People as a Primary Growth Area

In the course of my week I talk with a lot of businesses at various stages and sizes about where they want to grow. It’s not unusual to hear things like:

• I want to grow into a new market.
• I want to increase my offerings.
• I want to add a new location.

The list goes on, and every one of them are good goals and good growth areas. Most of these business leaders have a good strategy to reach those goals, too. But as I talk with them about those strategies there is one common denominator that I don’t hear them talk about growing – their people!

So I want you to change your approach to business growth and think of your People as a Primary Growth Area! While this is true for all of your people, it is especially true for your leadership team. After all, if you’ve read my blog on the 3 Ds of GoodLeadership, then you know that these are the people to whom you will entrust to one of the Ds – Delegate.

Your people are the most important asset you have in your business. Even if you are self-employed, taking care of yourself will benefit your business.

It’s the people that take your vision and direction and help you achieve your goals. They are the ones that make things happen. You have those people because your business grew enough that you could not do it all yourself.

Don’t overlook your Primary Growth Area. Invest in your people. Make sure they know what to do, and have the tools and training to do it. Sure, better benefits help when they are affordable but what I am saying is to make sure they understand what the mission and vision are, and what their role in it is. Seek their input into your plans and they’ll feel like they have ownership, and with that they will want to succeed even more. And when you’ve achieved results in that Growth Area, you’ll be better positioned to grow your business in other areas, and be able to do so with your people as part of that strategy.

The Cobalt Group can help you with this. Ask us how.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2018 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

How Often Should I Be Coaching My People?

As leaders of any type we should all know that our people are out most important asset. They are the ones that really do the work that makes our businesses successful. And we need to groom and develop them so that they are able to succeed in their job. This can be done by effective coaching and mentoring. We’re not just talking about their job performance, we’re also talking about grooming your next generation of leaders. Bench strength is usually discussed in terms of people with skill sets that you might need for work requirements. There is also a bench strength that the vast majority of companies don’t think about – the leadership bench. In addition to coaching your people on their job performance, you should also be coaching and grooming those that are being looked at to move into leadership roles. And the time to do that is not after they have role (although they’ll need it then too), it should be done before they get it. So how often should you be coaching your people? A lot of it depends on what their role is.

How Often Should I Coach? This can depend on the number of people you have. With all the other demands on your plate it may not be able to be done as frequently as some would suggest. My recommendation is to try to get 30 minutes with them once per week. Although, after some time I have found that most meetings usually drop to 15-20 minutes when things are going well. But keep the time open for each person in case you need it. Coaching is more effective if it is timely so having regularly scheduled meetings allows you to be more effective by providing guidance in a more opportune manner. If you have more than about 8 people directly reporting to you then you may want do something more reasonable by meeting with each of them every two weeks. This can be done in person (which is preferable) or over the phone if the situation does not lend itself to a face-to-face meeting. This should work for most people in most roles.

By coaching I do not mean bringing in the Spanish Inquisition. What they need is an honest assessment of their performance, and for you to ascertain what challenges they are facing that may be inhibiting their ability to do their job more effectively and efficiently. The coaching needs to be two-way and it needs to be reinforced. Refer my post on Excellent Listening. Try to apply that to coaching as well. In addition, coaching needs to be supportive and not something that they dread. You are there to lead them. And you are there to make sure that they have what they need to do the job they are doing for you.

I discovered a long time ago that when the people that worked for me felt like they had a valued role in the success of the organization that they would usually go the extra mile to make that organization successful…willingly. Go take care of your people.

So, how often are you coaching your people?

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2014 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.