I’m going to put it out there……Position Descriptions annoy me. Especially those that are steeped in confusing, complicated, long corporate language that, once finished reading, leave you still wondering what on earth the role actually involves. I think sometimes people worry that stating something plainly signifies less intelligence on the writer’s part.
A big chunk of work I do is with salespeople and sales teams. Often the team leader is frustrated because they know the results could be better and the salespeople feel like they’re doing their best with the tools they have and the environment they’re working in. My role is to work with the individuals to understand how they think, what they’re doing as a result of their thinking and what could be done differently to change the outcome.
This kind of work is immensely satisfying for me because I’m from sales background and, to be honest, I love nothing more than the thrill of a sales conversation and working in a sales environment.
A wee while back I had an experience where a mentor of mine shone a light on some behaviour that I was exhibiting that seemed be recurring. I hadn’t realised my actions were repeating themselves but by stepping me through my behaviour pattern it was clear that a limiting belief was driving my actions.
Let me describe the situation for you……..
I am knee deep at the moment working on some complex projects and there’s a lot of things to consider and outcomes to be achieved all within some ambitious timeframes.
What is tricky is that there are multiple factors that are all influencing each other which means that each time I start thinking about one issue it leads to three others. Trying to solve one problem only uncovers more issues.
You’ve probably seen this before, when you’ve been in a meeting and a bunch of issues are being discussed without any clear-headed thinking so the conversation goes around in circles. Eventually you might land on a solution but no one in the room is convinced it’s the right one. What’s more you’re probably all just tired of the discussion and want to move on to something else or check your out-of-control inbox.
A while ago I was in a meeting with some associates and we were working on a tough problem that none of us had expertise or particular strength in. I was feeling out of my depth and inadequate.
The meeting went ok but I didn’t leave the meeting feeling like we had really nailed the solution and mostly I felt like my performance had been inadequate.
A couple of days later, we were all back in a meeting and we decided to debrief how the original meeting went and how we could improve our effectiveness as a team going forward. We all chipped in with our thoughts and shared I said that I felt inadequate and not up to standard.
It’s fair to say the last two weeks have been colossal. In many good ways. But jeez, have there been some challenges along the way!
I have been working my tail off the past few months getting my new course Upsize My Happiness together (she’s a doozy but we’ll get into that another day). But the fun really started about three days out from my launch date when I received a text from my bank advising there had been suspicious activity on my credit card and to give them a call. I immediately jumped on the phone and the kind lady explained that in essence it would take around 10 days for everything to be sorted and for me to have a new credit card. This wouldn’t normally have been a problem, apart from the fact that most online advertising avenues require credit cards for payment. Shoot!
