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The Shift From Performer To Manager

The Shift From Performer To Manager

A promotion is exciting—and stressful. According to a recent study by DDI (an HR consultancy firm), 60% of managers felt that their initial promotion to management was the second most stressful time in their lives (second to divorce, for those who had experienced that, too).

The shift to a management role means the shift to a role as a formal leader. Sometimes this transition happens with promotions, and sometimes it happens with the natural progression of the “technician-turned-business-owner” where you go into business for yourself and are suddenly running the show.

How can you make this transition successfully and smoothly? I’ll give you a hint: what got you here isn’t going to get you there—that is, firmly planted as a respected and effective manager.

I’ve coached many people in this position. It’s a demanding time, and as stressful as it can be, there’s also an innate excitement to embrace the challenge, expand your skillset and have an even bigger impact. Let’s examine the three must-have skills to make this transition as rewarding as possible, for you and everyone you’re leading.

When Does This Transition Happen?

I’ve seen it so many times. The high-performer, go-to and trusted worker gets promoted and finds him or herself leading a team. Oftentimes, people in this position have no formal management training, and even more often they have no formal leadership training. They struggle to adapt to their new role and continually get pulled back into doing the work themselves.

This is one way it happens.

In other cases, someone in a technical, do-the-work role has performed outstandingly, and then has the opportunity to “go it solo.” Sometimes these people have grown out of the business they were formerly employed at. Almost always, these people are hungry to create and expand their own organization. And then, these folks find themselves in the position of leading a team and growing a company.

Whichever is the case for you, the transition from performer to manager requires a different conversational skillset. And yes, it comes down to conversation—because now you’re coordinating the work instead of doing it. Here are the essential communication steps you need to take now:

Step 1: Clearly Establish The Foundation:

  •  What the team cares about

Teams exist to make promises and deliver on those promises. These promises must be grounded in a common purpose/vision that the team lives day in and day out in order to organize and operate effectively together. This shared care is like your “North Star” – it guides the decisions you make as a team, the work you engage in and how you measure success.

  •  What shared language the team needs

Before you start throwing words around, it’s vital to establish what language you’ll be using as a group, and what that language means. “Customer satisfaction,” “revenue” and “team” are all examples of terms that need to be clearly defined to ensure everyone is working with the same understanding of their meaning. Without this shared understanding, team members could think they’re on the same page as you when, in fact, they’re not.

  •  What standards the team holds

Standards left assumed or unspoken are unfair and unrealistic. Communication breaks down if you don’t establish standards clearly from day one and then continue reiterating them. These standards include how the team coordinates work together, as well as how it interacts with internal and external customers. These standards also provide a shared understanding for how performance and outcomes will be assessed. Everyone needs to be clear of the rules of the game they’re playing, and when something is unclear, take the opportunity to open a conversation to bring clarity.

Being responsible and accountable for managing your team’s capacity and outcomes (not to mention the satisfaction of clients affected by the results) starts with establishing these three pillars of effective communication. Read more about each in this article on shaping the future of your business.

Step 2: Coach People Effectively

Coaching your team means helping them find the answers, not giving them the answers. Often, new managers fall into the story that it will take less time to simply provide an answer than to coach a team member through the process of arriving at their own answer. This approach stifles the team in a number of ways:

  1. It inhibits the growth and development of the team member, since he or she is not being challenged and supported to solve problems.
  2. It keeps the manager in the cycle of doing the work, which leads to capacity issues.
  3. It assumes that the manager has the best answer, which in many cases is not true. Stifling creativity and different ways of thinking short-circuits the team and the organization.

The metaphor goes that, if someone comes to you with a monkey on their back, they have to leave with the monkey (not leave it with you). That monkey might be a problem to solve, a deliverable that needs to get done, or even a simple question. Your team will not grow if you let them dump things on you. (And it won’t be good for you, either.) Instead, help them think through what options there are, evaluate those options and determine a course of action.

coaching employees

Helping your team find the answers and forge a path forward isn’t inherently about tough love, either. Rather, it’s an empowering force. When your team members are challenged, they ultimately feel more useful. This and other tips on things NOT to do to team members were written about recently on Inc.com.

You’ve heard about helicopter parents who hover so close to their children and remove all obstacles in their path that the children miss developmental opportunities. Delegating appropriately is another “must” to make sure the same doesn’t happen to people you manage.

