Managing your company is difficult to do, especially if you\u2019re operating exclusively and making decisions in solace.<\/p>\n
Leading an organization is even more challenging from the shadows. While leaders can lead from a supporting role, leaders should be out front, visible, and accessible.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been said that a business is merely a group of people working together towards a common goal, generally referred to as the mission. If you can agree with simple definition in mind, it\u2019s a good reminder that at the heart of your business is the people.<\/p>\n
May I ask, do you really know what everyone does all day long? Sure, you may think you know.<\/p>\n
When each position was first created, it was accompanied by a job description. However, you\u2019ve likely discovered that the actual job is a lot more nuanced than the broad strokes often typed up in its public-facing description on a job board.<\/p>\n
Perhaps you\u2019re comfortable holding to a few general ideas of what happens among each group of employees. Your salespeople make sales calls, your marketing folks are ensuring your brand has a consistent look, feel, and message across a variety of media, your finance people are issuing invoices, collecting receivables, and reconciling bank accounts, and your IT group keeps the whole operation up-and-running.<\/p>\n
The first tool is technology driven, but rest assured it need not be. You can drive personal accountability just as easily with a pen and paper approach as with a cloud-based solution.<\/p>\n
Those of us who are data-driven must have a means of evaluating not only high level business metrics such as sales, customer satisfaction scores, and the state of your accounts receivables, but also gaining insight into the performance of individuals in your organization.<\/p>\n
Consider building personal performance dashboards, a unique set of reports and graphs charting an employee\u2019s progress over time. Yes, the sales representatives and account manager dashboards will be very similar and should include sales by month, sales by product line, but also leading indicators such as calls by day and opportunities in the pipeline. Customer service specialists should have a different set of graphs on their personal performance dashboard. These should include current workload as measured in open support tickets, the time those tickets have remained open, and, ultimately, customer satisfaction scores as measured over time.<\/p>\n
Challenge yourself to build personalized performance dashboards for every area of the business, including finance, marketing, public relations and IT. If there is a task that needs to be completed and there is an employee\u2019s name attached to that task, then they must be held accountable for completing work on time and with excellence.<\/p>\n
Literally walking through your office will open your eyes to how people are both working independently and collaborating with each other. Is the office quiet and everyone is focused intensely on their screens furiously tackling a tight deadline? Or, perhaps, you\u2019ve observed an energetic sales meeting. As well, don\u2019t forget to consider your IT or product development team. They are likely troubleshooting a recent issue or even innovating your next great product. Your fresh perspective may be welcome; just ask first.<\/p>\n
Walking around the office shouldn\u2019t be done quickly. Rather, stop by for a quick 3 to 5-minute chat with various employees to learn more. Ask, \u201cWhat are you working on right now?\u201d or \u201cAny breakthroughs today?\u201d You can even ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s been the highlight of your day?\u201d Having a few questions up your sleeve will help you to initiate conversations with virtually anyone in your company, even if your paths don\u2019t normally cross. Being genuinely interested in your team has dual benefits; you\u2019ll inspire higher performances and you\u2019ll learn about current challenges and successes.<\/p>\n
Without actually sitting beside people in key roles for extended periods of time, you may never know what actually goes on in a given day.<\/p>\n
The evolution of \u201cmanagement by walking around\u201d includes an approach with a new twist, called the \u201cnot-so-undercover boss.\u201d By assuming this role for a week, or even just a day, means that you, the boss, physically relocate. Many Japanese work environments do not have private offices. Wall Street firms are also set-up in a similar fashion so that leaders within the company know what\u2019s going on on a moment-by-moment basis.<\/p>\n
The effort is worth it. You\u2019ll overhear customer concerns and how your people address those in real-time. You\u2019ll notice who talks to who in your company, why, and how often. \u00a0You may even hear incorrect information being relayed to a customer from a new sales representative who has high potential, yet would greatly benefit from additional training. \u00a0After making such observations, you could develop a tip sheet summarizing key positioning statements, answers to frequently asked questions, and even numbers commonly referenced \u2014 all in an effort to be communicating consistently with your customers.<\/p>\n
Let it be said that you\u2019re fooling no one. Your team knows that while it appears you\u2019re working on a project (which you should be), you\u2019re also overhearing conversations. State the obvious and tell those around your new digs that you\u2019ll be working on a special project but you\u2019re there to listen, learn, and be a resource if needed.<\/p>\n
Simply stating that you\u2019re there as a resource will prompt team members to walk up to you and ask challenging questions, questions that wouldn\u2019t normally be asked if you were squirreled away in your office.<\/p>\n
Share your knowledge, shape the company, and lead your organization to the promising future you know is just over the horizon.<\/p>\n
Resolve to apply one of these tools in your company. You can\u2019t supervise from afar, nor can you do this well without knowledge. Regardless of the size of your business, having a deeper understanding of the daily activities of your team will only help you make smarter decisions. You\u2019ll be spotting problems earlier, celebrating successes as they happen and creating an environment where information flows freely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Managing your company is difficult to do, especially if you\u2019re operating exclusively and making decisions in solace. Leading an organization is even more challenging from the shadows. While leaders can lead from a supporting role, leaders should be out front, visible, and accessible. It\u2019s been said that a business is merely a group of people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":8689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n