I’ve been working with a senior leader of a fast growing business today who has been struggling to hit his targets on a regular basis. He is becoming increasingly frustrated that he’s not focused on the tasks in hand and hitting some of the bigger objectives that are needed of him.
Now, I sat down with him, and what transpires is that because he is a font of knowledge and because he’s got tonnes of experience, there’s a whole host of people in the team that are regularly knocking at his door. Customers are regularly ringing and emailing and he’s getting distracted and spending a lot of time working on things that he shouldn’t and doesn’t want to work on.
I’m all for teamwork, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for doing the right thing for the business. But that becomes a time when you’ve got to look at things selfishly and say, I’m not completing my objectives, I’m not finishing my tasks and I’m not getting my goals achieved here. I’m in danger of not having a very comfortable conversation with my boss at the end of the year if I don’t get focused.
The trick is that if you don’t say to people who are constantly interrupting and asking for things, most of the time, that they can and are able to get the answers themselves, they just want to choose the easiest route. Most of the time they either just don’t know where else to look or they say they need it, but they don’t actually need it straightaway.
So by sometimes saying, ‘look, I can’t help you for a couple of days, I can’t help you for a couple of hours, go and find this out yourself’, it teaches them to go find it themselves.
It doesn’t teach them to do it themselves if you just do it for them. Sometimes you’ve got to just put the teamwork to one side. Focus on number one, hit your own objectives, hit your own results and have a good conversation with your boss at the end of the year.
I hope that’s been of value. Take care for now.
Developing a dream team is one of the essential building blocks to running a successful business. If you are working too many hours or are frustrated about any element of your team, it’s time to take action.
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