4 Effective Ways to Build a Proactive Small Business Team
Every small business owner says they want to have a more proactive team, but what does that mean and how do you prepare your team to invoke that culture? This is a question I get asked a lot. I wanted to share a few tips on how to best prepare your team to be proactive and get more done in less time.
#1: Have a Good Workflow
When your team members are unclear as to where their work fits into a process, confusion and lack of productivity will often be the result. A workflow doesn’t have to be complicated – it can be a visual diagram that helps everyone understand what needs to happen at different phases of a case or project and gives clarity so everyone knows what to do.
This helps your visual learners, but it also gives everyone a little clarity as to the different roles and the fact that there may be four or five different people helping build something out and put it together. They can then recognize their slots and understand ahead of time where they’re going to be involved.
Workflows don’t have to be complex: one structure that we use is a diagram with simple boxes that show the big picture or get more granular with more sub boxes.
#2: WHO Shall Do WHAT By WHEN
Offering good clarity about your personal processes and procedures will give everyone a heightened comfort level and confidence of what they need to do and how to go about getting their tasks done. This also helps to ensure that two individuals aren’t both working on the same part of a project and delineates tasks and duties.
WHO shall do WHAT by WHEN provides a structure to always identify the person by position, then describe what it is they are supposed to do with specificity, and then give a clear indication on when it needs to be completed and handed off to the next person.
#3: Understanding Workloads
When you delegate a project, it’s important to give clarity as to how long you believe it should take. This will give your team context to understand if you are expecting a 20-minute project or a two-hour project. This allows people to have a better framework to plan their time. (It also gives them an opportunity to let you know if the project may involve more or less time than you originally planned for!)
This also has another benefit: it’s easy to overlook the fact that most humans are horrible with estimating how long something will take. Rather than make them come up with this on their own each time, do your best to look back at past tasks and how long it took and build it out from there.
#4: Innovating and Looking Ahead
A final tip for equipping your team to be proactive is to encourage your team to innovate and look ahead. By teaching them how to be aware of the calendar and what they can do to help others on the team, you will help them find ways to be more prepared and be ready to move forward with whatever project they’re doing. We want to build a culture that allows everyone to thrive and help one another.
Realize that you may hit some roadblocks while implementing these steps, but each of these is actually a silver lining. By finding the places where communication or systems may need refining, you can make your company and your team stronger and more proactive!