Last week was an amazing EntreLeadership Master Series event in Orlando, Florida. For me, I taught Personality Styles and Mission Statements in the main session and had a breakout session that was so packed, people were sitting on the floor. The rest of the week was spent doing one-on-one counseling sessions helping folks implement the change needed to either grow their business or fix problems to grow their business.
Whether it’s Dave’s EntreLeadership event or mine, at the end there’s always the, “What now? Now that you’ve taught me so much information that my head is smoking, what do I do with it?” That’s easy…get to work! Ok, maybe there’s a better way. Actually, there are a few things to do:
- Pick three, they’re small – There’s no way you can implement all of the lessons from EntreLeadership as soon as you get back. Instead, start by sitting down and honestly telling yourself what your biggest obstacles are. And while you may have a lot, you really only need to focus on the top three. Any more than that and you’re be spreading yourself too thin…like you probably already are.
- Ask! – Now that you have your ideas on what your biggest obstacles are, ask your team what they think. You might receive some surprising information. What you think is holding you back, and what your team thinks could be completely different. And since they are on the front lines, you just might want their thoughts. You may be struggling in an area that only they recognize. Worse than that, they may have been telling you all along.
- Give away some ownership – Once you have your top three needs, get back with your team to get their opinions on what to do next. I don’t care if you already have the answers, if you go back to your team and tell them what they are going to do, then you’re just delegating tasks to your team. Stop it! This time, have a brainstorming session where there are no bad ideas and nothing gets shot down. As you do this, you get something spectacular from your team,buy-in. And when team members have buy in, they take on something else that’s really needed, ownership.
This is where you ultimately want to be. They understand you’re in charge, but with emotional ownership they will go the extra mile to complete the tasks. The crazy thing is that so many leaders won’t do this because they are afraid it makes them look like they don’t have any good ideas. The truth is, your team will have more respect for you as a leader because they know you care about what they think.
If you’re an EntreLeadership Alum, how well did this work for you?
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This is good advise. I attended Entreleadership in November 2009. One of my top three was to proceed with the DISC testing for the team. We revisit this often, in meetings, and informally while we work.
The huge benefit is the team knows MY personality profile and identifies my “challenges”; they have “taken” many of my tasks and owned them. The transfer of responsibilities are their ideas, they consistently do these tasks better than I ever did them, and I shouldn’t have been doing them in the first place. The business is more efficient… we are all empowered. Entreleadership rocks!
Wow Brenda! That’s awesome!! And the greatest thing in there is the realization that you don’t have to do it all, or be the best at it! That’s why we have teams. Thanks for sharing!
Understanding that there is no way on earth you will go back to the office and everything will be perfect is the main thing to keep in mind. I went to EMS in oct of 2010 and in fact it got worse before it got better, much like working out. PEOPLE DONT LIKE CHANGE!!!! I had bookkeepers steal from me and sales rep tell me to my face this wasn’t going to work. Fast forward 8 months later- i have sent my top people to ECS with Chris to understand my vision- we are 43% ahead of last year- i have an unreal team and everyone here KNOWS the WHY of what we do and that i expect excellence not perfection. i put in place to go over one thing a month that i learned from EMS and that has worked great- what you learn is a roadmap and you must remember it takes TIME!!
Great input Austin!!!