TEC Resource Center

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Time for the Holidays!

It’s interesting that you see this phrase used so often during the holiday season. Because this is the season that most feel they are time starved – lacking the time to get everything done.  This is what started me thinking about your time as a business owner.  A business should be more of a lifestyle than a job!

I want you to think about that for a minute!  A job is something people do to make money and it usually requires a strict schedule of working hours.  Although in the new post covid virtual work world that is more and more not the case.  A business is an asset that you, the business owner decided to build using your cash and sweat equity.  Make no mistake that building that asset is going to take time and a lot of energy.  But you are or should be in control of that time and how it is spent.

My wife had a saying she would throw at me whenever I forgot this.  “No one ever dies saying I wish I spent more time at the office.”  When your business is in its early infancy stage you will have a little less control due to the financial risks involved.  But you have control none the less.

Managing your time effectively can change your life.  If you allow others to steal your time, then you have lost control.  Even customers understand you have a life outside of your business and will more than understand your schedule might not allow for that call that they are trying to book during your son or daughters’ basketball game.

Workload

A study by www.gallup.com found that small business owners work as much as 60 hours per week.  That’s 50% more than the average employee.  Now I am not saying you should work less than your employees because that usually isn’t the case at least not until the business is in its mature phase.  But when you need time off to vacation or just recharge you shouldn’t feel guilty about it.  There is no reason you should not be able to cut out early on occasion to do something for you or the family you love.  I had a routine when my business was growing where I split my time between the office and home.  I would go into the office and work more normal hours, but I would then break so I could have time for dinner with the family.  After dinner many nights I would work at home to complete what needed to get done but I always tried to be there to share the days happenings with the kids and the wife.  My wife was right I never regretted taking that time to watch my children grow and the business never suffered at all.

Delegation

No this isn’t a dirty word, and your staff are not all idiots.  I was complaining one day at a business lunch about my shipping and receiving department and I had a CEO of a larger firm tell me that if they did the job as well as me then they would be the CEO.  He was right!  I didn’t hire an MBA graduate to run the shipping and receiving department – I hired a shipping manager for $75,000 a year.  The problem was mine; I expected too much and gave too little of myself to the person I hired.

In an article from www.americanexpress.com they summed it up well – “If everything in your company depends on you, it can only grow as large as your personal capacity allows.”  The problem is when you are starting out you are a solo entrepreneur, and everything is done by you.  As you grow things are moving too fast to start training people, so you still do it all yourself because the result the team is producing is just not up to par with your standards.

Delegation starts long before you hire your first person.  How can that be you say?  While you are developing the business you personally determine the best way to get things done and what the result should be.  Take the time to template the process so when you do hire someone you can easily train them on your way of doing things.  Spend some time before they start to orient them to the company and your way of thinking.  Listen to feedback because they might just have a better way of doing things.  It’s important to remember that there are tasks in the workplace that you should not be spending your time on.  Delegate them to people who are better at them than you.

The Team

Nothing is more powerful than a team of people aligned around a common goal.  If you can surround yourself with people smarter than you who buy into your vision for the company, you are well on your way to finding more time for yourself and growing a company with a great future.  The team will do the things you should not be doing in the first place, and they will make you proud of the results.  Your mission from here is to develop strategies that will allow the business to thrive into the future and provide your team the opportunity to grow in their careers.  Nothing will kill the spirit of a company quicker than stagnation.

So, take the time this holiday season to think about your business and your life.  Are you living your best life?  Has your business taken control of you, or do you have control of it?  A business has a personality of its own.  It needs to be fed with work and money, it is demanding, but it’s yours.  You are in control of its growth and its cultural development.  Think it over and make sure the business delivers you the life you were hoping for when you started it.

The team here at TEC Resource Center wishes you and your family a happy and healthy holiday season and a year of improved work-life balance.  Now Get It Done!

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It’s That Time of Year!

 

No, it is not the holiday season, it is the time of year to look at what your company has done and plan for what it will do over the next three to five years.  I work with countless business owners who before we met thought year end planning was a waste of time.  We have been doing the same thing for years and we are just fine!  It’s a waste of time and money to get the entire team together to think about what might happen!  My favorite is – Forecasting and budgeting is a waste of time, we never get it right anyway!

Does any of this sound familiar?  Spending some focused time and effort this time of year to better analyze what happened last year, both in your company and the industry has benefits far beyond creating Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to measure success against in the future.  The fact is most companies large and small fail to hit the bullseye when it comes to forecasting.  If you have any money in the stock market this year you know that’s true.

Planning is about the agility and alignment of you and your organization.  As the owner you know where you want to go, that’s why you started the business.  Knowing which path to take to achieve the quickest results and having everyone onboard rowing in the same direction is where planning and budgeting comes in.

Imagine sailing to a Caribbean Island from New York without a navigational map or instruments to predict the weather, direction, or speed.  For the millennials out there, planning a road trip without your phone might be a better analogy.  Of course, we wouldn’t even think about doing these things.  Then why would you try to build a business without an up-to-date GPS to help guide the way.

Take time in the month of December to run the numbers, analyze the changes in the market and yes, get feedback from your team as to what they see as the best way forward.  Captain Kirk could never have survived without Scottie and Spock helping find the right path.  As the owner the responsibility to move the company forward is yours, but your team will be more loyal and work harder to make the journey a success if they helped create the plan to get to the destination.

Here is to a successful 2023.  All your dreams and wishes will come true if you plan it that way and get everyone aligned around the KPI’s that will guide you to your destination!  Let’s Get It Done!

