Most business owners wake up one day to find themselves doing a whole bunch of activities for which they feel unprepared. Managing and motivating their team is often one of those activities. Without a well-coordinated coaching and mentoring effort, a business cannot grow successfully long-term. One top challenge for any business owner/executives is mastering leadership by coaching and leading others. Here’s what I have learned…

Set goals, review roles:

1- Set out goals for the company overall. Add up what you honestly believe each person can produce. If there’s a match between what your people can realistically produce and what the company wants to achieve overall, keep going. If not, stop and look at how you train and mentor your team members.

2- If there’s a gap you have some figuring out to Pull the team in and brainstorm. Identify what’s missing. Consider adding training tools as well as team members perhaps with stronger skill-sets. Create a training budget, timeline and measurable’s to know if you’re on track with your training initiatives.

3- Look at your role as Owner/CEO. Do you regularly work on skill development with every team member? Or do you just show up for game day and hope for wins? Is there emphasis on helping people to master skills in practice sessions?

4- Ask each person on the team what he/she wants in life. Relate that to succeeding on the job. Help each person to make the connection between actions he/she takes at work, results he/she is likely to achieve and how he perceives himself/herself in the world.

Listen when people say that they’re trying hard. They probably are. But if results don’t match efforts, something’s wrong. It’s your job as coach to help each player figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it. Watch what people do, not what they say. Are they willing and able to put in time and effort in order to improve so that they can succeed? Keep in mind that an individual player may perceive major risks by admitting he can’t or won’t be on the team, from loss of status, to loss of job. Your job as coach is to bring the subject out in the open and put it to bed, one way or another.

“when running my landscape business, one of my most important functions was building and growing a team that could be multi-functional. I had to learn more about how to be a great coach, even more importantly than how to be a great executive”

Players and teamwork:

1- Know that change is not easy, but may be Sometimes you have to cut a player to strengthen the team. Helping an under-performing player move on to something he can excel at may be your greatest achievement.

2- On sports teams there are a variety of positions, with room for lots of players and Encourage participation and cooperation. Many teams do well with a roster of competent players and no superstars. Know who to go to for which skill.

3- Use the tremendous power of acknowledgement to get more out of every Recognize what each player contributes. Celebrate minor progress as well as major wins. Coordinate efforts through regular meetings, reports and open communication.

In sports, the quality with which each person plays an individual position combined with how the team performs as a whole are what lead to a winning season. The same is true for any business team. Individual assignments matched to individual strengths, lots of practice time and a coordinated team can lead to more wins.

Your thoughts and opinions?

Like to follow-me, please do!

 Steven Cohen, Principal of GreenMark Consulting Group is a business management and operations consultant with more than 25 years of landscape/snow industry experience. Steven has an extensive background in managing cross-functional business operations, business strategy and market growth projects. He prides himself as being both an analytical and a conceptual thinker who effectively partners with business owners to assess opportunities, facilitate strategic decisions, and drive successful implementations. GreenMark Consulting Group specializes in helping growth-oriented companies see through challenges and map out operational and growth strategies.

Questions? Email me at scohen@greenmarkgroup.com. Visit our website @www.greenmarkgroup.com or sign up for our e-news at https://www.greenmarkgroup.com/resources/