Building Your Business from Within

For the last 10 years I’ve been training leaders and employees across the country in leadership, management and communications. It has been an experience for me to see the wonderful companies that we have in this country. So many people, working so hard, to be successful. What an inspiration to see these people working to improve themselves, their teams and their companies.

I’ve been impressed with a few of the leaders that I have worked with because they have stood out to me among all the companies that I have worked with in very particular ways.

1. 
   They are willing to investing in their most important asset, and that is their people.
2. 
   They don’t set themselves apart from their employees in the training and development of their teams. In other words they require the same from themselves as they do from their employee. In the words of Donald T. Phillips author of the “On Leadership” series, they Travel with their troops.
3. 
   They expect their teams to hold themselves and respectively them also responsible for what is done.

Emphasizing these three areas is crucial to building your business. To see why, let’s look at each one and how it affects the potential success of your business.

1. 
   Willingness to invest in your people
   Far too often I see employee’s being trained or developed because of a problem that needs to be corrected or a issue that has arisen and must be addressed or worse yet to be “seen” as investing when in reality its just to do something with the budget. This is chasing the solution rather than preempting the solution. These successful leaders are looking at the needs and potential needs of their individuals and teams and they are going to the solutions before the problem comes to them, so that when a problem does arise, the individual or team is prepared to confront it and deal with it. What’s more is that they as leaders are learning and growing at the same time by willingly investing in their teams. When times get tough economically speaking they invest in their people rather than cut their peoples learning and growth. The result is that when times get tough the teams are well prepared to weather the storm.
2. 
   Travel with the troops
   These leaders don’t do one thing and then expect their teams to do something else. When I have gone to train these groups, their leader or leaders are there front and present learning and growing with the teams. He/She allows themselves to be part of the team on an equal level never above their people and by doing this they garner the respect of the people that they lead. Their teams in turn see the leader as someone who they can trust; respect and best yet, follow.
3. 
   360 degree of responsibility
   These leaders give and expect. They give willingly and freely but in turn they expect their teams to take responsibility for what they do. 100% of the time I have observed that because of steps 1 and 2 as previously discussed, the teams always take responsibility. The leaders also expect the teams to hold the leaders responsible. This is another way to show the team that while they are the leader, they hold themselves at the same level of value and respect as the team.
   

Building a business is more than just having a set of clients or customers. It doesn’t matter how it look on the books or from the outside. It all starts with building from within. A positive open relationship between employee’s and leaders must exist for a business to build properly.

Building your business can be and should be an exciting thing. Remember to build from within first and the rest will be easier.

Good Business to you
Evan Glassett
President
Evergreen Team Concepts