Many business owners pose the question of what does it take to attract a dream team. What does it take for my team to consistently step up and act as if they actually were the owner themselves?
In my career, I believe there are many structural and systematization type issues that must be addressed. You first need to be clear about your organization’s vision, mission and culture. You need to have the proper hiring and onboarding process in place.
You must have individual position agreements, a quarterly review process, weekly meetings, individual and divisional KPI’s to test and measure their progress. This should all be the norm in any organization.
However, there’s still one little secret that many of you may be missing. What is it? I believe it is simply being present. Yes, being present in the conversation that you’re in the right here right now!
Think about it for a moment, how many of you are willing to raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a conversation with someone when you were actually thinking about something entirely different at the time. Or you were in a conversation of which you were thinking about what to say next without really truly listening to the person you were actually having the conversation with?
Let’s face it, we’re all human, none of us are perfect, so we should all be raising our hand.
If you are a business owner, a leader, a CEO or a manager of a team, take point. If you are having a conversation with one of the persons on your team and you are not completely present in that conversation, you’re thinking about what you have to do next, of a proposal you’re working on, a client conflict, something that happened just prior or just simply thinking of anything other than what the person that you’re in the conversation with is saying, then, you are simply blowing it!
Many business owners and employees all complain there is not enough time in the day. Well, just think about how much time is being wasted by not being present in a conversation. How many times will you have to go back and explain something or ask for an explanation a second time? How much frustration and disrespect are being created within an organization with this simple secret being missed? How many people leave an organization without ever explaining why? How many business owners or managers wonder why someone left and never get an answer? How much productivity, time and money are being left on the table over the course of a year by not mastering this little habit?
There’s a great quote; “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
The greatest compliment you could ever pay to someone is to simply ask for their opinion, listen clearly to their answer and thank them without passing any judgement based on their answer. People will begin to know you care when you simply begin being present in a conversation by sincerely listening.
As we all commit to practicing and mastering this little habitual secret you just may find that you will no longer have to hear or ask the question of how do I create a dream team.