Encourage!

I had an unplanned meeting with three assistant managers the other day. Those unplanned meetings where you all just happen to be in the same place and start talking are often the best. One of them started to share a little of her personal story. She has overcome a lot in her life and is now working with some volunteer organizations to help others. Her story is inspiring, but what really caught my attention was how she talked about the people she leads. As an assistant manager in this setting, she oversees a team of about 28 people. What she talked about was their stories, how they tend to open up and share their stories with her, and how many of them had similar backgrounds of overcoming.

Have you ever heard the terms Human Resources, FTEs, Headcount, Staff? I don’t have a gripe against any of those terms per se, I use them myself. But, they are pretty impersonal ways of referring to the people we lead. I like data and numbers and trends, they all tell a story. But, so do our people. We lead teams, but teams are people. Our organizations are made up of people. They all have lives outside of work. They have hopes and dreams, plans and fears, significance and potential. Do you know what they are?

Leighton Ford said, “In our postmodern world, people have been treated as numbers, as replaceable parts, as something on someone’s agenda, a program, a screen name. They long to be noticed, to be valued, to have someone pay attention!”

ENCOURAGE

A few weeks ago, I wrote on Courage! Today I’m writing on “Encourage.” Here goes a little word nerd action. Interesting thing about the prefix “en-,” when it’s added to nouns and adjectives it forms a verb expressing conversion into the specified state as in “encrust” or “ennoble.” So, when added to courage, it means to convert someone into the state of courage, to give them courage.

In my post on courage, I wrote about different categories of courage, Physical courage, Moral courage, Social courage, and Intellectual courage. I defined courage in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, who said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”

The Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, wrote ” Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Acknowledge those who work hard among you.”

HOW TO ENCOURAGE

People often hold back in their work and in their life because of fear.  They even make mistakes because of fear. To Encourage someone, you must help them decide that something else is more important than their fear.

The first step in doing that is to Acknowledge them. People need to be recognized for who they are and what they do. You can take it a step further when you acknowledge them and their work as significant. The next level of acknowledgment is to recognize that person’s potential. Start talking to someone about their potential in a positive way and watch them lean into the conversation.

The next step in encouraging someone is to Know them. You can’t help a person overcome a fear and be courageous if you don’t know what their dreams and fears are.  Connection increases courage. I recently asked a couple of training leads for feedback on a new trainer. One of them said, “She really connects with the new hires.” I asked her to describe that for me. She told me that most of the new hire classes start out shy and reserved. But, as the trainer gets to know them and builds up their skills, they come out of their shells, and by the end of the training week, they’re high-fiving each other, laughing, and learning.

Part of knowing your people is understanding their goals and dreams. That leads to the final step in encouraging them, Help them. Like the trainer who built up new skills for new hires, or a coach who helps a person develop natural talent and/or acquired skills, you show the person what needs to be done and what barriers are in the way. Help remove any barriers you can. Above all, encouraging someone is helping them decide to take action, to be bold, to shoot for what’s more important than their fear.

Think of one person you could encourage today and take action.