10 MISTAKES YOU DON’T KNOW YOU’RE MAKING THAT STOP YOU FROM BUILDING A HIGH PERFORMANCE SALON TEAM By Chrissy Alger- Senior Coach at The ZING Project.
Once you have an understanding of these 10 pitfalls, only then can you develop the dream team you have been so desperate to build. You have done all the training. You have had all the conversations with your team members. But nothing is changing. You find yourself frustrated. You say things to your team that seem to be creating more tension instead of motivating and inspiring them to perform. You feel like your team are “working against you”. Anything you propose is resisted. You are on a hamster wheel of “trying” but getting nowhere fast. You find yourself just keeping the peace. Not wanting to rock the boat. But at the same time the bills are mounting. You struggle to pay the wages, but your team members don’t seem to care. They want more hours, more Saturdays off, more “time” to get things done that you feel could be done in half the time… You feel like your Team is holding you to ransom. Your back is against the wall. You have lost all control and you are deflated. You fantasise about the days when business was easy, when it was just you. When you could take a wage quite comfortably, and your clients were more than happy with your service. There was no stress. Life seemed simple. I know all of these feelings, because I have felt them. I have been there. I have helped hundreds of Salon Owners who have been in EXACTLY the same position. I’m here to tell you that things can be different, but first you need to understand what is happening. You need to develop an awareness of WHY these problems seem to exist before you can even start to make a change. We have a saying here at Zing, that “You are the problem, and You are also the Solution”. Change starts with you. As a Salon Owner myself, and a Psychologist, I can bring you some interesting insights from both of these perspectives that will help you think differently and hopefully inspire you to make change. This 10 point article is going to help you address the psychological and systemic bottlenecks you are experiencing in building a high performance team. But like most business owners or entrepreneurs, 106
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you are likely to read it, and do nothing about it. You then will continue to do business in the most painstakingly difficult way that you can, because change is hard. But change is no more painful than what you are feeling now, however you get a positive outcome at the end. So, my only advice in reading this is…. Make The Change... Do the work… And your business and you will reap the rewards. The 10 Mistakes You Are Making That Handbrake Your Team’s Performance
1. You Avoid Emotional Discomfort
Addressing performance issues with team members can be anxiety provoking. We fear how they will react, we worry about “saying things in the right way”. As humans, we often don’t like “confrontations” but even worse, we don’t like feeling any sort of emotional discomfort whatsoever. So, we avoid it, and ultimately it perpetuates our problems. But in reality, we have to get uncomfortable in life to get what we need, it is part of life. They say, “a comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there” and that, is ultimately a very true statement. Building tolerance to emotional discomfort and accepting that leadership requires you to feel uncomfortable is the only way you are going to be a better leader.
2. You Do Not Have Any Form of Communication Rhythm
How often do you meet with your Team? Not “have a chat”, like really connect with each team member and understand what is going on
for them? Most Salon Owners have 1:1 meetings on the fly, or only when there is a problem. Often these meetings are also de-prioritised, booked over with client appointments, or forgotten about. Even when you do meet, the communication dances around the issues, or does not unpack the real performance issues. You need to have a regular weekly meeting with every single team member that is structured in a way that allows for meaningful conversations. It does not have to be for hours. A short, sharp 15 minute session every week, in a café or some other neutral territory will open up connection and communication that you never thought was possible.
3. Your ‘Transactional Leadership Style” is destroying the trust of your team and driving you insane...
Are you constantly having to tell your team members what to do and how to do things? I get it, most of the time if you did not do this, everything that you needed done would just not happen. Also, if you stopped interacting like this, it would be similar to taking your hands off the car steering wheel and watching the car drive into the bushes. But this way of leading a team is literally making a rod for your own back. It also fuels your high levels of burnout and stress. The team does not develop any sort of autonomy or learn how to think for themselves when you keep putting on the “Superman Cape” and thinking on behalf of everyone. The other downfall, is that this style of leadership can also create a form of “vigilantism” in your team.