Step 3: Make And Fulfill Promises

As a manager, it’s your responsibility to make promises on behalf of your team that they can fulfill to the standards the team has set. Doing so requires some key elements:

  • Manage the team’s capacity

Now that you’re responsible for more than just your performance, you must stay in-tune with what the team can take on. Being in a default mode of saying “yes” to everything that is asked of you and the team is a quick road to dissatisfaction and burnout. It can also lead to the disappointment of customers and others when the promise is not fulfilled. Rather than jumping to “yes,” open a conversation with your team as a whole, or specific team members, about what’s possible—and then respond. That shared care comes into play here as well. Staying in alignment with that purpose will ensure you’re supporting your team in pursuing the activities that matter most.

  • Hold yourself and team members accountable for the promises you (and they) make

When you make a promise, fulfill it, and expect the same of your team. Following through on promises made is the best way to build trust. I encourage teams to establish weekly action meetings where specific work/deliverables are committed to, and the following week must be reported out as done or not done. If there’s a recurring “not done” report by a specific team member or with regard to a specific task or project, it’s time to dig in and see what’s going on.

  • Coordinate when there are breakdowns

Breakdowns are a regular occurrence in organizational life, and life in general. When the situation shifts, new information becomes available or any other change leads to a disruption in the normal course of action, call it out. Bring the breakdown/issue/red flag to light, and encourage your team to do the same. Doing so opens the conversation for how to respond/recover.

Congratulations for your promotion or for your leap into self-employment. I hope your own priorities, standards and outcomes are aligned a little clearer after reading this article. If you do have more questions, don’t hesitate to send me an email directly. I love supporting managers and teams in establishing these routines to have maximum impact and maximum satisfaction.

How To Disconnect From Business—To Better Your Business

How To Disconnect From Business—To Better Your Business

You own a business. Yes, you’re the keystone of operations. Yes, it’s critical to the success of your business that you take due responsibility. But if big bank CEOs can still go on vacation and switch their phones to “off,” why can’t you? Sure, they have enormous teams to take care of everything while they’re gone, however there’s a simpler reason why they’re able to disconnect: they have the processes in place to keep the engine running without them.

Let’s say you’re still many, many written processes away from feeling that kind of independence. That can be remedied (especially with the new online, self-paced course I’m offering that dives into all-things-process). And…the idea of disconnecting is something crucial you need to understand here and now.

Stop trying to maximize every second of the day with productive to-dos, savagely crossing tasks off your list. If you don’t prioritize downtime to disconnect, you’ll be sitting on the edge of overwhelm and burnout. I am speaking from experience here.

There are at least a few hours every day that must be “sacred,” those hours where no one should bother you and where you have NO obligation to view an email or take a phone call. And I’ll go further—it’s essential to your health and to the growth of your business that you make it your highest priority to find even longer windows to disconnect.

Let Me Tell You Where I’m Coming From…

I’ll be frank; this has been on my mind a lot lately thanks to a recent trip I took. It’s not that long ago that I came back from one and a half weeks overseas. I had a lot of things on my mind while I traveled—places to see, agendas to keep—and above all else, I had one primary focus: to be present.

I had this idea that “being present” would leave me open to whatever experiences happened upon my path. And in order to be more present, I had to disconnect.

It started on a bus where I simply disconnected from the WiFi. As I traveled between cities, I looked out the window or talked to the other travelers instead. I took time and (equally important) made a deliberate effort to immerse myself in the people, culture, history and stories that were quickly building what became a life-changing experience.

By giving myself space, disconnecting from the notifications and the rest, I found perspective.

Please answer honestly—when did you last break away? Do you actively cultivate a space for yourself?

No?

Here’s how.

Step 1: Accept Your “Productive Downfall”

productivity downfall am i too productiveI’m included in this and so feel empowered to say it: business owners face many challenges, and one that continually rises to the top of the list is the need to always be productive. It can feel at times like business success rests squarely on your shoulders, and so there’s always more you could do—projects to finish, deals to close and services to launch out of the park.

Even downtime is filled with “to-dos.” Everything from doing the laundry to cleaning the house or taking care of the errands you haven’t had time to do. It’s a compulsion for most of us. We get that same rush after our “free time” that we do in the office, thinking with satisfaction of the list of things we just accomplished.

