006: Defeating Complacency

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
Today we are talking about complacency. That's when you get comfortable with the routine. You don't change while everything around you is changing, which leads to lost opportunities and falling behind. A little later in this episode, I'm going to tell you a story about a manager named Michael, who got a little too comfortable. I want to welcome you to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain, and this is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. We are starting to build a great community here, I am very proud of it. We all need a refresher on leadership. I know we are strong in our technical skills. But as leaders, we need to push ourselves better and never get comfortable. On this episode of the podcast, which is episode number six, we're going to talk about defeating complacency on your team. And in the organization. Actually, Elijah Woods said, safety and comfort comes with complacency. And that's never a good place to be working from what is complacency. That's getting settled into a routine that's getting comfortable. And that's never challenging the status quo. You accept your situation, or level of performance as normal. I despise complacency. It's the opposite of growth. It's stagnation. complacent people will kill innovation and inspiration in your organization, you continually got to find a way to reward those who push your team and the organization every day. I don't like complacency. It's when we get comfortable. complacency gets settled in to a team that sees itself as getting their things done every day, when you see yourself as successful, and you're comfortable. And no one's really challenging you no one in your organization is pushing you to do other things, you kind of meeting all the requirements and meeting all your deadlines. And inside is it's easy, it's comfortable, I'm getting everything done. It's successful. No one's mad at me, no one's yelling at me. And we're just going to kind of go along and kind of be happy that everything is moving along very smoothly. But what happens is that everyone around you, is probably figuring out ways to do better, or improve the organization to improve something that they're working on, or the organization is changing, and you're not changing. And in addition to that the industry is changing. And your organization and your team is not changing. We're going to be continually looking to innovate and prove and change and see what's going on. Again, when we see ourselves as successful. And nothing's happening, or nothing is bad happening to us. We get into that comfort zone, we kind of see the routine. We know we have this task on Monday, this report is due on Wednesday, we have a meeting on Thursday, and we get into that routine. And that's when you lose opportunity. And that's when when you're not staying on top of your responsibilities and your duties. You're not looking and scanning and seeing what else has to be done. That's complacency. And that's when you're in that comfort zone and you're not pushing yourself. I want to give you a little scenario about a manager and his team. And it's a short scenario, but it's something that probably you will resonate with you at least have seen you may have been on a team you may have been in that position before. I'll tell you a story about Michael Michael has been a manager of a four person team for about six months in a new company. He is married his children. He has a full life between work and home. He has somewhat figured out the requirements for his team. And he has integrated himself well into the work rhythm of the department and the organization. And this is where we fall into a trap of comfort. Michael's team is very busy. His team deals with tight deadlines. His boss Sarah, the Vice President of financial reporting is a go getter, and very supportive. Michael works to meet the deadlines, and all the other rapid tasks and requests for information that come at him, he tends to wait to be told, instead of finding ways on his own to make things better. Michael's team members range from Bethany who shows great potential for greater responsibility and promotion down to Matthew, he does his work on time meets all expectations and complete tasks on time. Bethany has great ideas to improve the team and to improve several lines of business. Michael is trying his best to find work life balance and to fit well with his boss, his peers and the team. Michael wants to take a slower approach because he believes that the team is doing very well if they're successful, he believes that they are getting everything done on time, no one seems to be upset. He's getting support from all around the organization. He's meeting the deadlines, he's meeting what is required of him. As a manager, Michael tries to do his best to sort out all the requirements from around the organization from his boss and from within the team. Things are going well. The team is getting everything done, but we must be vigilant to not get stuck in that routine. And this is where we go in To the dangers of complacency when things are going well, we don't see a need for change. Michael is figuring things out and getting things done. But if we don't continue to look for better ways we will fall behind. as things change around us. As you adapt to changing conditions, your performance and ability to influence your situation will diminish changes required to keep being successful to achieve excellence on a continual basis, because change is coming. You can't stop it. It's how will you recognize pending change that will determine your future? So how do you overcome all of the requirements so you can do other things that need to be done, we always have things that we could do better, there's always a better process a better way, something that could be included into your weekly rhythm