.