Invest in Your Team’s Development

This coaching tip was originally published in the Coaching for Excellence newsletter.

People are the biggest investment your business will ever make. Yet many founders treat employee development as an afterthought. Or they are afraid to invest in the employee’s growth and lose them to a competitor.

Challenges

Team development is hard when you’re pulled in multiple directions. For many founders, it’s easier to devote time and energy to their craft because they’ll see a quicker return on their effort. I get it. Your craft is something within your control, whereas people are complex and dynamic. But the success of your business depends on you investing in your team.

Too Busy

It’s common to get caught in the weeds of day-to-day work. Yet this is exactly how businesses become stagnant. To plan for business growth, you have to zoom out and look at the big picture. What strengths does my team need to enhance? What opportunities do we have to learn new skills and be competitive in the market?

Your team has high potential waiting to be tapped. When their development is given the same importance as sales, then their work becomes more than a paycheck.

Termination

Holding back on investing in your team because they might leave is cutting your nose to spite your face. You do yourself more harm than good.

You have no control over if they choose to leave. You do have control over how your time is spent together. How you choose to use that time is up to you. Do you invest in their potential and leverage it so you both grow together? Or do you temper their growth to play it safe? Greatness doesn’t come from safe spaces.

Globally, three in 10 employees strongly agree that someone at work encourages their development. By moving that ratio to six in 10, organizations could realize a 6% improvement in customer engagement scores, an 11% improvement in profitability and a 28% reduction in absenteeism.

GALLUP

Solutions

Invest in your team’s performance through coaching, knowledge management, and practice.

Coaching

Coaching is an opportunity to call up your team’s performance. To challenge them to be and do their best.

• Each Monday set the tone for the week. Define the priority and align efforts to ensure everyone is on the same page. Use the Weekly Memo to highlight industry news and tips.
• Each Month meet with each team member to discuss their performance. This is a collaborating meeting where you both discuss highlights and opportunities in their work.
• Each Year meet with them to summarize their growth and map career growth plans for the new year.

Knowledge Management

Regardless of whether you have zero employees or a small team, document your processes. It makes it much easier to effectively delegate and maintain the standard you want your business to be known for.

The easiest way to start is to record and narrate a video showing your team how to complete a task to your expectations. Include the thought process and why behind the decisions. This context helps them better understand how to execute the task and nuances necessary for different clients. Loom, screen recording app, transcribes and allows comments.

Having your own Small Business OS for your team to refer to along with company processes makes it easier for team autonomy. And it allows knowledge to be shared across the team instead of stuck in one person’s head. 

Practice

Practice with your team. The practice encourages refinement. It helps identify gaps in processes that were overlooked. It encourages innovation on how to make things better. Don’t wait for a client to do work; role-play through conversations, create sample projects, practice giving presentations.

Practice allows your team the space to play and experiment without fear of failure. It’s also the place where you can identify what doesn’t work and address it without it impacting the client.

As in everything in life, your results reflect your efforts. Your team’s ability to take initiative and ownership are a reflection of your leadership. Invest in the growth of your team. Get to know them, their goals, their strengths and weaknesses, nurture their development and reward their growth. Grow together!

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