Now it is holiday time of year, do you think about whether you will leave your mobile phone behind, or do you automatically take it with you? In other words are you confident enough to leave your team to run the business without you while you are away, knowing that on your return everything will be just as it should be?

The thing is holidays should be a time to recharge your batteries. A time to de-stress, a time to relax, and a time to give your entire attention to your friends and family. If you have your phone with you there is always a chance that someone will feel they need to contact you, either someone from your business who wants to pass responsibility for a decision on to you, or possibly one of your clients wanting to ask a question or even moan about something. Every time you get a call, although it may be easy to deal with, or it many only take a few minutes, it breaks into your relaxation and there is bound to be a period while you still have the conversation on your mind, and you may worry about the consequences or outcomes of what you discussed. Of course there is also always the temptation to call the office yourself to check all is O.K. from time to time.

However if you create a business with a clear structure and a team who are prepared to take responsibility, then there should be no reason to take your phone, and as a result you can go away with a clear mind and you can properly unwind for the full week or two you are away. It is better for you, better for your family, and even better for your team, who understand that you are happy to let them run the business without you.

So if you like the sound of this, and would like to know how to achieve it, come and speak to me, because I practice what I preach.

Are you ever guilty of not taking things as far as you should or can? In other words do you allow yourself excuses for not finishing things because you are able to blame others for not doing what they should be doing?

Recently I had a very interesting coaching session with one of my clients who was extremely frustrated because he couldn’t seem to move things forward to where he wanted them to be. So first of all we needed to identify what it was that was stopping him from delegating more, and thereby freeing up time to achieve his targets. It quickly became evident that there were three key things which had to be sorted out, and the rest would then fall into place. One was to chase up on an outstanding debt, second was to employ an extra person in his workforce, and the third was to automate a system which would speed up invoicing and free up time. In each case he had initiated actions, but none of them had been properly pursued to their conclusion, and as a result they were all constantly on his mind, and that was stopping him from fully concentrating on anything else. The trouble is, when you have key things like this hanging over you, you tend to flit from one thing to the next, not completing anything, and gradually becoming more and more frustrated.

So the key is to take these big issues to a conclusion or, at the very least, as far as you can, and make sure you have done everything possible to sort them out. Don’t just send an email or make a call and wait for something to happen, allowing the fact that they didn’t reply to be an excuse for you not to take things further. Keep on calling, keep emailing, look into other options ,and ensure that you leave nothing undone which could be done. That way, at least you can rest assured, that whatever the outcome, you have covered every aspect you could to achieve your aims.

As I said to my client, when I next call you, ask yourself if you can honestly tell me if there is anything more you could have done. If the answer is yes, do it and you will feel a lot happier.

Meeting with one of my more established customers earlier this week, it came home to me yet again how important it is to deal with the “rotten apple” in your team.

In this example the person concerned was very good at disguising his disruptive influence. In fact so much so, that the business owner actually thought that it was another member of staff who was causing the problems. These sort of people are always making snide remarks behind people’s backs, they criticise their bosses (but only very subtly), and they manipulate their colleagues into saying things about each other, resulting in a generally unhappy and discontented office environment.

Fortunately in this case, this individual was pulled up for not following procedures, and believing he was better than that, he decided to leave the company, telling everyone that he was going to a fair superior business where he would be paid a lot more. His parting shot to the business owner was “You do know that nobody is very happy in this business, and that you are not a good boss, don’t you!” Naturally enough my client was quite upset by this, but subsequently he now realises that this was all a front.

The result of this self proclaimed star leaving, is that everyone is now far happier, systems are being adhered to, productivity levels have increased, and the atmosphere in the office is completely different now. It is now quite clear what a negative effect the “rotten apple” was having, and evident how important it is to weed them out of your business as soon as possible.