Woof. Forgive me for kicking off the New Year swinging with that kind of gut punch question; it’s been something I have been seeing with my clients for a bit, and honestly something that I stepped square into a few weeks back, so I figured no time like the present.
So let me ask it again now that you are prepared: Are you sabotaging your team’s success?
Let me walk this out and shed some light on how this typically presents in a business.
You ready?
Delegating projects and then taking them back.
Not being clear on the definition of done so endless hours are spent on the back and forth to reach consensus.
Being a seagull leader. You know, where you get an idea or wild hair and swoop in to sh*t all over your team and then fly away; leaving them all confused about priorities and timelines with a graveyard of half finished projects on the docket.
Or the other type of seagull leader… this one makes me think of finding nemo where the seagulls are going around going “Mine!” – you know what I am talking about…. it looks like this.
Juussssttt about the time you get extricated from your business, you start going back and picking up more things as ‘mine’ and pretty soon, what-do-you-know, you’re back in the trenches, sigh, again.
Or yours truly having a rookie moment with a new team member just before Christmas. I didn’t clearly communicate how the thing she was doing tied into 4 other things so when she just went full bore and in doing so, dominoed 4 other things.
Honestly I had no one to blame but myself cause, sigh, I didn’t give her all the information she needed and set the right expectation about the ‘check-in before proceeding’ point. It was a good moment of humility for me. And you can bet your bottom dollar that was a sobering post mortem.
The point is we all make mistakes, and we all love our babies aka our businesses, but if we want to make a true impact; iIf we want to have a business, not just a job that is disguised as a business, then we have to transition from operators to owners.
And that is a mindset chasm which I have seen be the most challenging for entrepreneurs to successfully navigate.
To have true entrepreneurial freedom and scale your business (do more with the same resources) it isn’t enough just to want it.
You have to think about what your life looks like when you’re not buried by the business.
You need to think about what your value is when it isn’t all tied up in your business.
You need to think about how to be a leader, mentor, visionary and not just a doer.
You need to understand that delegation is not abdication —> your business has to thrive with you before it can thrive without you. You can’t just expect people to read your mind or throw things at people and then run away – you get to take the time to really set yourself, your team, and your business up for your transition out of the trenches.
Supporting business owners through this transition is honestly one of the things I love most about the work I do.
Seeing you get the spark back in your eyes about your business.
Seeing you take yourself and your family on that vacation that’s gotten pushed back 3 times.
Heck seeing you just have some space and time to live and thrive rather than survive.
That is why I get up in the morning.
But if you don’t know why or where you’re going, you’re just going to get sucked back in.
So this time of year is the perfect time to do what I have done for the past 13, a post mortem and plan ahead.
The framework is easy.
Postmortem the past year. What worked, what didn’t, where did you miss the mark, what goals did you hit, which ones did you fumble.
Plan the new year. What are your top 3 goals you want to commit to? How do you want to feel in your business and life every day? Where do you want to grow? Where do you want to have more fun and impact? What’s your one thing so by doing it everything else gets easier and life gets exponentially better? Is there a project you’ve been backburnering (is that a word?! Is now!) whose time is here to finally be birthed to the world?
I often see people get stuck because they have these elaborate or constrictive planning processes, the truth is keep it simple. Write from the heart and get the vision of what you want down somewhere you can dance with.
This document should be a living, breathing thing that you look at frequently. Ask yourself often if what you wrote down as your vision is still what you want. Launch and learn. Trial and error.
Business is personal development with a paycheck. Having a high performing team that can run without you is going to require a version of you whom you’ve never been. It’s also going to require a level of trust that may frighten the dickens out of you.
It rewards the courageous, and penalizes the complex.
You got this – and if you waver, I got you. Hop on my schedule to connect or join me on my next office hours.
Happy New Year.
Until next time.
Lauren
