We were running a team meeting for a client recently who said “I am the Boss, I don’t have to follow the rules but I expect my team to”.
This is true – you are the Boss HOWEVER does this mean you are not accountable to your team?
There of course are many reasons for staff turnover, but one of the biggest problems we see with Virtual Teams (any team for that matter) is that people start off good, but then things don’t seem to change, you wonder what is happening and why they aren’t performing, they lose morale and you have to replace them.
Let me tell you a little story about Steve (names have been changed to protect the innocent). Steve ran a little Accounting Firm. He was a brilliant accountant, however Steve’s business never really seemed to progress beyond his skills – he was always the bottleneck and never followed his own procedures. The result – the Team lost morale, and in the end wrongly thought that Steve did not care about his business. They too began to “not care” and never really tried to improve the systems in his business further.
Yes, his team never progressed beyond him. Steve’s problem is that he was the business owner – yes, but he also had a ROLE in his business. Steve confused his role in the business with his ownership of the business. He did not fulfill his role, which impacted the productiveness of his team; this led to low performance, increased frustration and eventually high staff turnover.
This is the hardest concept for a business owner to accept, but I will let you in on a little secret. The efficiency and care factor of your team will only rise up to your efficiency – scary isn’t it?
Now I know you are saying, “I outsource to my team because I want to be more efficient. They should make my life easier.” Yes that is true, you outsource especially to fill a weakness, but if you are not fulfilling your ROLE in the business, you will be frustrating them, they will lose team morale and your Virtual Team will be like most teams – high staff turnover and messy systems.
If this is you, there is an easy fix.
It’s time to get back to basic business planning.
Draw out your organization. Board of Directors of course is at the top (which may be you)
Then draw out the ROLES in your business, not the people the functions. Odds are you are filling more than one role at the moment and maybe so are some of your Virtual Team.
Standard businesses have a Marketing Area, Admin, Accounts, Sales, IT and Web.
You might fill a Marketing Role and a Financial Management Role or you might fill a Sales Role and Accounting Role – it really does not matter – just write it out. Then as a Board of Directors, review those roles and see if you are happy with YOUR performance. If someone on your team was performing like you in that role would you sack them?
The Odds are if you are not satisfied with your performance in a given role, your team will be impacted.
Your team will mirror you. No team cares more about a business than the owner.
So time to get clear on the roles in your business, identify what is not working and sack yourself from that role if need be.
Love to hear your thoughts on this, please share below.