What does your team look like?

I will stay with my point this month that a recovery is coming. I don’t know when but you, as a leader and small business owner, need to be ready. And your success begins and ends with people. So, as you look forward with a positive belief that things can and will get better, you need to look at who is on your team – and who you need to succeed.

 Years ago I was struggling with my company. We were doing OK, but we were not performing nearly as well as we could. There were small problems everywhere. I had a bunch of nice people who did great work, a bunch of nice people who did OK work and, truthfully, a bunch of nice people who didn’t do very good work and needed to go. But as many leaders do, I kept poor performers around way too long. Why? Because they were nice. Because I liked them as people. Because they had been here a long time.

A lot of companies operate like this. They promote people because of their length of service rather than their performance. Long-time salespeople are made sales managers and we are surprised when they don’t do well. Long-time team leaders are made into department managers and they don’t do well. Family members are promoted due to their last name and not their performance. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it and you have, too! It wasn’t until my board of advisers pointed out to me that the problems I had in my company were due to my inability to see the big picture, and my inability to make some tough decisions and get the poor performers out the door, regardless of how nice they were.