Tag Archives: confidence

  • 26
    Jun 20
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work from home confidence

Work From Home Confidence, Do You Have It?

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We all recognize the disruption and the some of the associated changes. Are you or your team working remotely? Do you have work from home confidence?

Any time we have change, we may have some discomfort. Along with that discomfort we may find our anxiety levels creeping up. When we are anxious, we typically don’t listen as well. We often don’t perform at our best, and in severe cases sometimes people can’t really perform at all.

Employee Performance

It may seem difficult to believe but many people are finding increased challenges with working from home.

Employers and managers worry about productivity, efficiency, and results.

Employees may experience various forms of motivation. Some increases perhaps, and some decreases.

The psychology of work shifts. Some people become more efficient with fewer interruptions. Others, well, they feel extreme guilt if they grab a coffee or step away from their work at home desk.

We also can’t forget about the ability to let go. When you leave your home and go to a different work space, it is also easy to pack up and go back home. When you leave, you leave work. Not always as easy when working from home.

Work From Home Confidence

As people we are observers. We are fill in the blank people. As we observe, we make assumptions.

Sometimes when you are having a good day, you don’t understand why someone else is not. When you’re having a not so good day, you wonder how everyone can be so cheery.

It is all based on assumptions.

On initial observation many believe that working from home is a dream job. In practice, it may not be.

As a manager, an employee, or a business owner, keep in mind that what you are experiencing may not be the same as what others are experiencing.

Find more compassion and make sure your team is working hard to avoid anxiety traps.

Confidence in the work that they do and the associated results matter. It matters for everyone.

Build up your team with the use of effective metrics and measurements. Congratulate positive results.

You can help.

And it will make a difference.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 26
    May 20
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wasteful worrying

Wasteful Worrying, What Will You Choose?

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You want to make a change, take a chance, or understand what the future holds. Uncertainty often leads to wasteful worrying. Is that where you’re at?

Worry is about choice. A choice to contemplate over and over again. A choice to wonder or fantasize negativity about a pending outcome.

Everyone Worries

It’s easy to worry. It’s easy to remember the things that went wrong. Everything that happens when you let your guard down or fail to take some advice from someone else.

Worry drives us to do many things.

A few of them may be positive. The double check, the confirmation, or reading over the draft document one more time.

Most worry is a waste of time though. It is a waste of your energy and other precious resources.

It may bring others down. Cause a stir, even a panic.

We often worry because we feel afraid. Fear causes hesitation. Hesitation sometimes results in missed opportunities, or worse, closed doors.

Some people place worry on faith. A belief that things will work out as they should.

Others will place it on a gamble. Take a chance, or throw in the cards.

Can you do better?

Will you make a better choice for the use of your time?

Wasteful Worrying

If you have no control over the pending outcome, why worry?

If you have control over the pending outcome, can you count on your knowledge and expertise? Is there a metric, a track record, or benchmark data?

Should you be more confident?

What if you committed to worry less? What if every time you felt it coming on you made a different choice about your energy allocation?

It’s easy to worry. Nothing worthwhile comes easily.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 04
    Mar 20
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Acquiring trust

Acquiring Trust Even When In Doubt

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In a thriving service oriented, connection-based economy, trust may be your most important asset or, your most significant weakness. Acquiring trust isn’t always easy, yet it is always worth it.

What does your gut tell you?

Trusting Matters

Many people rely on their gut feel or instincts to assess their level of trust. Trust with vendors. Trust with customers, and of course, trust with teammates.

The backbone of trust may come from confidence, expectations, and certainly past experiences. Insecurity and paranoia may also creep into the picture.

Trust is often about giving. Can you give trust?

If we’re going to explore giving of trust you have to consider generosity.

Trust is largely about generosity. Will your generosity be taken advantage of by others?

In discussions it may quickly turn into a slippery slope.

Let’s be realistic though. Trust only comes from generosity. We can talk about earning trust, but in reality, earning is not really the same as simply giving.

Do you have the confidence in people to give more trust? Have past experiences tarnished your future expectations?

Acquiring Trust

Knowing what to expect and when can help boost the confidence factor with trust. In other words, if you know a teammate can handle the task grant them the trust. You’re giving.

If you are in doubt based on past experiences specifically with this individual or specifically with this type of task, then explore the requirements with others involved in order to boost everyone’s confidence. Then give more trust.

One act of giving trust means that there is the opportunity to earn it.

If you want your brand, whether it is a personal brand or organizational, to go up in value you’re going to have to give more.

In our service oriented, connection-based economy you really don’t have much choice.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 27
    Jan 20
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sacrificing experience

Sacrificing Experience for Checking the Informed Box

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There is information everywhere. Every place we step, turn, or take a rest. Information is plentiful and knowledge is abundant. Are you sacrificing experience for information?

In workforce development circles the chatter is often about experiential learning. On the surface many believe this means hands-on learning.

Experiential or Hands On?

Hands-on learning is can be experiential and it is important for the carpenter, the mechanic, and the electrician.

