A fantastic employee … Dangerous? What in the world am I talking about?
As business owners, we all want fantastic employees. We want confident, innovative, creative problem solvers. We want someone that can take a task and run with it. These types of team members can accelerate growth and act as a catalyst for small business owners. Never underestimate the value of one really good employee.
BUT… there is a dangerous side for small business owners. Let me paint the picture for you.
Sally joins the team in January. By February she has already mastered her tasks and is still excited for more. You give her some of the tasks that you’ve been struggling to get done and she of course excels. In April, she’s actually given the system an overhaul and has increased productivity. She deals with the clients, she brings in the bucks. All is well. Until August rolls around and Sally decides she is going back to school to get a masters degree in business operations. Now we are facing the prospect of losing Sally. And she has innovated so many areas of our business that we don’t know how to run. Plus, she has taken on so many of our tasks that we, as the business owner, replaced with other income generating activities. And now we don’t have time to do everything that Sally was doing. We don’t know what to do. Afterall, there will never be another Sally.
Does this scenario sound familiar? You hire and train someone great. They don’t stay forever, and when they go you feel like you are starting at square one.
The solution to this “problem” is pretty obvious. We as the business owner need to do things differently. Here’s 6 tips on how to empower your employee to be a high producer, while making sure you are creating systems.
Regular team meetings will allow you to stay in the loop on what your employees are doing, and how they are doing it.- Require approval of major innovations. You’ll have to define “major innovation.” But, the point is, you don’t want someone creating a system that only works when they are there to run it. Have ideas brought to you, and ask the person presenting the idea, “How would we manage this if you were in the hospital or on an extended vacation?” (It sounds better than, “How would we manage this if you weren’t here.” That tends to make people worry that you are trying to push them out.)
- Document, document, document. When someone creates a new process, have them write it down, step by painstaking step. Then have them create training videos on how to follow the process.
- Cross train. I recommend that you devote some time each month to cross training. You do not want a situation where only one person in the company knows how to do a task. It makes it hard when they leave.
- Delegate not abdicate. Delegation is critical. We need to delegate or we will not grow. But too often I see business owners throw a task at a team member and then never think about it again. They abdicate themselves from the responsibility and never look back. As a business owner, you want to be in the loop. You want to know how things are going. Stay in the know. The team member will feel more supported knowing you are invested in the success of their projects.
- Don’t confuse management and micromanagement. This is the opposite problem of abdication. Every leader knows micromanagement is bad. But how do we recognize when we are doing it? When you pass on a task, but still feel the same amount of stress, control, and pressure related to the task, chances are you are micromanaging. This behavior will stifle the creativity of your amazing employee.
Regular team meetings will allow you to stay in the loop on what your employees are doing, and how they are doing it.
We all want that fantastic employee. As a business owner, I invite you to shift from just hiring great people and into building great systems. The great employee assists in building the system. The system gives your business the strong foundation it needs to last. And you have a business that can run with or without that fantastic employee. It’s a beautiful place to be.