As a business owner, it can be challenging to keep up with the ever-evolving market demands and competition. To succeed in business, it’s essential to have the right mindset, management system, and team.
In this video, Bill Prater discussed his principles for achieving these goals.
He emphasized the importance of these 3 things:
Changing the mindset of the owner
Implementing a proven management system
Developing and leveraging a high-performance team
Bill, known as America’s Business Alchemist™, has built a strong reputation for his ability to help business owners and entrepreneurs achieve their dreams by breaking free from inertia and accelerating into the future.
His passion lies in sharing his wealth of knowledge and experience with those who are dissatisfied with the status quo and eager to transform themselves and their businesses.
With a focus on dynamic and continuous business growth, Bill has developed Scaleology® and the Business Mastery System™ as the core foundational principles of his approach.
His typical client is not satisfied with just “getting to the next level,” but instead sees their company rise to a position of pre-eminence.
Bill’s unique approaches have been successful in over 50 different industries, helping business owners and entrepreneurs achieve real, measurable results.
He has a proven track record of growing revenue, increasing cash flow, and magnifying business value.
By working with Bill, clients can expect to receive expert guidance and support as they navigate the challenges of business growth and transform their companies into thriving enterprises.
I just watched a CBC news segment on the war in Ukraine. February 24 marked one year since Russia invaded Ukraine, yet the success of the Ukraine Army in defending itself is remarkable.
In the video, two Canadian military officers were interviewed; the second officer went into detail about Canada’s involvement seven years prior.
Canada worked to strengthen Ukraine’s self-defense by providing training to their armed forces. Aside from gaining new skills, what this training also included was leaders learning to empower soldiers on the battlefield to make their own decisions—which proved immensely beneficial.
In contrast, Russian soldiers needed approval from higher-ups before making decisions, which caused heavy casualties and disarray among troops.
As we saw in the results of the war, giving frontline troops this sort of autonomy through proper training was a key factor in Ukraine’s defense.
This same concept can be used within corporate environments: offering proper training and making sure employees feel empowered to make meaningful decisions will yield positive results.
To ensure that front line workers understand on what to base decisions, leaders can use survey tools to identify discrepancies between management expectations and employee perceptions—this will open opportunities for more effective training which can clarify roles and responsibilities while offering guidance on decision-making authority.
By clarifying performance expectations and ongoing training, leaders can confidently give up the power of decision making, a shift in thinking required by the Canadian Forces when they trained the Ukrainian army.
Previously, the Ukrainian top brass’s approach was ‘top-down leadership, which they had learned from the Russians, whereas now they had to learn how to empower troops at the frontline. Giving up decision-making power does not make one weaker; instead, it builds trust and strengthens one’s role as a leader. Furthermore, it frees up time for strategic thinking.
This is a good example of how leadership transformation through training and coaching can produce extraordinary results that surpass everyone’s expectations.
Congratulations are due to Canada and the Ukrainian army for this successful collaboration.
I recently got an Apple Watch mainly for fitness and health reasons. It asked me to set fitness goals and it tracks progress toward these objectives.
It’s really working well. I like the reminders it gives me and what stands out is when I reach a goal, whether it be to stand up so many times in a day or to exercise, it sends me congratulations. It tells me, “Great job!” and even though it’s just an electronic device, it feels good to get that kind of feedback and know that you’re achieving your goals.
As a leader, giving feedback to employees is important for several reasons:
Improving Performance: Feedback helps employees understand where they are excelling and where they need to improve. This can help them adjust their work habits, increase productivity, and ultimately improve their overall performance.
Building Relationships: Feedback provides an opportunity for leaders to build relationships with their employees. By providing positive feedback, leaders can show their employees that they value their contributions and appreciate their hard work. Constructive feedback, delivered in a supportive way, can also help employees feel heard and valued.
Increasing Motivation: Feedback can be a powerful motivator. When employees receive positive feedback, they are more likely to feel motivated and continue to work hard. Constructive feedback can also be motivating, as it shows employees that their leader is invested in their success and wants to help them improve.
Identifying Areas for Development: Feedback can help leaders identify areas where their employees need further training or development. This can help leaders create development plans for their employees that address specific areas of need and 0help them grow professionally.
Giving feedback and recognition are two powerful things that every leader can and should do to profit from the benefits listed above. Yet many leaders have difficulty putting this simple behavior into practice.
