Powell’s Best Communication Advice for Motivating Teams.”) For leaders of small businesses, this challenge can be particularly difficult — our days are spent putting out ‘fires’, keeping customers happy and trying to balance inventory against orders. But inspiring our teams is still possible. Bringing a team together with the shared purpose of growing the company, being open and transparent, encourages them to provide solutions and own the results. A collaborative approach encourages a variety of unique insights which generate new ideas and new solutions. Your team is motivated to do more, to come together and support each other, which supports you and the company. Where do you begin? What do you do? How do you do it? In my company, we wanted to bring the team together to share ideas with a focus on continuously improving our day-to-day operations. We came up with two ideas to engage and empower everyone. The Roundtable: Learning from your peers The first was a roundtable that included at least one person from each area of the business – accounting, customer service, sales, purchasing, warehouse operations, production and shipping/ receiving (we outsourced our marketing and HR programs). We
created a worksheet in which each team member presented either an objective, or a hurdle, specific to their area of work. Open discussion followed to gather ideas on how best to support fulfilling the objective or overcoming the hurdle. Follow up discussion considered threats, available resources and possible next steps (which had to be clear, measurable and achievable). Many of our daily activities included each of our team members, so it made sense to get their input and perspective too. That way, we also avoided unnecessary mistakes. Meeting as a roundtable gave us a much better perspective of each other’s work. Equally important, we had the opportunity to help each other with solutions. It was terrific team building. We would put together a course of action and once the objective was met, or the hurdle resolved, the worksheet would include “key lessons learned” for discussion so that the improvements would become part of our daily operations. The Contest: Healthy competition creates healthier teams We also created a company-wide contest based on Sales Up/ Expenses Down. Recognizing that everyone has an impact on either increasing company sales or reducing company expenses, all team members were included. The call-out was for new ideas — gift cards were presented for ideas that were implemented. Our sales and customer service team came up with new ideas Continued on page 48
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