This week is all about your leadership & your team.  We will cover...

You Are The Example

Having an awareness of your own behaviors and actions will help you to manage and reinforce them in your business. The creation and communication of a clear Vision Statement is one way you can effectively do this. (Which you should have finished in the prior section.)

Over time, your actions will drive the evolution of your business’s culture and enable employees to understand what is expected of them, what is allowed, and crucially, what behaviors and actions are not in line with the vision and culture. 

The culture of a business is shaped not just by the leader but also the design of the business, where it operates, and the wider environment. Ultimately, the culture supports the performance of the business through the actions of its employees, so as your business grows, this is a key aspect to return to and consider.  

What affects the way you lead?

Small business owners are shaped by the social cultures they have been raised in, and those they now inhabit. These cultures of family and country shape what is important to us – how to behave and how not to behave. Most of us follow social norms and practices, at least to some degree, however for some people, this is more challenging. This is because there are other factors that shape who we are and how we lead, including experience, personality, values, and assumptions.

How does your leadership influence your business performance?

Your leadership actions shape the behavior of your employees. Your actions reinforce their perceptions of what you want and, over time, this evolves into a culture that conveys to everyone what is expected, allowed, and prohibited. Since the culture reflects the values, beliefs and behavior of the employees, it then influences their attitudes and actions, and ultimately their performance.

Felena's definition of leadership is: LISTEN & LIFT.  Here is a candid conversation with one of Hera Hub's key team members.

You’ve likely already crafted your company’s core values but when was the last time you reviewed them?  How do you regularly use them in your business?  Revisiting and reviewing your values regularly is important because your business may require (or benefit from) the expression of slightly different core values as it grows.

TO DO...

1. 1. Review your core values - do they need to shift/change?  Why?
   2. Get your team involved.  You may want to have them do the below exercise on their own and then schedule a meeting to compare notes.

Template: If you need a refresher, here is a core values exercise and list

Remember to document all your answers for each section on your Growth Academy spreadsheet.

BONUS - IF YOU HAVE TIME...

When you have time you may also want to review or create team values.  These will be different (although some may overlap) with your company’s core values.

Shared Values

Other questions to visit with your team - suggest creating a survey and have each person answer individually.

1. 1. What is the primary reason that the business exists?
   2. What values does everyone in the business truly hold in common? 
   3. What are the priorities among these values?
   4. When hiring a new person, how do you know if they are ‘a good fit’?
   5. What are the ‘rules’ at your business (probably unspoken, but well understood) that, if they were broken, would cause a person to be seen as a cultural outsider?  
   6. What kind of behavior is rewarded in your business, and therefore reflects your values?
   7. What kind of behavior is criticized in your business, and therefore reflects your values? 
   8. What do you celebrate in your business?

Shared Assumptions

1. 1. What kind of stories do the people who work here tell about the business when you are listening?
   2. What kind of stories and jokes do you think they might tell when you are not listening?
   3. What do people admire about the way the business has developed?
   4. What do your employees believe about their ability to innovate in their jobs?
   5. Do people assume they should check with you before making a decision? 
   6. Do people believe that it is important to try to come up with their own solutions to problems?
   7. Do employees believe the business can and will grow?
   8. Do employees believe they are a part of your vision for the future?
   9. Do employees believe they can develop within the business?

1. 1. How do you stay on track with your team?
   2. How do you foster their growth?
   3. Do you do one-on-one meetings?  Weekly, Monthly?
   4. What needs to happen moving forward?

Setting recurring one-one-one meetings with each team member, if possible, is the best way to connect on pressing issues, develop a strong relationship, and ensure that employees feel like they’re working toward their goals – at work, and otherwise.

Without a proper framework, agenda, and mindset, however, the 1-1 meeting can become just another meeting in your day. Below is a suggested framework for structuring and documenting these monthly meetings, even if you only have one employee.

Template - monthly growth plan - one-one-one monthly meeting with each employee.  Go to "File" and make a copy.

Team Building & Bonding

At the base level, team building allows people to get to know each other—their interests, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they communicate, among other things. Just like any professional sports team works and practices with one another to be at their best, teams at work can and should do the same thing. And just like you can’t jump onto the field with a team that has zero clue who’s playing what position, who’s passing the ball to whom, and who’s the best at handling XYZ situations, you can’t achieve anything if your team members don’t understand one another.

Team-building activities also build camaraderie and trust—one of the most important aspects of a successful team. Building a sense of trust amongst teammates allows people to bring the full power of their skills, personalities, and who they are to work. When people don’t have trust to do that, they hold back, thus sometimes limiting their abilities to be at their best.

Finally, team-building activities can help remind people that work is never just about them—it’s about the entire group. When you’re encouraged to do something together, rather than solo, it brings to life the idea that the group’s success (and ultimately the company’s) should be a priority. This can be a particularly useful learning experience for teams that struggle with teamwork, are overly competitive, or lack unity and confidence as a result of hard times.

What do you and your team do to get to know each other?

