A successful team helps build a successful business. As an employer, you can help nurture the growth of your staff and your business at the same time. Five things that can help are to lead by example, set clear goals, communicate well, value diverse experience and make room for fun. To do this, you need to start by nurturing your own success. Fortunately, that’s something we can help with by matching you with a Business Mentor. Then, you’ll find it be much easier get started with these other steps to helping your people and your business perform at their best.
1. Lead by example
Setting a good example for your team doesn't mean being perfect all the time. Instead, be ready to show how you deal with challenges and even failures. This demonstrates the value of persistence and resilience. For example, if you've missed a delivery date, tell the team and explain how you'll contact the customer to resolve the situation.
A sense of purpose is one of the single best motivators. People will be inspired towards success when they can see the purpose of both the business and their own work within it. As an employer, your role is to communicate this purpose and 'join the dots' with people's daily tasks.
2. Set clear goals
Setting clear goals equips your team to succeed through steady, measurable progress. The SMART acronym is a powerful one to bear in mind. SMART Goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.
When you give staff the opportunity to help design their own goals it creates a sense of ownership. It’s will also make it easier to discuss any roadblocks they encounter.
As an employer, you can encourage high performance with a mixture of short-term goals and 'stretch goals'. One helps create a habit of success, the other can capture people's imagination.
3. Encourage open communication
Effective communication plays a vital role in nurturing success. Protecting a routine of team meetings and ‘one-on-ones’ in busy times means people know they'll have an opportunity to offer updates or ask for support.
Encourage both praise and feedback. Everyone enjoys knowing their efforts make a difference. Making feedback comfortable and useful is equally as important as praise. Positioning failure as a steppingstone rather than a dead end helps people keep trying even when the road is bumpy.
As a leader, you can set the tone by inviting feedback from others. Perhaps you could ask for ideas on how the organisation can manage particular scenarios or how you could better support an individual's progress.
4. Value diverse experience
Training is one way to deepen the skills in your team so they can succeed. Your industry may suit formal or professional training. Creative thinking may uncover other cost-effective and complementary options. For example, you could set a regular slot in meetings and let people take turns in 'teaching' others something their favourite work-related skill. Plenty of online micro-courses are free and high quality.
Diverse experiences generate diverse thinking, so consider how you can encourage ‘breadth’ in your team. What does your team do outside of work? Do they have community service or side hustles? If so, giving your people a chance to develop skills that might help them beyond their 9-5 roles will grow the richness and commitment of your team as a whole.
5. Make room for fun
When people are engaged at work, they’re more likely to perform well. So, ensuring your culture has room for ‘fun’ is valuable in nurturing success. Don’t feel you need to force it. Instead, let enjoyment be authentic by welcoming ideas from your team. Something as simple has having people’s pet photos or cute pictures at their desks has been shown to improve productivity. Perhaps your workplace could ‘adopt’ a local sports team, share recipes on a Slack channel or even have a monthly ‘walking meeting’ in the park.
To sum up, nurture your team and yourself
Being an employer that nurtures success means nurturing your people. When team members can grow and develop, your business will too. Fortunately, it doesn’t mean setting an example of perfection. Being ‘real, engaging people in shaping goals and creating a culture of authentic communication and fun is much more powerful. You also need to nurture yourself.
A Business Mentor can play a crucial part in supporting you to be an employer that nurtures success. If you have a Mentor, then this might be one of the goals you set with them. If you don’t yet have a Mentor, then why not start the process today?
