Every business will face it’s hardship. From small to large businesses, online to brick-and-mortar, B2B, B2C and P2P, all businesses and all models will, at some point, face difficulties that mean making tough decisions. In the worst case for business owners, it can mean having to face redundancies or even dissolving the business.
However, there are things that you can do to make such realities easier to face as a team, or easier to overcome altogether. The following tips are the basic foundations for how to develop relationships within your team that will give you the greatest opportunity for long-term success.
- Critical Thinking
It can’t be stressed enough that having an informed and well-rounded knowledge of your industry and changes or challenges within that industry will allow you to better foresee the right direction for your business.
- Be Inspiring
Communicate with your colleagues. If you have a great idea, develop it together. Share your knowledge and allow others to be part of the development of your ideas and your business.
- Communicate
Be it in email, meetings, memos or at the coffee station, talk with your team. Allowing yourself to be accessible to everyone in the team and talking with them in honest ways means that you have a report and relationship developed when times get tough. Your colleagues are more likely to support you if they know who you are.
- Be Accountable
Develop a framework for productivity and share this with your team. Be transparent about what you are working on (you don’t need to divulge details, but let people understand the nature of your work so they can see that you are productive.) If you are not managing a project or team well, let them know that you are aware that you’ve not been attentive and implement changes to support your colleagues.
- Create Opportunities
People who work for you often want to do so to further their career and develop their success. If these people are valuable to your team, offer them the opportunity to develop under your tutelage. If people want to upskill or request additional responsibility, they are showing that they are committed to their future, which is of benefit to you too.
How does all this make a difference when things start to threaten the success of the business? You will have developed real relationships with your team, who are more likely to want to band together to help guide the business back to success. When you allow people to invest their time, skills and ideas in a business, you are giving them a sense of autonomy over their work, and a sense of ownership in your business. This is invaluable when facing a crisis. Develop your team and you develop the type of loyalty that can transform a situation from receivership to success.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
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