The “virtual office” isn’t a new notion by any means, but the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to ravage the world has made remote work the norm rather than the exception for countless businesses. While some companies saw a smooth transition to these workplace changes, others had a more challenging time adapting to them and continue to struggle with the ramifications of working from home. There’s no denying the obvious differences between in-person and remote work (e.g., no more commutes, less interaction, adjustments in hours, etc.), but these surface-level distinctions have broader implications on productivity, mental health, relationships at every level, company culture, and more. Those companies that can hold onto and even improve these aspects of their enterprise in the midst of such a global shift will have a major advantage moving forward, and every employee will benefit to boot.
Let’s go over how to manage employee relations effectively and maintain a strong culture despite remote working conditions.
Don’t Avoid Company Culture Conversations
When everyone is suddenly working from home, there’s often an elephant in the virtual room that needs addressing. That metaphorical elephant represents the clear change in communication and culture that occurs when people stop seeing each other face to face. Rather than ignore the obvious, though, leaders should point it out and spark conversations about workplace culture, how it’s changed, and how it can be improved. These conversations will keep everyone thinking about and discussing tangible short- and long-term goals that can be achieved virtually and, when the time comes, in person.
Take Advantage of Modern Technology
We’re fortunate to live in a time that offers so many methods of long-distance communication — phone calls, video chats, text-based chat rooms, and message boards, etc. While there’s no replacement for in-person interactions, there are also countless opportunities to keep in touch with team members throughout the workday when working remotely. If you’re concerned about keeping up with employee relationship management, then use this technology to your advantage in practical and creative ways — have regular video meetings to go over projects and discuss new ideas, host virtual happy hours weekly or monthly to unwind and discuss non-work-related matters, replace the time normally reserved for commuting with remote coffee or breakfast check-ins with employees, have lunch over video call with team members, the list goes on. The bottom line is this: communication is key for maintaining strong management-employee relations, boosting team morale, and fortifying culture. Of course, you’ll want to make sure each of your employees has access to the necessary technology to partake in these various virtual activities.
Encourage a Proper Work-Life Balance
Finding a healthy balance between work and non-work can be a challenge for many people, regardless of extenuating circumstances. Of course, striking this balance is even more difficult during remote working conditions. Working from home creates a dynamic in which it’s difficult to separate one aspect of your life from another. Even if you have a dedicated home office, you’re never far from your living room, TV, child/children, pet(s), etc., during the workday. And when you’ve finished your work for the day, it can be hard to switch your brain from “work” to “play” when you’ve never left your home to begin with. This lack of boundaries between work and life can quickly lead to burnout and negatively affect one’s mental health. It’s up to leaders to encourage and exemplify a healthy work-life balance, so employees don’t feel trapped in their work or too distracted to get anything done. You can do this by:
- Providing resources for employees regarding these matters to help them achieve a positive balance in their own lives
- Establishing boundaries that limit or restrict work-related communications to a certain range of hours (e.g., 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.) so employees aren’t tied to work at all times
- Prioritizing productivity over hours worked, so employees feel free to set their own hours and work at their own pace
Different companies will have different ways of promoting a good work-life balance; making this a priority and leading by example is one of the best leadership qualities you can have.
Recognize Your People and Accomplishments
Lastly, don’t let virtual work take away from the important ritual of workplace recognition. Whether in-person or remotely, everyone likes to feel seen for their contributions and accomplishments, and recognizing your people for their hard work is key in maintaining strong relationships and strengthening your culture. In many ways, employee/team recognition is more important than ever now that so many of us are working from home, as it’s normal for people to feel underappreciated and unseen when siloed from their coworkers and managers. Letting your people know that their work and fortitude haven’t gone unnoticed is an important role for all leaders during this time and in general.
Remotely Challenging Times
Navigating leadership in times of stress and change like the ones we’re currently living in is no walk in the park. That said, current remote working conditions provide the perfect opportunity for companies and leaders everywhere to test their strengths, bolster their weaknesses, and create an even more cohesive company culture that can withstand the most difficult circumstances.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Every great leap begins with an idea. Indeed, brainstorming sessions, after-hours conversations, and spirited debates are highly valuable to any enterprise. These discussions help shape and clarify a company’s vision as leaders seek opportunities for improvement and growth. However, there comes a point when words must translate into actions. Too much talk can actually get in the way of proper execution. Real progress can only be made by testing out your various ideas and going over what’s working and what’s not.