An Apple Watch comes with the programming built in to set goals and send reminders. Leaders and managers need to program themselves to make giving feedback and recognition a habit. So, it takes conscious effort and repetition just like forming any new habit.
For some people, giving feedback and recognition is an easier habit to develop. This is true for relationship-oriented types and harder for intellectual or physical types.
What triggers do you need to implement to remind yourself to give feedback and praise?
Start by setting a goal and work out what obstacles can stand in your way. Use my goal planning worksheet for this.
Next keep a performance log to note down feedback opportunities and reasons for praise. I also have a form for this.
As part of your goal planning, you should look for opportunities daily to give feedback and recognition. You want to reinforce what people are doing well and where they need improvement.
Becoming an effective leader takes work and you need to know which skill to work on. That is why a 360-leadership assessment like the Checkpoint is a great tool to bring awareness to where improvement is needed. A 360-degree leadership assessment compares the leader’s self-perception of his/her leadership skills with those of his direct reports, peers, and his/her boss.
Combining the 360-leadership feedback with a psychometric assessment like the PXT Select provides deeper insight into the causes of certain leadership behaviors.
Overall, feedback is an essential tool for leaders to help their employees succeed and develop professionally. By providing feedback regularly and constructively, leaders can build strong relationships with their employees, increase motivation, and improve overall performance.
Employee turnover is costly and disruptive. It impedes your ability to deliver products and services and drains resources.
It makes sense to reduce turnover, especially nowadays when the unemployment rate is so low, 3.5% in the US as I write this. This means when posting a job opening you are likely to get applications from people already working but dissatisfied.
What drives employee dissatisfaction to the point where people start seeking new job opportunities? I researched various articles on this topic and came up with reasons for turnover. Here are a few:
Career development
Manager Behavior
Work-life Balance
Job Characteristics
Compensation & Benefits
Retirement
Work Environment
Interesting Work
Feedback & Recognition
These factors that lead to turnover have been problematic for a long time and companies have made good efforts to address them, but turnover is still an issue.
Even if you address these employee concerns strategically and put in place good practices to retain people, there are two reasons why these practices may not be effective.
Job Fit
If you hire people with the skills to do the job but are not an ideal fit, eventually they may become disengaged. This is a common problem as many people have learned specific in-demand skills but do not have the right personality traits and motivation for the work.
I am a good example. When I started out in management in a family business many years ago, I realized that I needed to better understand business finance and accounting. I enrolled in an accounting course that focused on budgeting and cash flow. This was given at a local college as an adult education. The course really helped me in business and was very valuable.
However, I dislike work related to finance and administration, so I tend to avoid it. The point is I have the skills for a certain level of financial management, but my personality and motivation do not fit the job requirements. So even though I could do the work, I would not do it well for those reasons.
When hiring people to be engaged with the job you need to consider the whole person. This means their skills and experience, their fit with the company, and their fit for the job. To assess this, you need to use the right assessment tool. I use the PXT Select as it measures thinking style, behavioral traits, and occupational interests. Furthermore, the candidates are matched to a customized performance model or benchmark for the job.
The image shows a graphic overview of how a candidate fits a specific job. The full reports for selection and coaching provide deep insights into the candidate including interview questions and coaching considerations.
Thus, the first step for employee retention is to make sure the right person is in the right role so they will stay engaged.
Leadership
Suppose you meet with your leadership team and come up with a strategy to address the causes of turnover. These would be ways to deal with the issues I listed previously. Even if you implement a strategy, if the leader or manager does not do what they need to, the strategy will fail.
It’s like reading an informative book on leadership practices and then doing nothing with it. This is because many people in leadership or management roles are not suited to deal effectively with people. Take for example an engineer who is great at understanding the technology behind a product and implementing processes. But he may not enjoy training and coaching people. How then would he address career development or provide feedback and recognition?
It is important then that leaders and managers are promoted to their position not just because they are dedicated productive leaders in their field, but because they are also interested in developing and coaching people. To know this, you need to use the same approach as hiring a new employee and make sure that they fit the job.
Until this is done well, turnover will continue until the issue of leadership behavior is fixed. There is an old saying in HR circles; people leave a poor relationship with a manager or a team member, they don’t leave a job!
