Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders rethink how the work gets done so that it becomes regenerative, so that the ways in which we're working don't just drive results, but they also amplify engagement and well-being.

If your organization is ready to build new ways into the work,

rather than just bolting programs onto it, learn more about my speaking, workshops, and coaching

programs at lead above noise.com. Okay, on to you today. So I've recently connected with

somebody new to me. Let's call him Tom. I had reached

out to Tom because I'd heard him speak about something really interesting and I wanted to learn more

from him. And I asked that in addition to his free advice and genius, he'd come to our meeting

with a gnarly leadership challenge that I could weigh in on in return.

And so here's what he brought. See, Tom leads a small business that, like many others these days,

is sitting on the struggle bus, their sales are down. And as a result, he is seeing employee morale

shoot down as well. And the struggle is real. And what Tom wanted to know was,

how can we fix a morale problem while the business problem remains unsolved? In the moment, I feel like

I gave him some tips that were good. But on reflection, I think I had more to say. And I don't

think Tom is likely to be the only leader sitting with this

challenge. So thank you, Tom, but not really Tom, for the inspiration for today's episode

on how to solve our morale challenge during a tricky business season. So I'm going to get to

tactics in a minute, but they're all grounded in a really important reframe of the problem that I would

like to suggest. Rather than asking, how do I fix a morale problem while the business is struggling,

I think a better question is, how do I find ways to enhance morale that might also help me

improve the business? Two birds, one stone. So let's go ahead and dive in. I've got four

ideas I'd love to share with anyone facing a challenge like this one. The first is to invite them

into the problem solving. As Tom explained to me, solving for the business dips is his problem

...