Teamwork,
Communication And Delegation
Lonely At The Top.
Few entrepreneurs have an aptitude or passion for team issues. One of
the reasons they choose to start businesses rather than become managers
or salaried employees in the first place is that they get energy from
innovating, taking risks, and creating results in the marketplace, not
from hiring people, explaining things to them, and managing their
progress. But if you want your business to grow into the “future
company” you imagine, you’ll need the help of other people. Fortunately,
using some fundamental principles and strategies, you can develop your
team and your teamwork skills to the point where others ultimately
leverage you and make you feel supported, not stressed.
Many Strategic Coach Program™ participants have made quantum leaps in
their businesses by changing the way they think about these three basic
issues: teamwork, communication, and delegation.
Teamwork: The Power Of Others.
You may feel like hiring and managing team members is distracting you
from doing what’s needed in order to grow the business. Constantly
having to find new people, step in to do things yourself while they
learn, and invest in training them only to have them leave can seem like
an enormous waste of time and money.
Honestly speaking, when these efforts are misplaced, they are a waste of
money. Many corporations spend vast amounts of money hiring and training
people with the aim of shaping them into the people they need them to
be. The fact is, though, that while most people can be taught to be
reasonably competent in a role, competence is hardly something to aspire
to.
This approach works backwards, respecting the position more than the
human being. Most large organizations don’t have the flexibility to
operate any other way. As the leader of an entrepreneurial business,
though, you have the opportunity to create something radically different
and exponentially more effective: Unique Teamwork™.
Unique Teamwork starts with identifying your own Unique Ability®
activities, those superior skills you have that give you energy and
create great results for your business. The more you’re able to focus on
these activities, the more your business will thrive. Unique Teamwork is
possible when you find others who have similar talent and passion for
the other activities that are needed to support you in doing what you do
best. By engaging people’s passions, you gain access to a staggering
amount of creativity, independent thinking, energy, and commitment.
Gradually focusing and tapping into people’s talents in this way enables
you to effortlessly harness these powerful human resources in a way that
naturally channels them towards realizing your company’s goals.
Communication: Words That Work.
Whether or not you have the right people on board, you may find there’s
a gap between the great ideas in your mind about your business and what
actually happens. If the people around you continually don’t seem to
“get it,” you may have an issue with communication.
Communication is always a two-way street. In order for communication to
happen, not only must the message be sent, it must be received. Some of
your best ideas may not come to pass simply because you don’t share them
in a way that others can understand. Things that may seem obvious to you
may not be so obvious to your team members, who are coming from a
different perspective and don’t share your stake in the business.
Since using your unique talents is the most productive way to spend your
time, any task that you struggle with or really dislike is clearly a
prime candidate for delegation. Another issue, which is often
overlooked, is that team members have different communication styles and
preferences. Without knowing what these are, it’s easy to miscommunicate
without realizing it. For instance, one team member may require more
information or background on a project than another in order to feel
confident taking action. When the result doesn’t happen, the
entrepreneur may feel the person lacks competence, when really, all that
is needed to remedy the problem is a different style of communication.
Our experience has been that with a few simple tools and strategies,
entrepreneurs are able to avoid many pitfalls related to communicating
with their teams.
Delegation: Multiplying Your Abilities.
Many entrepreneurs find it difficult to delegate. There are several
mental obstacles as well as some tangible ones that create a host of
reservations around this issue. For entrepreneurs who are used to doing
everything themselves, it can be difficult to give up control over a
task to someone else. Often, the excuse is that they can’t find the
right person for the task. The truth is that it’s often better to
delegate a particularly time- or energy-consuming job to someone else,
even if they aren’t as good at it as you are, simply because of the
multiplier effect in productivity of getting that task off your plate.
Waiting for the perfect person to come along may not be the best
strategy. Another common objection is that “I can’t afford to delegate.”
This touches on the fear that an entrepreneur won’t be able to use the
time he or she gains through the delegation productively enough to
justify the investment in hiring or outsourcing. If an entrepreneur is
delegating the right things for the right reasons, this is almost never
the case. The investment will pay off many times over. However, this
leads to the important question of how to determine what to delegate.
The simplest way to approach delegations is to use Unique Ability as a
guide. Your Unique Ability, properly focused and channelled, creates the
most value in the world and the biggest results for you and your team.
Since using your unique talents is the most productive way to spend your
time, any task that you struggle with or really dislike is clearly a
prime candidate for delegation.
How It All Adds Up.
Teamwork, communication, and delegation go hand in hand. Having the
right people in place, and then developing good communication with them
will go a long way towards giving you the confidence you need to feel
comfortable about delegating activities and responsibilities. Great
teamwork, communication, and delegation skills are a hallmark of the
most consistently successful entrepreneurs. Yet, this is not where most
entrepreneurs want to focus their powers of innovation, nor is it where
they should be focusing. This is why we’ve been called upon over the
years to develop and package so many solutions in this area, strategies
designed to allow entrepreneurs to focus on what they do best, and to be
fully supported in doing this by a motivated, aligned, capable, and
confident team.
© 2007 The Strategic Coach
The
Strategic Coach
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