of tasks and requirements that can make it better for the organization and better for the team and better for your team members. But when you have a lot of tasks on your plate every day, every week, very busy. You've got a lot of tight deadlines. Well, how do you find that capacity to get things done? How do you find a way to make it better? How do you find a way to start to think and figure out to innovate a process or a system or situation to make it better? Now I want to talk about a few of those techniques. In Episode Seven, we're going to talk about some management techniques for your team that will get you to figure out and find capacity to innovate and drive your team but we're talking about in this episode is to identify complacency, identify the fact that you need to get out of that routine, you need to identify the once your team gets stuck in a in a routine, then it's going to be hard to innovate and to find ways to change because change is going to be happening all around you. It always does. And if you don't change that you're going to fall behind, and you're going to fall behind in your requirements you're going to fall behind with your organization, your whole industry will take off without you if the organization isn't adapting change. So how does complacency get routed within a team, you have a lot of tasks, there's a lot of things coming at you especially during especially during monthly close when there's a lot of things that are compacted in a few days, and it's tight. And you've got to move from task to task. And hopefully everything starts to match up. And you don't have any problems with things not matching and reports being run smooth, and you get the data and moving from process to process. It's all very tight and all has to be very coordinated. In the meantime, you've also got other tasks that you have to do, you've got other requests for information, you have to do additional analysis, you've got your normal weekly routine that you've got to get done. So when you come out of that, you want to take a breath of fresh air, you're like you're so relieved, that closes over with and you want to settle in to that week. And you want to have a little bit of predictability. And when you're doing this month in and month out. Sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself to push a little harder to find something that you need to get done a little better. I know I've been there, I understand that when you have been inundated with hours and days of just tasks that fill every moment you have, you want to get that breath of fresh air, and I understand that. But when complacency gets rooted in your team and just rooted in yourself, you're going to miss things you're going to miss out on opportunities, you're going to miss out on a way to overcome a problem later or overcome a problem that comes at you. If you're not continually looking for ways to improve the tight deadlines will weigh you down, you can't see where you can improve. You don't feel like you have enough time or energy to improve or make change, you settle into a routine to survive, and we don't push ourselves, we have to continually push ourselves. It's up to leaders to recognize that we need to push ourselves, we need to push the team we need to push the entire organization so that we don't get complacency rooted within ourselves. It's up to the leader to continually to set that pace up to the leader to come in every day and try to figure out what are we going to do a little better? What are we going to do a little different what's coming at me in a week or in a month or next year? what's changing what's going on in other departments that's gonna affect our team and our department. And that's why I want you all as leaders is the challenge that status quo when I knew want you to challenge it daily and challenge yourself, ask why are we doing this? Why are we doing this task? Why are we doing it this way, you have to inspire your team. You need to be open to new ways and new things need to find a way for ideas to come to you without any issues from anybody else with judgment so that you can look at all the ideas and you can figure out ways to improve because if you don't, then the great ideas are not going to get to you in order to defeat complacency. You need to find ways to motivate yourself need to find ways to motivate the team. How does complacency get rooted within the team, let me give you another example, you finally come out on monthly, close, and you're trying to recover your mental faculties. And what you want to do is sort of create a couple of days of normalcy, you know, you've got some things to do, you want to knock it out and want to get it done. And you want to have a little bit of normal process normal procedure in your life as you try to figure out what you're going to do the rest of the month, and you tell yourself, or another team member says something, hey, just let Leave me alone to do this report. So I can get it done. By Thursday, I completely understand. And I have been there, the tight deadlines where you're down, you can't see where you can improve. You don't feel like you have enough time or energy to improve or make change. And then you settle into that routine to survive. And along with that we don't push ourselves, we go from month to month. And we're dealing with the same tasks and the same reports. And then you ask yourself, Well, how can I? How can I figure out a way to do something better when I've got all these tasks? And all these things that I'm dealing with? And how do I find that capacity to do better. And to get out of that routine and out of that complacency? Well, in Episode Seven, we're going to talk about a few things, we're going to talk about a few processes and management techniques that you can use on your team, to push yourselves a little better to push yourselves to get things done in a more manageable