What you have to remember is that any amount of time devoted to relaxation—real relaxation, not running errands—is a profitable investment. It will make you a better businessperson and it will render you more equipped to do your job. Giving yourself room to introspect will directly impact your business in the most positive ways. Down time opens up space for creativity and to see things in a different way.

If you really want to be “at your best” for your business to grow, a healthy frame of mind is where that starts. Your best ideas come when you’re relaxed and recharged, not stressed. And what do businesses thrive on today, if not great ideas?

It’s critical that you accept the idea of disconnecting, relaxing, living in the moment…and that you build this time in without ever thinking twice about it. Whatever you want to call it, however you want to see it, you need to appreciate its value. Not coming naturally to you? Keep reading about the importance of time off to learn more.

Step 2: Draw A Line In The Sand

If you’re serious about disconnecting, you need to commit to it just like you do everything else on your agenda. And then, you need to draw a line in the sand to start classifying activities that promote relaxation and living in the moment versus those that don’t.

I’ll be the first to add something to column “B” for you—it does not count to be “in the moment” or disconnected from the noise of work and life if you’re on your phone, not even blowing time on social media. That’s why I shut the WiFi off on the bus that day. Our brains need a break from constant engagement, and the risk of notifications coming in and taking you a step away from dedicated time for introspection will be counterproductive to everything you’re trying to gain by it.

What You Need To Know About Your Phone

Even better than disconnecting from WiFi is shutting your phone or tablet off altogether. The buzzing or dinging, those endless vies for your attention, will steer you away from personal growth. Apple proudly announced in 2013 that more than 7.4 trillion push notifications had been sent through its servers. They haven’t spoken to that number since, but how much do you want to bet that number has doubled? Tripled?

By turning your phone off altogether, you’ll quickly discover that you don’t miss the stream of push notifications filling your lock screen. You’ll no longer allow just any app to interrupt your time for reflection.

Apple wants you to look at your iPhone, Gmail wants you to open your inbox, Facebook wants you to open Messenger and dozens of other apps and advertisers are competing every second for your attention. This will not change without your intervention, so make the call now to turn your notifications, WiFi or phone off. Leave it behind.

Step 3: Use Reflection Time

Know how to reflectWhat do you do with this down time? The short answer is: nothing productive. What I mean by that is to strike the idea of “maximizing” your time with things that “have to get done.” You can use your reflection time to walk somewhere, go to lunch, read a book or talk to your neighbor. The point is that it should leave you open to the moment and all the experiences, ideas and feelings that come organically with it.

Not sure which activities or experiences fall on the right side of that line in the sand? Look at this article by American Express to see which of these ideas resonate with you. Personally, I connect with quiet and creativity by getting out into nature, by doing yoga and by cooking.

It’s amazing what’s possible when you step out of the daily grind. Heck, it’s amazing what’s possible when you simply look up from your phone.

Block off time to disconnect starting today. Then increase that time little by little. And then, plan bigger windows of time (like a vacation) to support your “in the moment” experiences. What you find might surprise you in the best way.

Think slowing down is a luxury you don’t have? Think again.

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” – Oprah Winfrey

Three Business “Do Or Dies”

Three Business “Do Or Dies”

The barrier to entry to start a business in this country is extremely low. Have an idea? Think you can do something better or different than others who are doing it? Than start a business! File some simple documents online, and you’re official.

But that doesn’t mean that you can run a successful business.

When it comes to running a business, there are three core functions that you absolutely must have. These apply across every business model and industry without exception. These are mission-critical, and without all three, failure is inevitable.

I talk about these functions seriously because they are that essential. You can develop these functions internally or you can outsource them, but you must have them covered one way or another.

So, without further ado, these three necessary skills for anyone running a business are:

  1. Generate and convert leads.
  2. Read and interpret financials.
  3. Create and put processes in place.

These are each make-or-break, and it’s not just your business that’s at stake—it’s your life. Keep reading and I’ll show you not only why, but also how, to effectively master all three.

1: Generate And Convert Leads

Your business will fail if you don’t have leads coming in. Right? At least, that’s what all the digital marketing companies are telling you. And it’s the truth, but not the whole truth.

