Business Coach Moves For Success
Business Coach Super Moves
Business Coach Shares Super Moves to Develop Your Management Team
Super Move – You want to staff your biggest weakness. Humans all have different gifting, strengths and skills. As a business owner, you want to be self-aware enough to recognize what your biggest limiting factor and biggest weakness is as a boss and you want to hire someone who can come in an immediately fill in the gaps where your skills are lacking. When you begin to bring in management talent and company leadership, you must view these hires as needle moving game-changing investments in your company’s future.
Business Coach Story Time:
Years ago, I was brought in as a consultant to work with a mortgage company that had a virtual lid (maximum) on the number of sales the company could do on a monthly basis. When I sat down with the owner, as a business coach I discovered that the entire process of drumming up sales leads and processing the actual loans (dealing with the mountain of paperwork and forms) was locked inside the head of just one person – the owner. Over a 60-day window of time, I helped him turn his entire process into a duplicable system capable of running without him. However, he kept bringing up the idea that if the system was as good as it was supposed to be, then he had no need for an operations manager.
After hammering him with example after example of companies that became stuck because their owners shared this mentality, I finally was able to get him to see the light and hire an office manager who was obsessed with details, follow-up, and accuracy. This one hire changed this business owner’s life. Within 90 days of hiring this person, all of his systems were being executed on a daily basis. This allowed the owner to invest time in developing more strategic relationships with sources of funding and realtors within the community. Long story short, the business boomed as a result of the owner’s decision to hire and fully commit to training his office manager. This was a win for me as a business coach and the mortgage company.
Super Move – Be prepared to replace members of your management team as your business outgrows their ambition, drive, and skills. In the process of growing a typical company by 50%, only 50% of the management team will make it through the transition. Some of your existing team members will have a growth mindset and will be moldable. However, at least 50% of managers typically push back hard and say things such as, “Well this is how we used to do it,” or “If it is not broken, why are we trying to fix it?” Additionally, some members of your team might need to be moved to different positions within your company if they simply choose to not keep up.
Super Move – You must make sure that you invest in providing your management team with the documented systems and processes that you want them to manage. Too often I see businesses make a key hire and then begin to give them a series of verbal commands, oral traditions and non-written general platitudes that they call “systems.” I vividly recall the look on these new hires’ faces as they say to themselves, “What the crap are they talking about? Doesn’t anyone know where the passwords are saved?”
Super Move – When you do the hard things first, your life will get easier and your business will grow. Letting people go is always tough to do, but you must be 100% committed to your big vision and your big goals. No matter the cost. You must be committed to the health of your organization and to the rapid growth of your business in a scalable way. People who refuse to get on board with your vision of creating a duplicable business that is capable of producing consistent value for your customers and profits for your team must be let go.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” -Steve Jobs (Co-founder of Apple)
Super Move – You must develop yourself so you can be a sincere source of wisdom for your management team. Many business owners hire talented people and then they start running around like they’re reenacting Justin Bieber’s notorious trip to Brazil. Don’t hire quality people and then begin acting like a jackass.
Super Move – Don’t hire people who are less skilled than you, just so your ego will not be impacted. Your goal is to hire people who are more talented than you in their given focus area.
Super Move – Delegate generously to members of your team who consistently produce great results and who show a commitment to excellence and a growth mindset. However, fire negative, dishonest, and incompetent people as soon as possible. Hiring really good people is hard to do, but once you do hire really good people, your life will get a lot easier if you will just get out of their way and let them do their job.
“One lesson I learned [at PayPal] is to fire people faster. That sounds awful, but I think if somebody is not working out, it’s best to part ways sooner rather than later. It’s a mistake to try too hard to make something work that really couldn’t work.” -Elon Musk (founder of PayPal, CEO of SpaceX, and CEO of Tesla Motors)
Super Move – Delegate, but do not abdicate. ALMOST 100% OF THE BUSINESS OWNERS I HAVE EVER COACHED, SPOKEN TO, OR EVEN JUST MET GET THIS WRONG. According to Webster and his magical dictionary, the word delegate means, “to entrust to another or to assign responsibility or authority” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, s.v. “delegate”). According to Webster, the word abdicate means, “to fail to do what is required (a duty or responsibility)” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, s.v. “abdicate”). Too often, as a business coach, I see business owners throw the keys to the company to their newest hire and completely remove themselves from the aspects of running the business. This is not healthy and THIS WILL KILL YOUR CULTURE, YOUR BUSINESS, YOUR GROWTH, AND YOUR VISION. You simply cannot ever completely lose sight of what is going on inside of your business and within each department. In order to grow a duplicable and scalable business that has the capacity to run without you, must focus on holding people accountable to get their jobs done by using key performance indicators, weekly meetings, mystery shoppers, call recording, and by having an overall conspiracy theory mindset that somebody within your company is always trying to screw you.
“Only the paranoid survive.” -Andy Grove (Founding member and former CEO of Intel)
Super Move – Commit to getting weekly updates from your management team. Every week, you must hold your management team accountable for the achievement of their daily key performance indicators. If their items don’t get done, you must determine if they didn’t know what to do or if they simply chose not to do their jobs effectively. If someone did not know what to do, then you owe it to them to coach them, train them, and offer better clarity to them beginning NOW. However, people who choose to not do their jobs consistently must be fired.
“You have to be responsible when you’re running an organization, and firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.” -Ben Horowitz (Self-made billionaire, the co-founder of Opsware which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in cash)
Super Move – Invest your personal time into people who are worth the investment. If a key member of your management team is in the hospital, invest in that relationship and check in on them. If a key member of your management team is going through a rough spot in their marriage and they reach out for help or advice, listen to them and show them that you care. Take it from a business coach that knows about investing in the right people.
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” -Theodore Roosevelt