How to Avoid Ruining Your Best Team Player

Many years ago, a good friend took me out to a glitzy afternoon tea. We were left with one last eclair between us. She asked me why I hadn’t just taken it. Outraged, I said I would never be so selfish.

It puzzled me for years. How could me not shoveling the last éclair into my mouth be in any way a bad thing? Being kind to others was what I aspired to be.

So, I dismissed it and continued to believe that kindness is always good and always straightforward for many more years.

The plus side of kindness

When I started my largest business, I was obsessed with making it a wonderful place to work, where people had fun, looked out for each other, and were kind to each other.

It was often an all-male workforce; therefore, it was particularly easy for me as a female to slip into nurturing mode and create something along these lines. And bar the odd teenage tantrum when Mummy said no, in the very early days, it was close to the utopian workplace I had dreamed of.

As is so often the case, with happy people and a strong culture, the company was successful, grew fast, and into different buildings. We needed managers. And I was blessed to have one of the nicest people I knew on my team. He was also extremely good at his job and a star team player – a pleasure to work with.

He was enormously popular, spreading his compassion, goodwill, and cheer. Even the most difficult of the team thought this guy (let’s call him Joe) was lovely.

However much work he had on personally, Joe always had time to help out a colleague. When I wanted volunteers to work late, Joe’s hand always went up first. When anyone had time off in that department, Joe covered all that slack without protest and never asked for anything in return. Nothing was too much trouble.

Joe was also resourceful. Used to living on a minimal budget at home, he was extremely frugal and full of ideas for saving the company money. Definitely a plus for a startup.

When that day came when I needed managers, it never crossed my mind to choose anyone else.

It would be a pure pleasure for me to work…

SOURCE: https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/how-to-avoid-ruining-your-best-team-player-ebfe13bed5f2?source=rss—-7adf33e44ae3—4 https://entrepreneurshandbook.co?source=rss—-7adf33e44ae3—4