I’m a sponge … love to learn and grow … here’s some business lessons I’ve learned this year:
1. Watch for red flags — I’ve gotten a little better at seeing important warning signs, and for not ignoring important ones that people on my team alert me too; needless to say, I’m more cognizant and alert about them. And now, more than ever, I ask a lot of input of our team on important decisions.
2. Hire skill and experience, but also attitude, drive and initiative — As any employer should, I put a high price on skill and experience (you’ve got to have people who can perform the job) …. but increasingly I’m putting a lot of value on the last three — qualities that I’ve found hard to coach!
3. Coach people to “own” solutions instead of just complaints or opinions — I wrote this yesterday, “It’s OK to have an opinion, and in fact, I solicit that from our team, but don’t just stop there – propose a solution; otherwise, you’re just complaining.” I want to grow as a leader. I want to empower and release people to do and be their best. As a leader, I’ve responded to problems and situations as “fires” and when they come up, I’ve tried to put out that fire fast … but if I want to grow personally and release my team, I’ve got to put the solution back on their shoulders and teach them to be problem solvers. See also: Be the Solution.
4. Good communication is a constant process — I naively thought that fixing communication issues one time would fix them forever. How dumb! We’re all unique individuals who communicate in different ways and have a myriad of issues (personally and professionally) always going on. That means, forever we’ll be honing our communications process with each other. And it’ll only get more complex as we add more people to the team.
I’m sure there’s more to come ….
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