Lead lists and how important it is to convertYou do have to be growing your lead list, that’s for sure. I’ll take it a step further, though, and say that your conversion rate on those leads is even more important. If you need nine new clients a month and are only generating a dozen leads, but converting nine of them, you’re right on track.

Your conversion rate will depend on a multitude of factors, and business-to-business those factors will vary a lot. Identifying the right KPIs will help give you direction on where your numbers should be.

Maybe you’ve already identified those KPIs. Maybe you already know where your numbers are, and you’re painfully aware that you desperately need more leads—and a much higher conversion rate. To get to the heart of this, I’ve outlined the steps to get going in the right direction. This is something you have to work on immediately, because without generating and converting the right number of leads, it’s just a matter of time until your business is toast.

Step 1 – Identify Where Your Ideal Clients “Live”

You’ve probably heard and read about this many, many times. Your ideal client, or avatar, is the profile of the client you best serve.

As much as you might know about your avatar (their gender and age, where they are located geographically, what they do for work), do you know where they hang out? Do you know what percent of that audience uses one social network versus another? Can you name a book that multiple people in your audience have read? Do you know what their favorite websites are? What magazines they read? Where they go for fun? What they really care about deep down?

You can get these answers through interviews of your ideal client. This will help you know where to go and what to talk about to attract and convert more leads.

Step 2 – Make A Valuable Offer

We’ve gone over how you’ll have a much easier time reaching your ideal client when you know where they “live.” You’ll also have a better understanding about what makes them happy, sad, scared, relieved—and make an offer to them that’s valuable and alleviates their concerns, helps them realize their dreams, etc. In essence, that takes care of what they care about. Anything that can bring real value to your avatar (while speaking to the “need” and emotional backdrop you know is there) will help position your offer as the solution.

Step 3 – Follow Up

Let’s say you’ve done all the work up to here. To tap the well and convert even more leads, you need a system in place to easily (and, ideally, automatically) follow-up.

Sometimes called “touch programs,” “top-of-mind awareness” and “drip campaigns,” this refers to the marketing and messaging you push out to warm leads who already contacted you but didn’t bite. This is the segment of your target audience that knows who you are and knows you provide a solution they need. Generally, two thirds of this segment learned about you before they were ready to buy, and following up is your ticket to staying in the picture until they are ready to make their decision. Without following up, it’s dangerously unlikely that decision will be made in your favor.

Building a system for following up also generates content that’s often sharable and repeatable, and helps bring new leads in—and thus the cycle continues.

Take these steps seriously, and remember that even a mammoth lead list won’t do anything unless you both generate and convert leads consistently.

2: Read And Interpret Financials

Your financial statements are commonly referred to as “the scorecards for business performance.” I love talking about the KPI scorecards I help Kleriti clients build, and financials are always a big part of those. This acumen is so essential to your business that, if you aren’t on solid footing in reading and interpreting financials, you truly need to solve that now.

Financials and how to read financial reports

The Balance Sheet

The balance sheet gives you a “snapshot in time” of:

  • Assets
  • Liabilities
  • Shareholder equity
  • Net worth

This sheet is the quick overview of the health of your business. It’s also used to calculate things like your business’s capital structure and rate of return.

The Income Statement

The income statement, also called the profit and loss statement (or P&L), reports the money in, out and owed over a specific time period (rather than the balance sheet, which is a snapshot at a specific point in time). The focus of the income statement includes the net balances of money in and out.

Cash Flow Statement

We all know what cash flow is, and the cash flow statement is an equally essential concept to understand. This reports the operating cash flow as well as the financing cash flow, and—if you have investors—also includes the investing cash flow. Knowing what cash you have on hand, where it’s coming from and at what cost, is essential for assessing any business’s liquidity.

After you know what these financial statements are (and how to read them), knowing how to use that information is the next crucial hurdle. The good news is that this essential, do-or-die task is one of the most practical to outsource. Or, who knows, maybe it’s time to upgrade to a CFO?

3: Create And Put Processes In Place

Processes know how to put process in placeYou know how your business works. In fact, you know it better than anyone. That knowledge transfer is fundamental when you bring more people onto your team—and having documented processes in place is how you transfer your knowledge (and your expectations) successfully.