Are there other forms of hands-on learning?

Hands-on doesn’t always guarantee it is experiential. Experiential learning is about the act of doing something and then being able to reflect about it.

In seminars, it is the debrief following the subgroup exercise. The case study with a question and answer component, or perhaps even the often-dreaded role-play.

Confused?

Understanding Information and Experience

The confusion exists because of our comprehension of the word experience.

As people we connect experience to motion. Turning the screwdriver, cutting the board to make it fit just right, or setting the torque specs for the cylinder head.

Learning to do it just right comes from experience. Because of the experience we can feel it, and reflect on it.

Today we have more opportunities than ever before to gather information. We’re plastered with information.

New age vehicles deliver more opportunities than ever. We have podcasts, social media posts, and YouTube, just to name a few.

We are exposed to information on a grand scale. Does it make us smarter? Does it improve our experience?

Sacrificing Experience

In a World full of opportunities to gather more information it is important to remember that information on its own does not necessarily improve performance. Our learning and the ability to contribute in the future often develop from experience.

We may be able to recite information but not do the job.

Having the new employee watch several hours of training videos doesn’t necessarily improve their competence. The same is true about the podcast or the technical specifications sheet.

Are you reflecting or just absorbing?

Be careful about confusing knowledge with experience.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 23
    Jan 20
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workplace confidence

Workplace Confidence and the Reality Shared

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After some time, you get confidently comfortable with your job and skills. Is workplace confidence distracting you from doing your best work?

There is often a discussion about over-confident in comparison with being under-confident.

Confidence is Good, Right?

People often size up a lack of confidence and believe that more confidence should be gained. A good idea.

On the other end of the continuum people are working with limited stress or worry about their performance. The belief is, “I know everything I need to know.” They start each day by just gently flowing into their work.

If asked, they’ll suggest that they are doing their best. Giving what they can give and that they are devoted and loyal employees.

What if the impression of doing your best isn’t really your best?

What if you are holding back a little? Perhaps you are saving some energy for your run at lunch time. Maybe you have a painting project at home and you’re distracting about finishing it before the in-laws visit next week.

It goes deeper sometimes.

What if you consider that if you really gave it your all today, and succeeded, that you’ll have to put out that kind of work every day. Better hold back a little.

Workplace Confidence

One thing that everyone in the workplace shares is the reality that on many days they are operating at something less than one-hundred percent.

Initially, you’ll challenge that notion. Upon deeper inspection you may agree that it is true.

It is rooted in our level of confidence and comfort. Total confidence may mean that there is more left in the tank. More room for learning, growing, or helping someone else succeed.

As humans our nature is to leave a little in the tank.

We’re saving it for when it really matters.

Maybe today is one of those days.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 03
    Oct 19
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best effort

Giving Your Best Effort More Often

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What happens when you give your best effort? Does something change, does a spark ignite, or does your confidence grow?

Your first day on the job and you may not even be sure where the rest room is located. After a few weeks, which quickly turn to months, you start to find a rhythm and you get more comfortable.

Finding your rhythm as an individual, a team, or an organization is often the game changer.

Improving Confidence

Confidence is built through two primary channels, self-efficacy and self-esteem. Each small successive win and your confidence grows. Make a mistake and learn to improve for the next time.

The very first time we do anything is probably not going to be our best. When we try it again, and again, things start to improve. More results pour in, more discovery, and adjustments.

It is the fluidity of the process that helps us tweak things by drawing ever closer to building it better and better.

The first time we cook a steak is hard. The twenty-fifth time and things seem easier.

It is the same for giving a presentation to the board of directors, developing a process for closing the sale, or making a cold call. Practice seems to make it easier. Success also seems to come easier.

Confidence improves.

Best Effort More Often

This is exactly why we have to give our best effort more often.

Doing so creates more demand. More demand means you’re having more opportunities and more opportunities to practice and hone your craft will make success look easy.

There really aren’t any shortcuts. The overnight success often occurs across five, ten, or twenty-five years.

On-lookers believe it was luck, fate, or personal connections. They can always help, but they aren’t as compelling as the story you write on your own.

Best effort matters. It matters more.

-DEG

Originally posted on October 3, 2019, last updated on September 10, 2020.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 24
    Sep 19
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workplace critic

Workplace Critic And Your Safety Zone

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Have you ever felt like your next move, any move, is going to be subject to the workplace critic? Does the workplace critic help improve things or drag down the performance of the team?

Critics sometimes believe they are helping the cause. They are quick to point out the inconsistencies, the shortcomings, and the reason things are not perfect.

Their argument is often that feedback improves performance. Their delivery may need some refinement.

Improving Performance

Understanding what customers want may improve performance. Nagging on another teammate about the relevancy of his or her contribution in the staff meeting, perhaps not so much.

It seems that there are always critics eager to tell someone what they have not done or not done that made their performance less. Shouldn’t we be trying to help others make their performance more?

Do we always need a critic or is it counter intuitive to a better future?