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Don’t Hire Managers – Build Leaders

Today, I want to talk to you about building leaders that will help you explode the growth of your company.  At some point in the development of your organization you will need to hire a manager or supervisor.  This hire will be vital to the future success of the company because it is the people that make an organization great, and if those people are not inspired by a true leader, they will not perform to their peak potential.

I learned this later in my career as a business owner using a 360-survey tool.  Honestly, if you had asked me, and the survey did, I would have told you my team and I worked well together.  The truth was we didn’t!  While I thought I was inspiring them, they thought I was intimidating and difficult to communicate with.

Imagine if you could take that newly hired manager or supervisor and fine tune their ability to communicate and motivate the rest of the team.  The result is a team of employees who are all on the same page and are motivated to deliver on the mission of the organization.  A 360-degree survey, done correctly, allows the manager to go on a journey of self-exploration that not only allows them to grow but empowers them to build leaders below them who can later be promoted.

When done right, 360-degree feedback boosts employee performance and professional development.  Some of the main advantages of using this tool are:

  • Increased self-awareness: 360 feedback employees become aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Identification of skill gaps that helps leaders recognize blind spots and hidden strengths.
  • Provides an overall employee assessment. This knowledge is critical to growing your business as it guides training efforts that promote business success and individual development.
  • Improves productivity: Fosters good working relationships and increases employee productivity. Positive feedback boosts employee confidence and encourages them to do more.
  • Provides leaders insights: Leaders can better understand employees’ skills and decide which roles best suit them.
  • Increases transparency: Helps build trust and facilitates open communication.

The truth is not all 360-degree surveys will deliver these results.  Three persistent issues prevent 360-degree surveys from delivering the total value of the organization’s investment. For decades, 360 reports have been:

  • Data heavy
  • Complicated and difficult to interpret
  • Lack a plan for effecting real change or improvement

Some 360s are so complex that organizations hire certified experts to interpret the data and debrief the results. Participants can be overwhelmed by the amount of data and daunted by figuring out what to do with the feedback.

I recently started working with a company that I recommend to my clients because they have solved these problems with a simple yet elegant 360 report that incorporates a proven change model with the feedback. The combination simplifies the data and illuminates how to use the feedback to improve performance.  They utilize a self-debriefing action report that results in personal, practical, motivating action plans that participants implement to achieve success.

If you are building out a management team, or already have one that could use some improvement, I highly recommend using a 360-degree survey tool like the one described here.  If the feedback isn’t easy for the manager/leader to understand and get on board with, change will not take place.

As always, feel free to leave me a comment below or reach out directly, if I can help you with this or any other issue that will help grow your organization.

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The Power of Giving Back

I think we can all agree that we spend a lot of time and money hiring, training, and managing our employees.  They are the heartbeat of your organization after all.  A healthy well centered and engaged workforce can make a measurable difference in the growth and success of your business.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time of year to engage your team in something greater than themselves by giving back to the world around them.  Your employees want to know that the company they work for stands for something other than increasing the bottom line.  They need to know that the organization’s executives are actual people who care about the world around them.  Sponsoring a food or coat drive for those less fortunate, raising money for victims of natural disasters, or spending some time with the ill or dying can be a tremendously rewarding experience for both your staff and the company.  There are so many worthy causes; I am sure you can find one that fits your organization.

The benefits of giving back to the world are well documented.  I have experienced this first hand by watching company sponsored events at a local homeless shelter I volunteer for on occasion.  The employees volunteering were filled with gratitude for the companies that allowed them to take time out of the work day to participate in such a rewarding activity.  They told me they looked forward to these events and admired their organization for the social conscience they so clearly demonstrated.

Take time this year and think about how you and your team can make the world a better place.  Your employees will thank you for allowing them to participate, your organization will be empowered by the experience and you will beam with pride for having done a great thing for your fellow man!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Create Safe Accountability in Your Organization

 

  1. Set clear and mutually agreed upon expectations with people in regard to both performance and behavior.  This reduces confusion, mixed messages, and judgments of non-performance.
  2. Share information openly and timely to avoid unnecessary surprises.  Develop a communications strategy for informing everyone about relevant and current information.
  3. Surface any conflict directly with the person involved.  Focus on ways to avoid conflict in the future. (This is far more effective than avoiding the person, telling everyone about the conflict, or blaming the person as the one who was wrong.)
  4. Provide encouragement, guidance and other forms of support to individuals who need to make a change but who may not realize the importance, or the process, of doing so.  Typically, we either ignore people who are struggling, or we sympathize with their discomfort and let them off the hook.
  5. Focus on functional roles and processes, rather than position and power, to accomplish outcomes.
  6. Support the development of people and systems in order to respond to the needs of tomorrow and to avoid reacting only to crisis.
  7. Monitor and measure the results of each team and individual so that people know exactly where they stand.  This is the only way to let people know of their successes and their need for improvement.
  8. Do not allow people to perform poorly without making it clear that their performance is unacceptable.  Skirting the issue only causes people to feel deceived and victimized.  No one benefits by carrying a poor performer.
  9. Follow up on commitments so that people can depend on your words and your consistency.  If you are unable to keep a commitment, let people know as soon as you know.
  10. Let others know the care, appreciation, and compassion you feel, instead of holding back.  Honor their humanity as well as your own.  When all is said and done, we are FIRST human beings with fears, needs and imperfections, and SECOND, employees hired to complete a job.

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