Processes act to streamline and communicate recurring tasks, as well as to support improving them. So, how do you know what needs to be turned into a process? And how do you craft that process, document it and teach it to others? My new self-paced, online course DuplicateU teaches you how to do just that. And in the meantime, here are some basics to get started.

Step 1 – Determine Recurring Activities

Every business is comprised of predictable, recurring business activities. Since time is money, engaging in recurring tasks depletes your bottom line. The more you can automate, the more time and space you can free up to attend to more creative endeavors.

Step 2 – Document Everything

I can’t tell you how many owners say to me, “Don’t worry. It’s all right here,” as they point to their head. To which I respond, “That is precisely the problem!”

You see, our brains are not meant to keep track of mundane information. They’re meant for higher level functioning and problem solving. Yet, when we fill them with all these details, there’s no room for anything else. Do you ever feel like your brain is sometimes foggy? Or like it’s really hard to concentrate on one thing? This is why! Not to mention that brains are fallible.

Operating this way is not just risky…it’s reckless. Put everything on paper. This makes it shareable and teachable with others in an efficient, effective way. And it frees up your brain for more fun stuff!

Step 3 – Design Tools for Support

Every process has a set of elements (like templates, scripts and checklists) that support it. These are necessary to execute the process seamlessly and consistently every time. And these all need to be on paper so that anyone can follow/use them. The right tools allow you to automate the process, making each repeatable task easier to execute consistently every time.

Mission-Critical Means Immediate Action Needed

This article was a to-the-point description of the three do-or-die functions for business owners. As you can imagine, each of these is so important that I could devote not just a whole blog, but an entire course to it—like I did with DuplicateU, the course I designed to empower business owners to put the processes in place they need so their businesses can run without them.

There’s a lot of information out there on each of these concepts, and even some excellent tools to help you. For example, read what Lucid Chart has to say about process documentation, and you’ll see how their “idea board” SaaS is especially well-designed to help.

Whatever you do, don’t look at the end of this article as the end of the lesson. These three business tasks are non-discretionary for your business and for your own well-being. You need to generate and convert leads, you need to know how to read and take action on your financials and you need to have defined, documented processes in place—or your business will fail. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Start today, and check out DuplicateU. You’ll be happy you did.

To Automate or Not to Automate? That is the Question!

To Automate or Not to Automate? That is the Question!

The idea of automating just about any task is an attractive one. You can save time, sometimes hours a day, for you and multiple members of your team.

But then, in the face of changing a routine, finding an automation tool and setting up a new system, you have to ask: is it worth it?

Knowing whether a task is worth automating first requires taking a look at the total time, energy and trouble going into completing it the way it’s done today. From there, you can explore what tools are available to address concerns.

I’m going to break down these three major factors so you can apply them to whatever tasks you’re thinking about automating. Any one of these alone can make it clear that it’s time to automate a process. If you aren’t compelled by one factor, look at the sum of all three. And if you still aren’t sure, apply the questions I’ve listed at the bottom of this article to fully assess your path forward.

Factor One: Total Time

This factor is easy to assess since is quantifiable. For any task you do on a regular basis, there’s usually an opportunity to automate all or part of it, especially since these tasks are almost always repetitive.

For anyone who owns a business, the more tasks you have that require daily or weekly attention, the harder it is to take that vacation you deserve or step back from the daily grind.

My two cents is that any task you’re doing daily can probably be automated to cut the time it takes in half, or eliminate the need for a daily recurrence all together. I’d say the same for many weekly tasks, too.

Here’s a table you can use when assessing how much time you’re really spending on a regular task. Look at the time you could save after migrating that task to an automated solution. Not every task will have an obvious automation solution, and many will depend on other factors like what software is easily available. At the very least this can start to put daily and weekly tasks into perspective of the total time invested.

Table to see how much time you really spend on a repetitive or regular task

Start by jotting down how much time you spend doing regular and repetitive tasks. Especially those that are stressful when you’re out of the office. Better yet, keep a time log for all of your regular tasks to identify room for automation. You might not even realize how many times you’ve performed a single task until you look back over the course of the month.

Expert tip: This concept is so important that it’s discussed in greater depth in the first module of our new online course, DuplicateU: Lay The Foundation. To get additional guidance on this step and what it can mean to you and your business, learn more about DuplicateU here.

