In this episode, Pete Mohr talks about the eighth law of moving from operator to owner - Empowering Your Team.
Building a strong team is essential, but the real freedom comes when you empower them to make decisions on your behalf.
Trust is a crucial factor here, and it is essential to trust your team and the process.
Small business owners often do not allow their team members to make decisions, which hinders growth.
If you find yourself wondering why your team does not make a particular decision, it is essential to ask them what they would do if you were not present. By doing this, you will coach them and create a culture of accountability and empowerment within the organization.
Encouraging decision-making fosters an environment where the team takes ownership of their roles and drives the business forward.
Here are a few things Pete covers:
Trust is a crucial factor in empowering your team.
Small business owners often do not allow their team members to make decisions.
Coaching team members and encouraging decision-making creates a culture of accountability and empowerment.
Empowering your team enables them to take ownership of their roles.
Encouraging decision-making drives the business forward.
It's time to take action:
After listening to this episode, it is essential to reflect on your leadership style and determine whether you trust your team and the process. Ask your team members what they would do if you were not present, and coach them accordingly. Create a culture of accountability and empowerment, and encourage decision-making.
Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024? Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!
To Book a no charge Freedom Call with Pete, to see if you’re a good fit for his business coaching head over to http://speaktopete.com to find a time that works for you!
Welcome to the 10 laws for moving from operator to owner series here on the business owner breakthrough podcast I'm excited about this series, we're going to explore the key principles for transitioning from operator to an owner mindset in your business. Each episode will focus on one of the 10 laws and provide practical tips and insights to help you apply these principles in your business. If you'd like a downloadable PDF for the 10 laws, slide on over to simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash laws to download your copy. By following these 10 laws, you'll be able to move beyond the day to day operations of your business and focus on the long term growth and success. Whether you're a solopreneur or leading a team, this series will provide the tools and insights to transition from operator owner and take your business to the next level. So join me on this journey of growth and transformation. If you'd like to chat with me about how I can help you get started on this journey, simply go to speak to pete.com. That's speak to pete.com and book in a chat to see if we're a great fit. Now let's get started. All right, we're at law eight of the 10 laws of moving from operator to owner and this one is a piggyback on last week's it's empower your team and last week was all around building a strong team. It's one thing to build a strong team, it's another thing to empower them. That's when the real freedom comes as a business owner when you empower your team to make the decisions on your behalf. And you have the trust. Remember, we talked a little bit about trust here in the last few weeks around, we need to be able to trust our team. And trust the process. That's why all of these are part of the laws, right? We need to have the process as good as we possibly can, then we need to have the people that can take that process and do something with it. But we also need to actually allow them to do that. And that's one of the interesting things with a lot of small business owners that they don't actually let this last step happen. Here's one of the questions I'll ask a lot of my clients, do you ever ask yourself? Why don't they just make that decision? They should know what to do? Well, chances are they do know what to do. And chances are they don't feel that they have the authority to actually make the decision without coming to you first. Next time you ask yourself, why don't they just do that? The question that you should ask your team member around that is what would you do if I wasn't here? And let them answer and then coach them around that idea of what would you do if I wasn't here? Because the idea of moving from operator to owner is that you shouldn't need to be there every minute, you should need to be available to answer every single little question that already has process wrapped around it, and already has somebody on the organisational chart. But if they're on the organisational chart with their name, saying director of marketing, but the director of marketing is coming to you for every decision, then they truly aren't accountable. That's why I like the term accountability chart. Because when you put that person's name under director of marketing, and they are accountable for marketing, then you should be asking them the questions because and guiding them through some of the stuff and they should actually know more about marketing within your business than you do even. That's when the power happens with the guidance of the promise. And with the guidance of the vision and the guidance of everything else in the wrapped communication that you have been doing through your meeting structures and all these other things everybody's in the know we're creating this culture of accountability and empowerment within our organisation. Remember, your team wants to make the decisions, allow them to give them your trust. And if you just don't trust them, they probably shouldn't be on your team. And if you don't trust the process, because the process isn't right, then work with them on creating the process that you can trust so that you can then say, this is ready, take it over now. That's the idea of empowering your team. We do this by creating an environment that fosters decision making. You'll enable your team to take ownership of their own rules and make decisions that drive your business forward. Yeah, it requires trust. Yeah, it requires communication and clearly defined expectations. That's your job as the leader, you move from being the decision maker and all of these things to being the communicator of what you need done. Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan wrote a book a few years ago called who not how the idea is that you don't need to know every single little thing in your business. You just need to know who can do it for you. Right. And we talked about that on embracing technology too. You don't need to know how to do every little piece of technology. You just need to know what you want out of it so that you can have some ETL to embrace it, follow it through who's maybe better at that, and make it happen for you, right as the business owner, you also want to foster autonomy. It's really key to empowering your team members, and involves giving them the freedom to make decisions and take action without constant oversight, right? When they have the framework of understanding your promise, I'll just go back to utopia, as I often do, our shoe stores are promises to help our customers look great and feel fantastic. And if they are making a decision with that in mind, then they've made the right decision. And our promise is so strong. And everybody knows and understands our promise that if they are doing something that maybe I wouldn't have done, that becomes then a coaching moment, or a coaching moment for my manager, who's going to have a chat with them and say, Hey, listen, tell me why you did this. And they say, No, sort of reframe it around, while I was trying to make them feel better iOS, you know, like all of those different things around our promise. And it provides you with a coaching moment to say if this ever happens, again, here's how we would do it. But if they know what the promise is, and they're working towards the promise, chances are the decision that they make, if there's no process in place around, it is going to be a pretty good one maybe not perfect, which is your coaching moment. But it's probably going to be in alignment with your promise. And if that's the case, then that's okay. Right. And if you need to change the process for a future date, you change the process. But all of these pieces, allow your team members to feel empowered to make decisions on your behalf. Your clients will thank you for it because they don't want to go up the chain of command whenever they need a question answered. They don't want to go up three levels to get to the owner, so that the owner can make a decision they want their question answered at the lowest possible level of the organisation. How fundamental is that we've talked about it a few times on this series. But decisions should be made at the lowest possible level of your organisation. And if you aren't empowering your team to do so you're creating friction and frustration. For everyone involved, you're creating friction for those three P's of the people portion, which essentially is your customers, your team members, and all of the outsource suppliers and businesses that help you deliver your promise to your clients, right. Don't create friction, create freedom for everybody, empower your team, use checklists, use formats, use ways that you understand and make sure that the processes are being followed. But ultimately, once you have those in place, that's the power process. We talked about it a couple weeks ago. Once you have that in place, then you can feel as though you're trusting the system and trusting your team and giving them the power to make the decisions. So what can you do to start empowering your team to make decisions at a lower level than they currently are? You know, think about it. It's not only them bringing it to you, but it's for them asking your managers asking the other people in the chain of your accountability chart all of these questions that they should know what to do. When you ask yourself, use this framework, because it's a great framework. If you ask yourself the question, they should know what to do here. just reiterate this question back to them. What would you do if I wasn't here? And wait for the answer. uncomfortable silence sometimes is a telling feature as well. So if you can just do your best to stay quiet, once you ask that question, and wait for them to answer, they will probably come up with the answer almost exactly to the tee as your process. And if they don't, then that's a learning process for you. And that's a learning experience for you and a coaching moment, maybe your process isn't quite right. And that's okay too, just long as you get it out there and communicate it so that the next time something like this happens, they don't come to you with that question. And they're able to be empowered to make the decision to move your business forward. And to move you from operator in the business and making those decisions to the ownership position of your business. That's where you deserve to be. Now go and make it a great day
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