You want your team to be like a band.
Each member technically great at their own individual instrument, all with different personalities and influences.
The frontman and drummer cannot take the same role, but both are just as important to the overall symphony. In fact, whilst the frontman might get all the celebrity and glory, the drummer leads the song with the consistent beat.
Sometimes bass plays lead, sometimes you have a 3 piece or a 5 or even a 9 piece like Slipknot, sometimes you have an epic solo but you always have the band; a greater sum that the parts.
If you were trying to fly an aircraft without a cockpit, you wouldn’t know where you’re going. You’d crash it and people would get hurt.
Yet most people run their business without their own ‘cockpit.’
What are the vital signs that your business is flying at the right height, full of fuel, on course and with enough power?
Minimum Standard Of Performance
Each member of your team needs a minimum standard of performance (MSO), which covers the five key metrics that your staff member needs to do to essentially just keep their job.
If you have good MSOs outlined in your job descriptions you can completely de-risk the hiring process and can you even link the MSOs to revenue and income-generating tasks. For example, if you’re MSOs for your sales team could be to generate £5,000 worth of income a month before they earn a commission.
Utilising MSOs empowers you to performance manage or even let staff go if they’re not hitting the minimum standard of performance clearly written in the job description.
But what other roles and responsibilities do your staff have?
Key Result Areas
Okay, so the next is knowing what your main key result areas are. The conversion rate of each point of sale? Where all your prospects come from? Renewal rates?
This is an area of focus that is vital to the growth or at least the delivery of the role and you should aim to have between three and seven non-negotiable KRAs for each position. Keeping your KRAs to no more than seven ensures you or your employees are not spread too thin and only important tasks are considered key result areas.
Now, it’s important to remember that not all KRAs can be income-generating as some will be strategic, tactical or administrative as it is dependant on the role.
Adopting KRAs into your business give you overriding guidance and focus because if you’re ever overwhelmed, confused or inundated with work, which of course most of us are most of the time you just check your key result areas and gauge whether it’s an important task of not. If it’s not a KRA, delay it, delegate it or delete it.
And again, it’s vital that you, your business partners and your managers also have KRAs that are different and complementary to one another.
Balance Autonomy & Management
No one likes to be micromanaged, most people like a bit of autonomy, freedom, leadership, responsibilities and ownership. So to increase productivity in your business you can give your staff ownership and leadership over projects so that they are perceived as leaders even though they are not and you can continue to guide them from a managerial point of view which is vital to the business.
Always aim to offer your staff guidance, support and education over micromanagement. I really believe more and more as I grow older that people learn the best when they learn lessons themselves, rather than just by being told how to do something. Challenge and support them but allow them to learn themselves.
Well, as I’ve mentioned key result areas (KRAs) and income-generating task are the main areas that for your staff to focus on but roles and responsibilities can be considered the key functions of the position and just like a football team if you, your staff and everyone in your business know their role and their responsibilities you don’t just all chase the ball around, everyone knows their position and there’s Clarity and where there’s clarity there’s no confusion and no overwhelm.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
KPIs are the metrics of feedback that you and your staff are either growing or decaying, that you’re going in the right direction or the wrong direction. KPIs are the proof behind the numbers as ‘you cannot master what you do not measure.’
By creating KPIs for each role you are allowing them to fulfil their role towards the vision of the management and the company and as a manager and a leader you can give 360-degree feedback to your employee, analysing all of the KPIs within their role and offering continual development where improvements are needed.
I’ve got a key performance indicator and marketing document report that I created which you can access by joining my supporter’s programme. bit.ly/Robsupporter
Learning From The Hard Times
I like to learn from the hard challenges in life and find the upside in them and leverage them for progress, success, happiness, fulfilment and money. It goes without saying that 2020 was a brutal year but as business owners and as entrepreneurs there have been valuable lessons learned that you can take into 2021 to improve your business and to scale your brand.
But it’s not just about the virus, really, is it? Let’s be honest, it started since Brexit. But you’re not an airline. You might just be a one-man band entrepreneur. Or, you might have low overhead. So, NOW is Your Time To Grab Your Share!
We all experience those times when we’ve set our goals and we know what needs to be done to achieve them, but somehow we struggle to get started. The tasks ahead may appear unpleasant, unappealing or insurmountable. We may feel fearful, overwhelmed or unsure where to start.
Removing Bottlenecks & Ensuring That Resources Are Available
It’s important to evaluate where you can improve your business and remove bottlenecks so that your staff have everything they need to do a really good job.
Ask yourself, are there bottlenecks in your business? Perhaps there are too many layers of management or software and systems that are broken or there’s too much manual processing?
As a leader, you’ve got to make sure that all of the friction, bottlenecks, politics, noise and distraction are reduced. The less friction, the more productive, efficient and effective your team is going to be.
Having A Clear Vision
Do you have a clear picture and outcome of the purpose you want your life to serve? the legacy you want to leave? How you want to be remembered and the difference you made on the planet? Set your roadmap for your life and you know which direction to take, even when you hit setbacks and diversions. Regularly check back in on your vision to remove overwhelm and procrastination
How To Kick Procrastination
Procrastination can kick-in as we pick-off the little tasks and the quick-wins around the edges, or we fret and worry rather than simply getting on with it.
How do you know if what you’re doing is the right thing? Are you moving towards your goals? Do you ever feel overwhelmed, frustrated or experience procrastination, fear of mistakes or doubt of the right action?
Most people start at the wrong place; at the bottom. They do more, work harder, stay busy on unimportant tasks to feel productive. Life tells them to work hard. They dig faster and deeper in the wrong direction.
But more importantly how can you do it?
Find your optimum ideal focus environment [For me it’s heavy metal music -I didn’t say it had to be ‘normal’!], and over time you will develop it into habit – the adrenaline will pump, the motivation will be high and the fear of failure will hide away.
At some point you have to stare that procrastination monster in the face and conquer the beast. Start today. Put that b*stard out of its misery once and for all and just do that thing NOW.
Set your own business Cockpit for all the vitals of your business. And it’s v i t a l that it’s somewhere you can physically see it, all day, everyday.
If you can see it, you can be it