How to Humbly Display Your Progress
Set Smaller Goals
While it’s important to always keep an eye on the bigger picture, the only way to get there is through incremental steps. Setting smaller goals is one of the key features of any effective performance management system. Unlike long-term, sweeping goals, smaller goals are easier to set (or reset), accomplish, and track along the way. For instance, you might have the larger goal of increasing your annual profits this year. In order to achieve this goal, however, it’s important to zoom in on actionable goals that your team can tackle each day, week, month, and so on. One of these short-term goals might be challenging your sales team to increase their client base by a specific number between now and the end of the quarter. While it might not be easy to accomplish this goal, setting a clear benchmark like this makes it easy to track your business’ progress with hard numbers.
Build More Buy-In
No matter the size of your business, progress is only possible if your people are working toward the same goals. In order to keep everyone on the same page and perpetuate a high-performance culture, you must do your best to create buy-in. Maintaining broad buy-in requires constant communication and calibration — there may be times when an individual (or more) strongly opposes the direction you or your leadership team wishes to go. When this occurs, you must determine whether an executive (“command”) decision must be made, whether additional input is needed (“consult”), or if consensus is imperative for progress (“consensus”).
Accentuate Accountability
Accountability is paramount for proper performance management — without it, you’ll struggle to identify the trail of mistakes and miscommunication that led to a serious problem or roadblock. Moreover, prioritizing accountability in all leaders, managers, and employees will help keep everyone working towards their specialized and collective goals. For instance, leaders should regularly check in with their team(s) for concrete updates on their progress. If little to no progress is being made, the reasons for this lack of progress must be brought to light so necessary adjustments can be made, whether this means altering goals, shifting roles, or letting go of someone. A high-accountability culture can be difficult to establish and maintain, but doing so will allow you to make real progress beyond mere words.
Invest in Business Coaching
Speaking of accountability, there is perhaps no better way to keep leaders and teams accountable than by hiring a coach to provide you with an experienced, objective point of view. The best coaches can easily identify potential areas of growth for leaders, set and track new goals, keep everyone focused on unified, and point out hurdles that are preventing you from progressing. At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Strong leadership and strong communication are inextricably linked — you simply cannot have one without the other. The best leaders maintain a clear line of communication with their peers, partners, employees, and customers. In doing so, these leaders develop a deeper understanding of relevant situations, issues, shortcomings, and opportunities while delivering clear feedback and instruction that steers the ship in a purposeful direction. Let’s dive deeper into why communication is so crucial in leadership.
What Are the Benefits of Good Communication?
Communication Keeps People on the Same Page
Team management is a challenge for businesses of all sizes. Whether a team consists of a few people or dozens of individuals, leaders with strong communication skills are the glue that holds said team together through thick and thin. It’s worth noting that proper communication isn’t a one-way street, either. Leaders must be equally adept at delivering instructions and receiving feedback from team members in order to manage their team optimally. This reciprocity allows leaders to earn the respect and engagement of their employees and make informed decisions that garner maximum buy-in.
Communication Is Key to Understanding Problems
The ability to listen is one of the most important qualities of a good leader, and, as previously mentioned, half of the communication equation. If you fail to hear or comprehend the concerns of those within your organization, the smallest issues can grow into a rot that’s more and more difficult to expel over time. The best leaders actively check in with their people to uncover any nascent problems so they can resolve them as quickly and effectively as possible. New issues are still bound to arise — the key is getting ahead of them with masterful communication rather than ignoring them or missing them entirely.
Communication Drives Positive Change
The whole point of understanding problems in your organization is to discover weak points that you can fix and then make various adjustments that push your company in a better direction. In this way, then, strong leadership communication skills are the driving force behind constructive change. Your organization will struggle to grow or improve if its leaders don’t properly respond to problems and opportunities when they arise.
Communication Helps Retain Top Talent
In recent posts, we’ve discussed the importance of employee retention, especially when it comes to keeping top talent in your organization. While these retention efforts are multi-faceted, leadership communication remains at the heart of them. Those with the most potential in your company may seek other opportunities if they don’t feel like their ideas are being heard and/or if they don’t feel properly compensated for their contributions. In order to keep these valuable people around, leaders must help them grow with the organization — this might mean promoting them into new positions, guiding their own leadership development, giving them appropriate raises, and so on. Whatever the case, these decisions must be based on the mutual needs of these individuals and your company, which can only be uncovered through powerful communication.
Leaders who display strong communication keep their people on the same page, understand and resolve issues before they fester, improve their operations and culture, and retain the very best people to keep this cycle going. At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Your leadership team is largely responsible for allowing your business to continually meet quotas, increase profits, and grow sustainably. As such, motivating your leaders to do their best work and maintain that momentum must be one of your top priorities. Of course, all leaders are human beings, and human beings have their limitations. Pushing your people too hard can create massive leadership stress and get in the way of progress. Conversely, loosening your grip too much can result in chaos and stifle productivity. In order to ensure ongoing success, then, you must strike a balance between putting on the pressure when the time is right and letting go when things get too tense.