Factor Two: Energy

This is where we get into the more open-ended assessments. The energy you spend doing a regular or repetitive task should be a major consideration when looking at automations—after all, you have a lot of responsibilities requiring energy throughout the day. And energy is a finite resource that must be managed with intentionality. If any recurring task is taking energy away from important business functions like strategy and planning, marketing and sales, or financial oversight, it might be worth looking at another solution.

A task can take little time and still be exhaustive mentally/emotionally. Take financial management tasks, for example. One question I answered recently is whether it’s time to upgrade from a bookkeeper to a CFO. If it’s not time to take that step yet, and you’re trying to do away with a few regular data entry tasks, a simple spreadsheet automation might save you energy spent entering sensitive information and validating data fields.

If you’re not sure how much energy a task really requires, ask yourself how you feel after the task is done. Are you able to jump right into something else, or do you need time to “recover” before tackling the next thing? If your answer is the former, it’s likely that task gives you energy. If your answer is the latter, it’s likely that task depletes your energy, and reducing the amount of mental/emotional energy it takes should be a priority.

Factor Three: Trouble (Frustration)

Frustrating tasks and how business owners can automate themThe frustration factor comes down to a little self-awareness. Do you complete certain tasks grudgingly? Are there recurring responsibilities that you put off and put off and put off until absolutely the last minute? Do you have to push yourself to get them done with several pep talks? If a regular task is causing you grief or if it feels like you’re “going to the trouble” to get it done every time, that’s a big flag to consider properly delegating or looking to an automation.

If you feel resentful toward a task, or even hateful of sitting down to do it, it’s probably time to get that task off your plate.

Expert tip: Remember that toxic tasks can weigh down your employees, too. While delegating can serve as a short-term solution, an automation is often the better way to go for repetitive tasks with a high frustration curve.

A final pointer regarding these three factors:

While any one of these factors can illustrate what tasks can be automated, sometimes it’s the sum of all three that point you in the right direction. Imagine an equation: Total Time plus Energy plus Trouble. Label each factor as “high,” “medium” or “low,” and you will feel that much more empowered to invest a little time upfront to move to an automation that will save you time and boost morale in the end.

Questions to Ask if You’re Still not Sure

Automating tasks sounds great. But doing so often require time you feel you don’t have just to get a new system up and running!

If you’re thinking about a specific task and still aren’t sure, or need a few more reasons to justify the time or budget invested in making the switch, ask yourself the following questions:

  1. If you delegated this task instead of automating it, would it be a headache for the person taking it on?
  2. Is the task prone to human error? (Great examples would be bookkeeping and setting appointments.)
  3. Could automating the task improve the quality of work?
  4. Do you know others who have implemented this kind of solution before?

(Expert tip: Making time for a single conversation with a peer or consultant can save you hours of googling, deciphering software features and price-comparing.)

If you answer “yes” to any of the above, that’s a strong indicator that automation could save you time, money and strife.

Looking Toward the Future

Instead of living with frustration or feeling the burnout bubble up, make a move now to automate recurring tasks in a way that is intentional and well planned. These moves will pay off not only in time and energy savings, but also in opening up opportunities to scale your operations. The sooner you have automations in place, the more seamless your ramp to growing your business will be.

Automations often require new software and subscriptions, so weigh these expenses with the benefits these solutions bring and move decisively. If there’s one epiphany that business owners come to time and time again, it’s that we can’t do it all.

Start a time log today to look for tasks begging for automation, or drop a comment here if you already have one on your mind. I’ll reply directly with tips and will be available to point you in the direction of solutions that can help you survive today and scale tomorrow, like the new self-paced online course DuplicateU that will start by working through this exercise. Learn about new automations today to set your business up for a self-sustaining future with lower stress and bigger returns.

You Know An Employee Is Ready To Take Responsibilities Off Your Plate When…

You Know An Employee Is Ready To Take Responsibilities Off Your Plate When…

As a business owner, one of the most important things you do is delegate. After hiring the right people and setting standards for each role, you’ll be faced with new opportunities on a daily basis to delegate tasks and projects, and help employees move to new heights in performance and skill.

It’s satisfying to see an employee grow. So how do you know when someone is ready to take on more responsibility?

