Empowered Teams Make Growth Easier

As a Founder of a growing business, I’m tasked with designing our organization and developing our culture. A big part of this is hiring and onboarding a team and setting them up for success. Given we’re flying the plane as we build it, this is fluid in many ways. People wear multiple hats and roles morph as our needs change. Though it’s been over a decade since I originally opened the business, we’re now actively in growth mode.

Growth Brings New Challenges

Lately, I’ve realized that I cannot be everywhere at once, and it’s time to enable and empower the team to do their jobs. I teach this all the time in our leadership classes. Yet experiencing this as a founder has been harder than I expected. It feels different when I’ve owned and been deeply involved in almost all parts of this business during its growth.

I see this all the time with other founders I’ve worked with - it’s tough but not impossible. They can usually separate from most of the functions they don’t have expertise in; it’s the one or two they have “grown up in” that give them the most trouble.

Hire For Growth

When you look ahead, what skills or areas of expertise will you need to grow into your vision? Look for motivated candidates aligned with your company’s values, excited to be on this journey with you and, of course, have the skills to support your company’s mission and growth.

Or you can design roles that maximize the skills and talents of the people who are already in your organization. When your company is growing, it’s important to check in regularly to ensure everyone has the support they need to succeed in their roles.

Share Your Vision

Make sure that you’re sharing your vision and asking for questions. When the first Palm Pilot was being designed in the early 90s, team leader Jeff Hawkins would carry around a wooden block the size of his palm. Whenever someone would suggest another feature or function, he would pull out the wooden block and ask them where it would fit.

The block was a concrete, visual reminder of the vision they had to create a product that only did a few things really well and steered them away from the idea that a machine had to do everything. When you share your vision, try to communicate it in a simple, concrete way that’s easy to remember.

Establish Trust

We recommend establishing trust with the executive team as a whole, with each individual, and with the leaders at the next level down.

Of course, once trust is established and your vision shared, it’s time to step back and allow your team to handle tasks and responsibilities. Top leaders also need to be able to own strategy and goal-setting. Ensure they have the support and resources they need, then let them do their jobs.

Moving From Founder To CEO

One of my favorite founders B and I coached around moving exclusively into and fully owning his role as CEO. We talked about finding the right person to take over certain aspects of the job (and how similar it was to finding someone to care for your child). Someone who will spend the time (or already has) getting to know, understand and care for this function, product, set of services, or group of customers as much as you might have. In this case, because his company was established and at a later stage of its growth trajectory, B also wanted someone with a similar perspective so they would make decisions as he did.

Set Clear Expectations

As you step back from day-to-day tasks, it’s important that everyone is on the same page. That begins by clearly communicating your goals and expectations.

In some cases, you should work with your team to build the goals and ensure your expectations are realistic, particularly if the role or function is one you’re unfamiliar with.

Encourage Independence

Encourage team members to make decisions and solve problems on their own. This helps to develop confidence and build new skills. Combined with an open door policy, clearly communicated expectations, goals, and vision, and the support they need to be successful, encouraging independence is a great way to empower teams.

When You Need A Different Perspective

Another leader I loved working with, P, had great expertise in one function in one industry. As he moved into his first president role, his deep knowledge and interest involved in different functions helped him generate amazing ideas and energize the team.

Yet with so much needing his attention, he was searching for a strategic partner who had the process orientation, skills, and expertise to fill in the gaps. Yet this person would still need to be simpatico with him to support and implement his amazing vision to take the organization to the next level.

Communication Is Crucial

It’s essential to have clear lines of communication and have established collaboration and information sharing both across the team and cross-functionally.

We recommend staying in more frequent touch with your leadership teams when you’re growing quickly, and things are shifting often. This can include regular gatherings, feedback, coaching, and showing appreciation for team members.

Remember to also take the pulse of your staff so you have confidence in what’s happening on the ground. Sometimes, in trying not to micromanage, the pendulum swings too much in the other direction, and you’re unaware of overwhelmed, unsure, or disengaged individuals.

We All Make Mistakes

There are bound to be a few bumps in the road as you move into a new role or as the company grows. Fortunately, I have a dream team, each of who has deep expertise in their functional areas. I’m now setting the general direction and turning things over to the team to vision, plan, and execute. Each of them has been patient with me as I’ve slipped up and inserted myself at various points of the process.

Mistakes are always an opportunity to learn and grow (it's not always sunshine and rainbows). Encourage your team to take risks and try new things (within reason) even if they don’t always succeed. Share your own mistakes as well to demonstrate that you’re an organization that embraces practice.

Establish Systems And Processes

Create systems and processes for decision-making and problem-solving so your team can be independent and fail forward. Be aware that systems will need to change as you scale.

Make sure everyone is engaged in giving feedback before investing in new systems or tools so you can avoid making an expensive and time-consuming installation only to find out it’s incompatible with another system or doesn’t meet your customer’s needs.

Empowered Teams Mean Peace Of Mind

I’m grateful today as I close out my week before heading out on a vacation. I have absolute confidence in my team that the work will be brilliantly and expertly moved forward in my absence.

Set Boundaries

When your team is empowered, your open-door policy can be balanced by setting boundaries around your time and availability. You don’t have to be available for every decision when your team is comfortable and confident in the vision, direction, and goals. And this, in turn, allows you to carve time and space of your own to set strategy and only weigh in when necessary.

As your company grows and you look to empower your team even more, we invite you to consider this question: “What and where can you further delegate, enable or empower those you lead?”