Are you interested in greater efficiency and productivity? Want to reduce costly turnover? Would you like your business to operate with fewer errors and less interruptions to the flow of operations? Do you want your business to be more successful? Does deriving more joy from owning and running your business appeal to you?
If you want your experience as a business owner to be more enjoyable and rewarding — and your company more successful — it’s imperative you build and maintain a dynamic and empowered team. This is accomplished by putting motivated and skilled individuals with positive attitudes in place and then assisting them in developing and using more of their potential.
The first step and most effective way to build a competent, motivated and engaged team is to hire intelligently. Unfortunately, the usual process of hiring people is filled with biased or incorrect information and involves guesswork and assumptions. This too often leads to poor hires.
Assembling a team of skilled, solution-oriented and motivated people is made far more difficult without reliable data. This is where accurate and proven candidate assessments come in. When this approach is used, productivity rises by an astonishing 30 percent and retention goes up by a welcome 50 percent. Productivity rises because a team member’s behaviors, core values, emotional intelligence and competencies align with the duties, responsibilities and rewards of the job. Retention increases because there’s symmetry among the new hire, job and company values. How effective is your hiring process?
The second component of building and maintaining a powerful team requires that you provide professional development opportunities. Like the first step, this is best accomplished with the help of a trained professional who will work with you, your managers and team members to develop top performers. The objective is to help everyone become empowered players so they, your clients and your business will experience more success, fulfillment and happiness. Are you providing team members with the development they need to become their best?
People thrive when praised for a job well done. Recognizing solid efforts and working with team members in positive and constructive ways to reach for higher levels of excellence builds self-esteem, competency and confidence and in turn results in greater levels of performance and job satisfaction. When people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish. How are you doing with this third component of building and maintaining a powerful team? Many owners and managers fall short here.
One of the surest ways to damage a business from within is to hire ineffectively, not encourage and support continued learning and undermine team members and their efforts. This last aspect comes about through unconstructive criticism, blame, lack of follow through, ineffective communication and simply not appreciating those individuals who make up the company. These behaviors undermine self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem in team members as well as the culture of the company and credibility of leadership.
Empowering owners, managers and team members to become top performers offers an effective solution to many of the common problems experienced in business. As team members develop their unique skills, the business runs more efficiently and effectively, the work atmosphere grows more positive, turnover goes down, attendance and engagement goes up, client satisfaction increases and the bottom line improves. Does this sound like the type of business you want to own?
If you find yourself at a loss for how to do this, explore your options and choose the coach or consultant best suited for you. There’s strength in engaging quality professional help. By doing so, you’ll sidestep costly and time consuming errors and set a powerful example for your team members.
You have a wonderful opportunity to help your team members find and develop their strengths and to come alive as active and engaged players in your business. Hire a qualified professional coach or consultant who uses high-quality candidate assessments. Then consistently offer quality professional development opportunities and well-deserved recognition. Work with your people to become top performers, and your team will help you reach new heights of success.