One of the first signs that an employee is fully invested in your company (and ready to take more responsibility) is when his or her vocabulary shifts from “mine” and “yours” to “ours.” It’s not just about the employee’s success, and it’s not just about the success of the company. It’s about “our” success together.

This sounds great, especially with that goal in the back of your mind to get to a place where you can let go of the day-to-day and watch your business run itself. You want your hard work to pay off in a self-sustaining way. The specifics of “when” and “how” come down to human resources and recognizing when an employee’s growing skillset can mean bigger opportunity for your business.

Here, I’m going to break down how to identify when an employee is ready to take on more responsibility and carry your business forward.

When an Employee is Ready and Knows it

An employee who is ready for more responsibility and shows it

There are employees who are hungry for more responsibility and make it known to you and your team.

Naturally, any employee you’re considering handing new responsibilities off to will have excelled in meeting his or her current accountabilities. Take a look at any energetic or ambitious employee against the key performance indicators (KPIs) you have in place to ensure that existing tasks are being completed consistently and correctly.

Then look at the telltale signs below that signal an employee is ready to take on even more:

  • Ingenuity: If an employee actively looks for solutions to problems, this demonstrates a drive to exceed expectations, play to the success of the business and ultimately take on more responsibility.
  • Prioritization: Taking on new tasks requires excellent time management practices. In the face of new responsibilities, an employee has to know how to stay on top of current duties and work new ones in while keeping priorities clearly outlined.
  • Managing deadlines: Hand-in-hand with prioritization is the employee’s ability to watch deadlines and take charge of follow-up. Meeting deadlines, and proactivity communicating when a deadline may not be met, are key practices that become more essential when the employee’s plate is even fuller.

When an Employee is Ready and Doesn’t Know it—Yet

An employee who is ready for more responsibility but doesn't know it yet

Maybe you have an employee who’s showing signs that he or she is ready for more responsibility, but lacks the spark to ask for additional tasks proactively. In this case, get curious and speak with the employee about what’s going on. It’s possible he or she has a concern about biting off more and being successful, or simply isn’t aware that there are additional ways he or she could bring value to the organization.

It’s your job to see the possibilities for this employee’s skillsets and strengths and match them with organizational needs.

These are some of the signs that an employee is ready for more responsibility, whether or not he or she knows it:

  • Excelling in existing responsibilities: This is the basic metric when thinking about handing off more assignments or tasks. If your employee is excelling in tasks on his or her plate now, it may be time to start building that employee up to bigger things.
  • Strong performance reviews: If your recent reviews of the employee outline strong adherence to KPIs, that’s one sign that he or she is ready for more. And if your reviews include any type of self-assessment where the employee has shown confidence in work done, that’s an even bigger push to start giving that employee more to do.
  • Acting as the go-to: If other teammates are reaching out to this employee for help with technical or theoretical questions, and he or she has the answers, this may signal that the employee is ready to take on more.

    Expert tip: If other employees are going to one person with questions, this also signals an opportunity in your training program. Make sure team members are cross-trained and have access to the information they need to do their job well.

Align Appropriate Rewards

When an employee takes on more responsibility, consider what type of recognition is most appropriate. If the employee is up for a promotion or raise, celebrate the hard work that went into it. And if you hadn’t thought about a promotion or a raise yet, ask yourself what that employee would need to demonstrate in order for a promotion or raise to be appropriate, and share the criteria with him or her to build up that employee’s momentum.

That said, a raise isn’t the only way to show an employee your appreciation. You can also recognize your employee (and encourage the same behaviors from the rest of your team) using one of several reward approaches. Handing more responsibility to an ambitious and resourceful employee will be good for you, good for the employee and good for your team if done right.

Once you do identify an employee who is ready for more responsibility, the art of delegating is another practice you’ll want to master. And coupled with the recognition and rewards that will keep employees motivated in their new tasks, you and your team will be on the path to bigger things.

Do you have a specific case to ask about? Or an employee who’s shown some of these signs, but not others? Leave me a comment below with your question, or reach out here.

The Way You Set Your Business Goals Guarantees Failure

The Way You Set Your Business Goals Guarantees Failure

We’re almost two months through 2019. How is your business doing? Do you have your goals written down and visible? Are you making progress toward accomplishing those goals? Are you tracking that progress?

