June 23, 2023 – Repertoire Magazine recently sat down with sales expert, keynote speaker and author Tim Richardson to discuss the importance of maintaining a sane and productive workplace. Richardson has worked for IBM and a Five Diamond resort property, and he’s worked as a professional speaker for almost 35 years.
When the work-life balance is achieved, it gives people the time to recharge and come back to the office prepared to meet the goals the organization has set and bring new ideas to the table. It’s even more effective when business leaders are modeling that behavior for their teams, giving them a picture of what that balance looks like in practice.
In order to be truly effective in this arena, leadership needs to be intentional with how people look at their workload. For Richardson, many business leaders will need a sort of “altar call” to let them know that they’ve been taking the wrong approach.
When he worked for IBM, the last day of each month had everyone on the sales teams trying to earn their commission by pushing their prospects to make the final purchase. At the time, Richardson processed orders for PCs and mainframe computers that were being sold. His manager would come by and check on his team’s workflow.
If they were overloaded with orders, he would redistribute work. Because of his manager’s intentionality and intervention, it created sanity in a moment of chaos. Richardson said, “Leaders need to be visible, they need to be observing, they need to be understanding, and they need to have respect for employees and their personal lives. As simple and as basic as it sounds, all these things would improve workplace conditions, employee morale, employee retention, and even profitability.”
Read more in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.