IDENTIFYING YOUR POSITION PLAYERS
A few months back I wrote an article titled, "Creating Your Team". The short article focused on creating a team of competent contributors outside your business to help you identify ways to become more productive, identify growth strategies, and manage resources. Being a sports fan, I identify with the "team" aspect. And in retrospect, I probably should have written about the "internal team" first. Putting your internal team together, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and what positions you need to fill, are essential steps that require examination routinely as part of your ongoing business health. Think about it like an annual physical, not pleasant but good insurance.
The first step is to identify your tendencies and personalities as the business owner, manager, or supervisor. Are you the dreamer, the manager organizer, or the person that just wants to get to work? Business books refer to these unique personalities in different ways, but I like the descriptions that Michael Gerber's The E-Myth uses; the entrepreneur, the manager, and the technician. Understanding who you are and what dominates your behavior is the first step to balancing these traits and selecting complimenting players around you. Stacking a line-up with all home run hitters may be great against a weak pitcher, but will ultimately lead to a higher strike out rate, and more than likely, poor defense. You need to have consistency in your lineup to accommodate for the deficiencies of the power sluggers.
I was thinking about a customer who was lamenting the performance of a once productive employee. He was disappointed that this employee wasn't functioning well in a new sales role and was contemplating terminating him. We spoke about how happy he was with this employee when he was in operations and he didn't understand what went wrong. He was promoted to fill a need and since he was good at operations and worked hard, it seemed like a natural transition to be a hard working salesperson. Looking at it from the outside it was easy to see that he had tried to make a .375 hitter into a home run hitter. He was hoping to change a manager organizer into a dreamer. Now, I'm not saying that people can't switch positions, or grow vertically and horizontally in an organization, but it's certainly essential to know what positions are needed and what type of people should fill those jobs. The reality of a successful growing business is that you need all three types of people. Not finding a balance will lead to frustration for you, the employee and possibly severe consequences for the business.
Taking the time to plan and identify these needs in your business can sometimes be a colossal task. Especially if you are one of the personality types, (entrepreneur), who fills the constant need to move on to the next project, challenge, or dream. Force yourself to honestly evaluate what your business requires and just like the thankless task of budgeting, your attention today, will pay off down the road.
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| Maintenance Minute | |
| Having a good safety plan for your employees and equipment will help minimize your risk for costly repairs or insurance claims. Go over your safety procedures and updates at your annual safety meeting.
Employee Safety - Replace damaged or worn safety glasses, ear protections, gloves, boots, masks, and work vests.
Equipment Safety - Replace damaged or cracked lights, horn, guards, mirrors, windshield and fire extinguisher.
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