Busy, but Not Having Fun - Part 2

Leaders need to learn the capacity to not add to their

anxiety but rather to channel it into adaptive responses.

Ira Chaleff, author of Courageous Follower

Continued from Part 1

Over the next week I had two more meetings with Tom's team and observed calls from Susan and her assistants as well as interaction with other clients. During this time we ran assessments to further understand strengths and weaknesses in Tom's team. I also found out that Susan's business, while 50% of Tom's volume today, had been only 30% six months ago. Two previous employees had left Tom because of the climate in the office and had taken a good portion of the business with them.

Tom was making money but he nor his team was having fun. His passion and desire to not only get the job done, but get it done right and treat everyone well in the process was to be commended. As I shared with Tom what I "felt" to be the cause of the problem (my Déjà vu was surreal), I proposed a process that would give him a detailed and objective analysis. The process itself would show his team and clients his commitment to their business; the results would give us a road map as to how to improve his office climate and allow Tom to broaden his client base.

Tom engaged me in 20 additional hours over a three week period. The process I'd proposed included additional interviews and online surveys/evaluations with everyone connected to his office:  clients (including Susan), past borrowers, support people at his home office and title companies. Sometimes people just think things will never change. But hopefully, the fact that Tom recognized this was a real problem and was spending money to correct it would calm down Tom's team and we would not have any more undesired exodus of employees and business.

To be continued......