A popular tool for team connection is having everyone take StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. The theories of the strengths come from Don Clifton, the father of Strengths Psychology and the inventor of the Clifton StrengthsFinder. The StrengthsFinder identifies key strengths and values of each person through completion of the StrengthFinder quiz. The categories of the strengths have been tested and compiled from millions of surveys across the world into 34 distinct talents.

While this is a great tool, we like this free, easy assessment. It’s also a very good tool for assessment in hiring. 

Activity - We recommend that you and your team take - 16personalities.com

As a business owner one of your primary tasks is workforce management. It's highly important that you maintain the right number of employees to smoothly run your company. The need for hiring more employees depends not only on how many people, irrespective of the reason; leave your company, but how rapidly your business is growing. Hiring the right individuals at the right time is crucial to your business' success.

If you hire too soon, profits can decline and cash flow can dry up. But if you wait too long to bring on a new worker, your commitments can outpace your capacity, so unfinished work starts piling up. You should hire new employees when there’s enough work to demand additional help and your financial situation is stable enough to manage the additional cost of a new employee. You should also consider the hidden cost of hiring new employees, including health insurance coverage, training program costs and more. It’s important to hire new employees before you reach a workforce crisis, since it usually takes eight to ten weeks to hire someone, and even longer to properly train them.

1. 1. Where do you need to hire?
   2. How and when to hire the right people for the job?
   3. What challenges have you had with hiring the right people?
   4. How do you keep your employees happy and engaged?
   5. How do you onboard new team members? Does that process need refining?

If you are interviewing, consider asking questions that are a little out of the "norm".  Here is a list of interview questions to consider. 

An advisory board is a group of individuals, typically outsiders to the business, who possess knowledge and expertise to guide, grow and manage the business.

Advisory boards can:

• • Act as a sounding board for the business owner
  • Fill gaps in expertise that is lacking in the business.
  • Offer assistance in all disciplines including sales and marketing, finance, human resources and operations.
  • Steer the business towards achieving their objectives and goals.

Advisory boards are essential for the success of businesses of all sizes. Advisors working as a team can provide guidance that those working independently cannot hope to obtain. Advisory board members can play many roles within the business:

• • • Help fill gaps in management capability
    • Provide valuable insight into challenges you may be experiencing
    • Add years of experience that can accelerate growth

Advisory boards can be very helpful in directing operations and keeping business owners informed of industry and financial trends. If the business does not have a legal advisor or an accountant, these should be the first roles to fill on an advisory board.

Advice and Counsel

There are many reasons why business owners feel isolated. It is difficult to identify and build relationships with trusted advisors who can provide effective and meaningful advice and counsel. Sometimes the business itself is very complex and the speed at which the industry is changing makes it even more difficult to find the right individual or mix of individuals who can fill this role.

An advisory board can provide consistency, longevity and background knowledge that enables them to provide reliable, effective advice and counsel. Having an advisory board that is being properly compensated (monetarily or through other means) helps to ensure requests for help are taken seriously and that the forthcoming advice is not given in a cavalier manner.

No Judgement Zone

Advisory boards can provide a no judgement zone for a business owner to try out new ideas and options before presenting them to the formal board of directors.

When presenting to a board of directors, the business owner must be forceful, definitive and assertive. Presenting new ideas – even partially defined ideas – before an advisory board gives the business owner an audience that can be challenging and helpful because their sole purpose is to provide advice and counsel.

The advisory board can act as a sounding board. Many times, ideas presented before the advisory board morph into bigger and more well-defined plans that can transform the company.

Laser-Focused Input

There may be a very specific aspect of a business that the business owner feels unprepared or unable to address on their own. Among others, this oftentimes involves areas such as marketing, sales, product management and finance.

An advisory board can be created to address only the specific issue and need not be involved in any other aspects of the business. This can free the advisory board and the business owner to become extra creative in problem solving.

Having successful entrepreneurs from outside the industry on the advisory board can expand the business owner’s vision since these professionals will look at the business with a fresh perspective.

Stepping Stone to a Board of Directors

The creation and implementation of a formal board of directors is a long-term project. But an advisory board composed of individuals with the appropriate skills can be a great interim step.

In some cases, members of an advisory board can effectively transition to the board of directors. The business owner can get to know the individuals, how they contribute and how they communicate while on the advisory board before asking them to become a member of the board of directors.

A smaller advisory board can work more effectively than a larger board of directors. Advice and counsel can be acquired from an advisory board for a defined period of time.

Questions...

1. 1. Do you have an advisory board?
   2. If not, do you need to build one?
   3. If so, do you need to refresh your current advisors?
   4. How do you incent your advisory board?

Business owners wear a lot of hats.  Unfortunately it’s usually not enough to focus on leadership of your team, you may also have to focus on visibility in your industry.  Many call this thought leadership. 

Here are a series of questions to reflect on this aspect of your business.

1. 1. Do you need to be more visible in your industry?
   2. What would the benefits be of that visibility? - New partnership?  - New team members?
   3. What is needed to make this happen?
   4. How will you work that into your overall personal growth plan?
   5. Should you be applying to speak at conferences and industry events?