3. Take Time to Get To Know Your Team Members
In the current job market, you want to keep and optimize the value of every employee. Each team will have a range of personality types, competencies, and communication styles. It’s important as their manager to become familiar with these so that you can best coach and communicate with your people.
Pay attention to how each person takes coaching or course corrections (when they are off track). Learn which employees have the skills, experience and motivation to thrive by being given free rein to accomplish a task how they see fit – and which employees need more detailed guidance and handholding for every step. By managing to their strengths, they’ll be more successful – and so will you. You just want to be sure you provide equal opportunity to succeed through treating them equitably but not all exactly the same. The differences in your team should be celebrated for their potential value to your business.
4. Praise Your Team Members Publicly
Receiving praise and recognition for a job well done is satisfying and motivating to most employees. Complimenting a team member for a job well done in front of their colleagues is not only encouraging to that team member, but can demonstrate to them what they need to do to also be recognized and rewarded. And when you praise them, be specific about what they accomplished (remember those SMART goals) and put it in context to how the achievement helped the business.
Again, you want to be sure to be even-handed. You may have a team member that outshines the rest of the team consistently. Each person’s positive contributions, even if not of equal value to your business, need to be recognized. An overly dedicated focus on one person over others can backfire with that person being an outcast – and your team resenting you because they think you are “playing favorites”. If someone is a superstar and consistently outperforms their peers, it may be time to consider giving them more opportunity in the form of a promotion, more responsibility (with corresponding earning potential) or offer to train in a new set of skills.
5. Share Constructive Criticism in Private
Ever heard the expression “Praise in public and pummel in private”? Though you are not going to literally pummel someone, you do want to have those difficult conversations in private. Embarrassing a team member, even if you feel they deserved it, is uncalled for – and won’t win you any loyalty or increased productivity from the rest of your team. It can also make you appear to be a bully to any customers, vendors or partners who witness the interaction. It’s just plain bad for business.
Take a deep breath and take them aside. Be calm, cool and collected. Explain clearly where they went astray based on the task’s requirements. Be respectful, but don’t water down your feedback. Most mistakes are just that – mistakes with no intent to do harm. Correct the course and help them understand where they went wrong. Provide them with any additional training they need to improve. They still may feel embarrassed, but you gave them an opportunity to save face by having this conversation in private. And the rest of your team will respect the approach too. No one is perfect and they’ll know when (not if) they mess up, you won’t shame them in public.
6. Do the Work Only You Can Do – and Delegate the Rest
As the owner, this business is your “baby” and you’ll most likely have the most relevant experience and knowledge about the inner workings. So there are some tasks that only you can do or that your experience sets you up to do best. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to – or should.
Delegating is a valuable tool for managing and growing your business potential. There will always be the day-to-day work of running the business, but if you want to have a chance to stand back, take stock and work on ideas for future growth, you need the time and energy to do it. Give your team a chance to shine and grow – and your business too.
7. Set Communication Standards
Constant interruptions by your team to ask you mundane questions or “keep you in the loop” is not only annoying, it gets in the way of you accomplishing your own tasks. Instead, communicate how and when it’s appropriate to chat with you. Provide specific ways to let you know about non-urgent issues (for example, an end of shift email or regularly scheduled 5 minute “stand-up” meeting). For questions from new employees about how to accomplish their jobs, pair that new person with a “mentor” each day – someone working that day who knows that job and can answer most of the typical questions. Of course, if you have a management or team leader structure in place, those individuals should be the first stop for the rest of the team. Regardless of what type of communication process you put in place, share it with your team and be consistent until it becomes a habit. Yes, you’ll still probably need to handle the important or truly urgent, but it should cut down on some of the incessant interruptions and distractions.
