Reevaluate Your Evolving Team

When I worked in a traditional, corporate environment I made a point of keeping my resume constantly up to date with my accomplishments and results. What began as an effort to fight my non-existent short term memory turned into a powerful tool to ensure that I was always improving and evolving as an employee.

I’ve since recognized that this is an incredible trait of the entrepreneur: to never sit happily on one’s laurels but to consistently grow and evolve, sharing our on-going successes as we do so.

It only makes sense to me to continue that process within my own business and with my team, asking them on occasion to record everything they’re doing in the business which may include tasks I’d forgotten about or had deemed unimportant.

By asking your team to record their accomplishments and tasks you’ll get a few direct benefits. First, seeing if there are any tasks which should be eliminated as no longer necessary, freeing up their time to focus on other areas and saving you money. Similarly, you may find ways to automate tasks that take a lot of time but serve an important purpose.

Second, when you see how someone defines their job you can understand and align your perceptions. Imagine that your VA has omitted all of her contributions to your graphics which have brought incredible value to your sales pages and programs. This is a great opportunity to help your VA uplevel her self-image and show an updated skill set. Or, if you have a new team member in a support role who lists that he is managing launches (which is at best a stretch) then you can help him redefine his role and see the value in it.

Third, you can see gaps that need to be filled, redundancies to eliminate and reorganize the team. It’s hard to get a comprehensive view when you’re looking at people, roles and tasks piecemeal. By viewing it all at once you can keep the pulse of your business as an entity.

After reviewing how your team currently functions it’s time to make some changes.

Identify weaknesses that you’d like to turn into strengths. This may be the contractor who doesn’t respond to your emails, or the assistant who is always late for phone meetings. Once you know the behaviors you’d like to change directly address those in private with the person in question. Take it one step further and create general policies for all employees.

Example: Elmer is consistently 10 minutes late for the team call each week leaving him out of the loop and you often stop the flow of the call as you try to catch him up. Action: Speak directly to Elmer about the importance of being at each meeting on time beginning this week. Use “I expect” instead of “you should” to make your expectations clear. Take it a step further: Email all team members to let them know you’ll no longer be recapping mid-call if someone is late and everyone is expected to show up on time for all calls. And in your ‘welcome to the team’ packet give the details of the team call and explain the importance of punctuality.

Praise publicly the people who are dedicated to your vision. Thank them via Twitter, send them an unexpected gift and say “thank you” verbally. Few things are as powerful as gratitude and you may find that a phone call simply to express your thanks can create deeper loyalty and dedication. In addition to saying thanks, consider adjusting the pay of any contractor who has earned a rate increase.

Be sure to document new pay structures and if you have out of date agreements or are lacking contracts, now is the time to get those in place.

Set new expectations by describing and embodying the behaviors you’d like to see in your business. This subject can be an entire post on its own so I’ll just say: be the change. Elmer is not going to show up on time if you’re consistently late to meetings yourself.

Celebrate. This can all seem like a lot of, well, work, but take some time to celebrate the accomplishments here. This is your business and it’s growing and evolving and serving clients! Your team is also growing to meet those changing needs and you’re committed to creating a business that lasts.

Enjoy this time because when you view systems with a spirit of gratitude it fills you with a sense of purpose and motivation to keep growing.