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As a seasoned performance coach with over two many years of experience working with business owners, I have witnessed many business owners frustrated that their startup is not growing as fast because it should, or that its growth seems to have stagnated. One factor that always sets these entrepreneurs apart is their lack of the traits (*5*)team players.
The growth of your small business will depend on your teamwork skills. My experience shows that developing the following five traits can make you a team player and a great fit for growing your small business.
1. Welcome and develop your team’s ideas
As a founding father of a company, you might have a burning must introduce Your vision for business to reality, but business success is not going to depend solely on you. You need input from your team, and their ideas could be the difference between average business results and successfully taking your small business to greater heights.
Create opportunities for team members to share their ideas. Brainstorming sessions, weekly meetings, and problem-solving sessions could be fertile ground for team input. Evaluate the ideas generated and find ways to implement those who show potential to satisfy business goals.
2. Train your team
Google did it test and found that the best managers and leaders have coaching skills. However, most individuals confuse coaching with mentoring. Coaching and mentoring are not the same thing. Coaching is about unlocking the potential in a team. Mastering coaching skills lets you do this.
As a founder, you might also have expertise and experience that your team members lack, meaning you are more more likely to mentor them or “tell” them methods to do something than instruct them.
Coaching builds self-confidence, empowers the team to take on more responsibility, improves problem-solving skills and builds loyalty. The more train your teamthe more your small business will operate as a team effort, not a one-man show. You is not going to only have a high-performing team, but also a high-value team. Double win!
3. Match the pace to your team
This is where the rubber meets the asphalt! Many founders have a burning desire to comprehend their dream “yesterday” and are incredibly impatient when their team isn’t moving at the pace they’d like. At this point, you ask yourself two key questions: Have I hired the right people? Am I consistently sharing my vision and mission so everyone is clear on the direction the company is headed?
I often tell clients that it’s unattainable for their entire team to maneuver at the same breakneck pace that the founder is designed to, and that the founder may have to decelerate a bit to maintain the team moving at the same pace. This is a tough pill to swallow for many founders, but reminding them that they are not a one-man army allows them to be more understanding and higher support teamwork inside the company.
I’m not a proponent of letting employees set the pace of the company. If you hire the right people and train them usually, probabilities are that while they is probably not moving at supersonic speed, they may follow your example and move at an above-average pace.
I all the time tell the story of an incident I witnessed while visiting a client’s restaurant for a review session. The assistant manager was all the time pushing her direct reports to work at breakneck speeds. The manager warned the assistant to all the time give a specific worker tasks ahead of time so they may complete them inside a set timeframe. This particular worker was known to be very thorough in the whole lot he did, but if he was being forced to work at a faster pace than he could handle, he was more likely to be extremely sloppy.
The assistant manager ignored this vital piece of data and once asked the worker to chop ingredients while consistently hovering over the worker’s shoulder, pushing him to work faster. Pushed beyond his limits, the worker almost lost 4 fingers when he unintentionally cut them while attempting to work quickly. The manager and I ran when we heard terrified screams coming from the kitchen, and after the ambulance had left with the injured worker, the manager called the assistant to a private corner and gently reminded him to watch out to not push this particular worker to work faster than he was able.
Message? Sometimes it helps to decelerate a bit so you possibly can move with your team.
4. Share credit for any successes you achieve
Another vital tip I give to startup founders is that they will grow to be team players who enjoy greater than just decent business growth on an ongoing basis, sharing credit for the successes achieved. When you place your team at the center of all of your successes, their motivation and loyalty grow, and they grow to be committed to achieving the company’s goals.
5. Consult with your team often
Get into the habit of checking in with your team members often. This can occur when there are challenges that must be solved, when opportunities arise, or when you’re planning the next steps or direction for your small business. Don’t be the founder who keeps their cards near their chest and just gives instructions without involving their team.
By implementing the above suggestions, you can find that your team will align around the organization’s goals and mission, and your small business shall be higher prepared to weather any storm. Teams will all the time find a strategy to win.