This week’s quote can help with morale, productivity, employee engagement and overall performance.

I see many people pushing (and pulling) in serious pursuit of goals and deadlines.   Often at odds with others on their team.

Hoping to help, their leaders sometimes step in for added push (or pull).  These efforts often backfire because they add pressure which creates distance between people.  And between people and their goals.

Here’s a good thing to remember when stepping in to stressful situations:

Distance is sure to develop or intensify as deadlines loom and disagreements brew. Distance between individual team members. Distance between team members and leader. Distance that does no one any good. Except perhaps the competition.

It’s a good gap to quickly close in the name of morale, productivity, engagement and overall performance. It might take some serious mediation or conflict resolution – but often, especially if caught soon enough, a little laughter will do the trick.

There are some people, like my husband, who have a gift of saying something funny when tension rises. Even if you are lucky enough to have that natural gift, or a person on our team with that natural gift, additional strategies may be needed.

Could be something as simple as celebrating National Salsa Month at your next staff meeting.  See this month’s celebration calendar for more ideas.

Meanwhile – feel free to post the above quote as a reminder. How-to instructions below.

And if you haven’t already done so, sign up for a Monday morning BOOST for you and your team – the Leadership Quote of the Week delivered to your email box each Monday morning.

A bite sized bit to boost morale, productivity and performance.

Use the above quote as background or wallpaper for your computer with just three clicks.

1. Click on the image above.

2. Right click on the image that appears.

3. On the pull down menu that appears, click on “set as background”.

Voila! There’s still plenty of room on the left side of the screen for all your shortcut icons.

Note: To remove the wallpaper, go to your control panel. Select “Display”. Select “Desktop”. And then choose from the designs offered.”

If you would prefer a print version, see PDF below. Just click on the printer icon in lower right corner of the image.