No business achieves success without clearly defined goals to guide decisions and actions. And those goals must be grounded in a meaningful and intentional purpose to make them stick. Clear goals, such as “complete launch plan for new service line by the end of Q1” provide the direction that leadership and team members need to align, commit and act.

Yet so few entrepreneurs prioritize the time to set goals, and even fewer maintain focus on goals that have been set.

A  recent Gallup study showed that only 22% of employees strongly agree that their organization’s leadership has a clear direction, and only 33% of employees are engaged. Without goals, team members flounder, unsure what success looks like or how to achieve it. They show up, punch the clock, keep themselves busy during the day, punch out and go home. And organizations suffer as a result, never reaching the level of success they could reach. If your company falls into the category of lacking direction and employee engagement, have no fear. Now’s the time to reset your course and take a more strategic approach to business planning.  By setting realistic, clearly defined, measurable goals and having a more clearly defined purpose for your business, you can start down this path today. Here are steps to start the process.

Define Your Purpose

As mentioned above, you must have a purpose behind your business goals. Every person on your team, no matter their position in the organization, needs to be clear on why they’re doing what they’re doing. On why their role, their project, their piece in the puzzle is necessary to get the organization to where it’s going. This is what enables everyone in the boat to paddle in the same direction at the same speed like a well-practiced crew team.

How do you determine your purpose? Here are some questions to begin the conversation:

  • What do we care about?
  • What brings us meaning, value, satisfaction and fulfillment?
  • Why does our company exist?
  • What promises do we make to our team members? to our clients/customers/patents?
  • What results do our clients/customers/patients care about?

When everybody knows the purpose of your business, it sets a universal standard for the direction you are moving. It also guides every conversation, commitment and action that every member of your team makes. Every initiative you and your employees look at taking on throughout the year can be compared to this purpose to ask the question, “Is this in alignment with our purpose, and does pursuing it take care of what we care about?” If the answer is “yes,” it makes sense to pursue further conversations to define goals around it. If the answer is “no,” drop it.

Operating in this fashion will set your business up to not only reach its goals but to have the best year in business it’s ever had. For your convenience, we have a handy worksheet you can download and use to help you along this process.

Use SMART Goals

Once you’re clear on your purpose and the initiatives that align with it, it’s time to get into goal setting. We recommend quarterly leadership team meetings where you look back at progress made on last quarter’s goals and set goals for the quarter ahead. This framework ensures everyone is on the same page as it relates to business direction and focus for the next three months, and also gives members of the leadership team a forum to voice their aspirations and concerns, and break apart issues standing in the way of accomplishing goals.

During these sessions, be sure you’re setting SMART goals. Specifically, SMART stands for:

  • Specific: Goals must be clear and well defined. Vague or generalized goals are unhelpful because they don’t provide sufficient direction.
  • Measurable: Include precise amounts, dates, etc. in your goals so you can measure your degree of success. Without a way to measure success, you miss out on the celebration that comes when you achieve something.
  • Attainable: Make sure that it’s possible to achieve the goals you set. Set realist yet challenging goals that require you to “raise the bar.” These bring the greatest satisfaction.
  • Relevant: Goals should be relevant to the direction you want to go in, and to your purpose.
  • Time-Bound: Your goals must have a deadline. When you are working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases and achievement comes that much quicker.

Using this technique when defining your goals allows you to frame them in a way that ensures they’re clear, actionable, trackable and attainable. And once the quarter’s goals are set, don’t change them. This shows that your leadership team has a clear direction and is not wavering from it.

Make Progress Visible To Everyone

Once your goals are defined, communicate them to everyone in your organization. Following each quarterly leadership team meeting, hold an all-staff meeting where you report out on the three most relevant data points for each of the following:

  • Where you’ve been — successes and progress over the previous quarter
  • Where you are — important headlines
  • Where you’re going — newly set company priorities for this quarter 

And don’t stop there, or else it’s easy for goals to fall into the“out of sight, out of mind” category. Instead, visibly track progress toward reaching each goal, holding team members to weekly to-dos.

Aligning your team on your organization’s purpose and making sure everyone is focused on your goals can be challenging. These elements are essential to the growth and long-term success of your company. If you are looking for assistance in defining and aligning your goals, contact us today for a free, one-on-one, no obligation consultation.