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Did you know that if you only listen to something or read something, your retention rate is only about 7%?

If you take notes, your retention rate increases to 50%. No matter your learning style, if you combine all learning modes (listening, reading, taking notes, asking questions, answering questions, participating in discussions, etc) your retention goes up to 98%.  

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Strong Leadership

If we want a great team, we must be strong leaders that set the right environment to nurture the team. Employees won't automatically know what success looks like. They won't initially be able to do the job as well as us. We need to train them following the 98% retention model above. They will need training manuals or videos to refer to later if they forget. They will need documented processes and procedures so that they can follow them when nobody is around to remind them how to do things correctly. We must meet with them weekly or bi-weekly to check in on their projects to let them know where they are doing well and where they need to improve. One of my previous articles, "The Formula For Life & Business Success", talked about the need to spend more time working on ourselves than we do our business. That applies here as well, in terms of continuing to work on becoming a great leader.

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Common Goal

As business owners, we must develop a vision for the organization that inspires and motivates us and your team. Something that is bigger than increasing revenue for the company, something that our employees get excited to be part of, something bigger than themselves. We must ask ourselves, “What is the greater good that our company is doing?” and “What is the difference our company is making in the world?” When we define this higher purpose, not only does it become something that inspires us, it will also inspire and encourage employees to give their best every day. With this, we should also have our yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals written out so that everyone clearly understands what the targets are. This helps to ensure that there is no ambiguity and therefore everyone is working towards the same thing.

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Rules of the Game

Like in sports, our team needs to have clarity on what the rules of our business are. We must clearly define the boundaries, the rules, and the penalties. Then we must allow our team to play the game as we have set it up. We can't micro-manage them or get upset if they do something a different way than we would if they are within the rules. Remember, there might always be a better way to do something and wouldn't we want to allow our employees to discover this? If employees break a rule, we must immediately throw a penalty flag (i.e. provide feedback and corrective action). If employees go outside of the boundaries, we need to address that accordingly (i.e. suspension, termination). By being very clear about the rules of our business, we properly set expectations which allows us to let go of every detail and empower our team to run the day-to-day.  

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Action Plan

Along with the goals above, we should have action plans detailing how we will achieve those goals.  By clearly defining the action plans, we keep our limited resources focussed. This way we can execute a few things well vs. everyone executing a number of things poorly.

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Support Risk Taking

We want to create an environment where we support risk-taking within the boundaries. This goes back to the idea that we want to empower our employees to find better ways to do things.  If everyone fears the owner is going to come down on them for making a mistake, they will never venture outside of doing it exactly the way you tell them to. Conversely, if we create an environment where we encourage different thinking and trying fresh ways to improve the way things are done, then we will get better ideas from your team.  

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100% Involvement & Inclusion

When we create an environment where everyone feels they are a valuable part of the team, we get the magic of synergy. This is where 1+1=3 or more. As the owner, our responsibility is to continue to build and foster this type of culture.

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Acting as your virtual coach, my question to you is:

What step forward are you going to commit to implementing this week in order to put this tip into action?

I suggest scheduling a complimentary coaching session with one of our business coaches. It takes an hour of your time but provides incredible value to you and your business. Reserve your spot today to get a spot within the next month.  

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