Policy and rule breakers need to be brought into check. Chronically late for work or meetings, should be fixed. Missing most deadlines, even the most reasonable ones, probably needs fixed.

Being the meeting after the meeting critic, well, not so much.

Workplace Critic

People need feedback. People have blind spots.

Are people still people? Yes, and many of them are working hard to make a difference. Harsh critics do not help.

Some of the best people quit or give-up in the face of harsh criticism.

What is the best way to deal with the critic?

Instead of retreating to your safety zone, hone your path, take away what you can, and keep giving everything you do, your best.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 12
    Aug 19
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stretch goals

Stretch Goals and a Commitment to Achieve

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In your career, for yourself, or for your team, do you have stretch goals? Are goals something your boss decides? Do you have input? Thinking of goals is there anything you would do differently?

Winning is a great thing, it also creates new expectations.

Winning Achievements

In sports, when you win the opening game there is an expectation that you’ll win the next one too. The pressure and commitment shifts, it changes, it gets more serious.

When you close the sale, it is expected that you’ll do it again. Next time it may be bigger. Next week more, and the week after even more.

Winning streaks change things. They change the mindset of the team, the competitors, and the results. Tackling the giant is always a challenge, doubt enters the minds of those seeking to dismantle the hero. The win streak seems unstoppable.

We’ve seen it in football, in soccer, and even in motorsports. The longer the streak goes on, the more confidence that comes through.

Stretch Goals

In the workplace people are sometimes irritated with stretch goals. The salesperson thinks, “How much more can I be expected to achieve?”

The same is often true for the C-Suite reporting to the board of directors. The numbers and expectations are lofty, the likelihood of success initially feels slim.

Yet building on one success after another. Bringing in each small win adds up. There is momentum to accumulation. Actual versus goal, the gap closes, the stretch shrinks, the streak broadens.

Confidence is built one step at a time.

Commitment starts at the beginning and accelerates as the gap narrows.

A stretch too far to reach is more probable for those who quit before they begin.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 26
    Jun 19
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workplace knowledge

Workplace Knowledge and What You Don’t Know

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Have you ever thought about what you don’t know? When you hear new information do you consider it, or quickly disregard it? Workplace knowledge is often about learning what you don’t know.

A shopper, backing her car from a parking spot taps the bumper of another car because she didn’t realize it was there.

The person in the restaurant with barbeque sauce on the side of his face doesn’t know it.

Hurried, a businessman dresses in a dark room before leaving home to board a predawn flight. He is wearing one blue sock and one black.

Knowing what we don’t know can be helpful. Yet this concept sometimes eludes workplace professionals.

What You Don’t Know

Are you quick to disregard the new information? Do you find yourself disagreeing with suggested best practices of other professionals?

An attorney gives you advice and you ignore it.

The architect claims you’ll never be able to heat it or cool it, you say, “Build it anyway.”

A marketing consultant suggests your new ad campaign has flaws you say, “Launch it, it will work.”

Making your own way in life can be valuable and important. Disregarding professional advice may be why you are stuck.

Workplace Knowledge

Two things get many people in trouble, their ego and being overconfident.

In carpentry, we know you should, “Measure twice, cut once.”

In listening, we recognize that, “You have two ears and one mouth, listen twice as much as you speak.”

When your company makes an investment in your continued learning don’t expect that you already know it all. Your ego and overconfidence may be exactly why you’ve been invited in the first place.

You have barbeque sauce on your cheek and you should change your socks.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

  • 14
    Jan 19
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decision wait

Can Your Decision Wait? Should It?

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Procrastination about deciding is common. Especially for those big decisions, the high-risk kind. Can your decision wait? A better question may be, “Should it wait?”

The timeliness of decisions always feels problematic. Going too soon may involve some remorse later. Waiting too long, well, it may be too late.

The waitstaff may I ask, “Are you ready to order or do you need a few more minutes?”

That new car purchase, the salesperson may suggest, “Take your time. We’ve only had one other person looking at this vehicle.”

Sometimes it is the anticipation of what we may end up with or the opportunity that we might miss.

Some people will throw it out to fate, “If it is meant to be, it will be.”

Spring into Action

Emotionally we can be influenced to spring into action. It is what marketing does, the savvy salesperson, or our toe tapping friend with little patience.

Most decisions we make feel like the right decision at the time. We analyze and assess the playing field, the market, and the forecast. At the exact moment we make the decision it is the right decision.

As what happens next unfolds our decision may hold up to be good, or be bad, but at the time we made it, it was good.

Decision Wait

We can procrastinate about decisions for long periods of time. So much so that we completely miss opportunities.

If you were in business in the late 1980’s and waited long enough about the decision to purchase a fax machine, today, you’re in luck. You’ve never had to purchase a fax machine.

Be careful of the marketing that gives you a shove. Watch out for friends who suggest, “No risk, no reward.”

When the decision is yours, make a smart choice, do it with intention. Things always change. You say when.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

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