way. So that you can find some capacity to do the things that should be doing so you can remove some things that don't make any sense. And so we need to continually find ways to avoid complacency. And I would say the biggest thing is to challenge the status quo daily challenge yourself, the status quo is we're going to do this thing, the same thing every day the same way. And we don't want to do that. Because once you start doing things the same way every day over time, you're going to miss out on something, you need to ask why are we doing this challenge, a task, challenge, a report, challenge, a process, challenge a decision challenge, why we are doing this so that you can get better. And then you need to inspire your team to find a better way, inspire each team member to find something that they're doing to do it better, and then reward them figure out some way to get them recognition for bringing a great idea to you, you need to create a situation where they can bring those ideas to you without judgment, without them fearing that someone's going to judge them for the idea they bring your role is to open up the possibility of any and every idea to come to you whether they're good ideas or bad ideas, you need to get them all because they feel that they can't come to you in an open way, then you're going to miss out on some great ideas. So we need to continue to be open to new ways and new things. Even if it's something that we don't quite like right away. Just continue to create that open communication and that open door that anybody can bring something to improve, create, change that culture, create a culture of wanting to innovate and wanting to change and wanting to improve. And I tell you what, it just starts with our attitude. It starts with our approach to things it starts with us never settling for the routine, never settling for the status quo. So for an easy win that I want you to work on today, I want you to figure out how you work in a way for ideas to come to you is that your weekly meeting is that anytime that somebody has an idea that they can formulate it and just send it to you in an email, or if they can just come to your desk and talk it over. But figure out how you can create a way for someone to bring ideas to you. And then when someone brings an idea to you, you just have to accept it. Don't judge right away, just say thank you and we're going to talk it over, we may add it to an agenda to a tee meeting that we have in the future. And we're going to talk it over and work it out and figure out if there's something for us or not, we become complacent. When we lose our passion. When we lose our sense of the values of the company. And we start getting comfortable into a routine, we start to forget about what the mission of the organization as we come in every day, we get the things done we need to do and then we go home at the end of the day. As leaders we can bring about bigger sense of urgency when we start feeling that the team is starting to be complacent. Or if several members of the team become complacent. We need to continually self assess whether we are becoming complacent because if we become complacent, then the team will become complacent. And that's the danger. We need to continue to figure out if we've lost our passion. If we've lost our urgency and the importance of what our company is doing. What's our mission? Are we forgetting what we're delivering? Are we forgetting about our customers? Are we forgetting about what service or product that we delivering a what changed we deliver in the world. And once we get back to that, then we can have that fulfillment and that passion again, that we can get back on task and back on track with what the company is trying to provide every day. It doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter what service or product, if people are buying a service or product, it's important. I don't care what it is, I don't care how trivial people might seem it is or to how important that what people think it is. If somebody's buying it, it's important. And if you aren't excited about that, then I would say you need to assess yourself and figure out why you're not excited about that. Why are not excited about the product and service that your company is providing. And then get back into that passion getting figuring out how you can bring the life to your team and life to your department and so that your team doesn't fall into that routine and complacency. And I just want to ask you to challenge yourself doing that as leader as whatever role you have in the company continually to challenge yourself to how you can do something better and bigger. So in this episode, we talked about defeating complacency and we talked about trying to create a culture so that we always challenge the status quo we always find ways to improve we always find ways to innovate to bring fresh ideas to the team, because if you get complacent, you're going to miss out on great opportunities. You can find this episode and past episodes on Apple podcast, Spotify, and other places. You can download the show notes at Stephen McLain calm next episode, we're going to talk about a few techniques to help keep yourself and your team focused to help manage the many tasks and projects you have. And we will again see how our manager Michael can use some of these techniques to improve his leadership. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please join our community on Facebook, the finance leader podcast Facebook group, this will be our community to grow within the finance and accounting profession. Until next time, you can check out more resources at Stephen McLain calm and you can sign up for my updates so you don't miss an episode of the show. And now go lead your team and see you next time. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

006: Defeating Complacency

Listen On

Recent Episodes