In this series, we have examined your own personal habits and how the environment can be part of the root causes to goal success. This week, we focus on people. Although it may be hard to admit, sometimes the problem is the people you work with or the very person who should be helping you succeed, your supervisor. As previously stated, the reason could be one or more of these factors: environment, people, materials, equipment, methods or measurements. This week we will look at why people may be the reason you are struggling to hit your goals.
Unless you work in a hole in the middle of the earth or you have somehow become stranded on a deserted island, you have to rely on people to help you reach your goals. I know this is no surprise to you, but there are people everywhere and they have their own agendas. Here are some scenarios to help you reach your goals, while dealing with people. "People" is not only the people you work with, but they are your customers or vendors as well.
- The mentor that was assigned to you doesn’t really care about your success
- Solution: As a new employee, this can be very frustrating and may even cause you to quit. Before you throw in the towel, talk to your supervisor; often, there is someone else that can train you.
- Solution: Talk to your mentor, maybe they don’t realize how they are treating you and will make the needed changes to help you succeed.
- To reach your sales quota, you need a customer to say yes.
- Solution: This is tough when you have no control. A possible solution would be to retrain yourself on closing techniques or look at ways to better sell the product.
- You do not understand the latest sales techniques.
- Solution: don’t be afraid to ask for help, get more training. By not asking, you are going to struggle and potentially lose your job.
- Bobby constantly makes a lot of noise.
- Solution: This can be a tough one and we talked about this with environment. Sometimes, you can just move or changes work spaces. You are going to have to explain to Bobby that he is noisy and ask him to be quieter.
- Your boss is burned out, so he doesn’t really hold you accountable.
- Solution: This one is tricky. Your boss is not going to want to hear you tell him that you think he is burned out. You may have to live through it or try talking to his/her supervisor, which can also be detrimental to you. If this is truly the case, then you must hold yourself accountable and do the job for which you were hired.
- You recently got promoted, but are struggling to fill the shoes of the person who was previously in this role.
- Solution: If you are lucky, the person that was doing this job still works for your company. Ask her to mentor you for a few weeks, until you have figured things out. If the person left the company, see if you can find someone in your company that is familiar with your position. She may be able help out. In either scenario, get permission for someone to help you and then master your new role.
- You are assigned to a group project and one of the team members has failed to deliver on his deliverable's.
- Solution: Many have been in this situation and it is frustrating. Sometimes, the team member doesn’t mean to not deliver, but they are struggling with their own issues, preventing them from helping. Try talking to the team member. See what you can do to help or ask the supervisor to reassign the team member. It is not fair for a lagging team members to get credit for work they did not do.
- Solution: Document everything that every team member did, so your supervisor understands who was the weakest link and then your supervisor can address the issue separately.
You will find, sometimes people are also part of the environment root cause and some situations cannot be fixed. It should not surprise you communication is key to success. You must talk to people to get what you need, they are not mind-readers. Achieving your goals is much easier, if you are working on a team headed in the same direction. Although working with some people can be a challenge, if you put a little effort into it, you will succeed.