In this two-part article, you will learn 17 actions you can take which empower your team to produce higher levels of performance. Although each idea is stated each in its simplest form, do not be deceived by the simplicity—the success of your business is dependent on the level to which your team deliver results in their individual roles.
1 – Find out the personal goals and aspirations of your team and show them how to link them to their professional goals: Find a way to support them in achieving their personal and professional goals. Many staff put more of their mind, body and spirit into planning their annual holidays than into making your business a success, so your goal is to get them to engage more of their available resources so they unleash more of their potential to your mutual benefit.
2 – Make others successful if you want to be successful: The more successful people in your team, then the more successful your team will be—people, not organisational charts, build successful businesses.
3 – Build alignment within your team: Openly share your goals and aspirations and explain how the team members will benefit when the company achieves such objectives.
The most important thing to focus on and talk about is results and outcomes—what they are, what progress is being made and what is stopping people from achieving them”
4 – Make revenue growth a company-wide issue: Set up systems to ensure everyone is focused on revenue; this has to include reward and recognition systems as well as idea systems. Your responsibility will include feedback and implementation.
5 – Make profitability a company-wide issue: As well as looking at revenue, train people to consider profit and cash-flow. Get them to understand the profit implications of winning different kinds of business and the implications of other commercial decisions they may make.
6 – Focus on key result areas: Make sure every employee knows their key result areas and what results they are supposed to produce. Look at the strengths of the team and allocate results and outcomes to people with the specific talents to make them happen. For example, one person can be a great new business generator and another can be a fantastic account manager—so it is critical that you allocate results and outcomes accordingly.
Make sure every employee knows their key result areas and what results they are supposed to produce”
7 – Manage by results and outcomes: There is a general tendency to talk about a lot of things in staff meetings and reviews. The most important thing to focus on and talk about is results and outcomes—what they are, what progress is being made and what is stopping people from achieving them. You are then responsible for removing distractions and constraints so people can focus all their energies on the 20 percent of activities that will make 80 percent of the difference to the success of your business.
8 – Build great systems: If a part of your business process happens more than once, then take the time to build a system for it and document how it is to be carried out. When I am called into companies, it is amazing to see some of the opportunities that are being lost, profit going down the drain and time wasted because of small details that are easily fixed.
9 – Share the profit and the pain: Set up a system that rewards people who contribute to the success of the company and, by implication, suffer the financial consequences if profit objectives are not met. You can also have special programmes for specific projects you are implementing—for example, cost control and effectiveness drive.
For more points on building a winning team and the continuation of this article, see the May edition of SignLink.
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