How to Get the Most Out of the Leaders in Your Office
Support Their Personal and Professional Goals
Even if your leaders inherently love what they do, their job is ultimately just a portion of their lives. Most people are more motivated by the notion of building a better life for themselves and their families than growing the company for which they work. Fortunately, these goals go hand in hand. As your business flourishes, so do the personal lives of your leaders, as long as you maintain an awareness of what your people want out of life and their careers. If you want to get the most out of your leaders, then, take the time to understand what gets them out of bed in the morning and connect those aspirations to the business’ growth. You can further support your leaders by offering ongoing leadership training, providing career resources, and more.
Prioritize Performance Management
No matter how self-aware someone is, no one recognizes all of their shortcomings without some external input. Your leaders won’t be able to progress as quickly or efficiently if they’re not receiving honest feedback on a regular basis. Make it a priority to track your leaders’ performance and go over their strengths and weaknesses at key intervals or on an as-needed basis. Your constructive criticism should also include recognition of all of a leader’s accomplishments — this way, your leaders can continue doing what they do best and work on what they might have missed for the betterment of themselves and your business as a whole.
Make sure you allow time for your leaders to ask questions and deliver their own feedback as well. Sending out employee surveys is another powerful way to see how your people feel about the workplace and culture.
Leave Room for New Opportunities
One of the primary reasons people part with a company is because they feel stuck, as if they’ve reached a peak and there’s nowhere to go from there. In order to draw out the very best from your leaders (and keep them around), you have to offer ongoing opportunities for growth. You might develop a transparent system for lateral movement, promotions, and raises for leaders to work towards, and/or create new roles for managers with specific leadership skills. It’s important to maintain strong communication with your leaders to see how happy or unhappy they are in their current position so you can come up with ways to best utilize their unique talents, skills, and experiences.
Provide Practical Paid Time Off (PTO)
Everyone needs a break, especially your hardest-working talent. Working around the clock for months on end will inevitably lead to burnout, which can take weeks to recover from and do plenty of damage in the meantime. While paid vacations and extended break periods might seem like a major liability, they’re necessary investments for managing leadership stress and getting the most out of your leaders in the long run. For a deep dive into this subject, read our article, “How Much Paid Time Off (PTO) is Good for Productivity?” At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Organizations are made up of individuals with unique perspectives, ideas, and life goals. But while each person inside a company sees things their own way, it’s important for an organization to establish a coherent vision that all leaders and team members can get behind and work toward. Achieving and maintaining this unity requires proper planning, ongoing execution, and flexibility. Here’s how to create an action plan to ensure all leaders share the same company vision.
How to Enstill Company Vision
Spell Out the Business’ Broader Mission
A company’s mission statement defines its overall purpose. In this way, a mission can be thought of as the foundation and motivation for your business efforts moving forward. The first step to ensuring that your leadership team unites around a collective vision is by creating and disseminating a clear and concise mission statement. Failing to do so is like trying to build a home on top of empty space — there’s nowhere to stand and everything falls apart.
Prioritize Short- and Long-Term Goals
Once your mission is firmly in place and well understood by all leaders in your company, the next step is to collectively come up with short-term and long-term goals. Some of these goals might be highly specific, such as meeting certain quotas by next quarter, and others might be more nebulous and far away, like “becoming the nation’s leader in a given industry.” One example of a great long-term goal is to implement consistent training with the help of a qualified EOS® Implementer. It’s important to categorize and prioritize these various goals so leaders and team members have a concrete sense of what to do in the coming days, weeks, months, etc., and why.
Delineate Different Types of Decisions
Uniting around a vision doesn’t happen overnight. Anyone who knows how to manage a team can attest that few decisions are immediately agreed upon by all parties. In a perfect world, all decisions would be unanimous, but in reality, attempting to find consensus for every choice can result in deadlock, frustration, and confusion. This is why it’s important for leaders to understand the differences between three main types of decisions: command, consult, and consensus.
Command decisions are executive orders that do not require team input. Consult decisions, while also adjudicated by the leader, do take team input into consideration. And consensus decisions are made collectively, sometimes with various compromises or concessions. There is a time and place for decisions of each nature. While command and consult decisions might not please everyone within your organization, they should still derive from and work toward the collective vision on which all leaders have agreed. A well-trained leader can determine when to implement which type of decision and why, as well as offer guidance to those who are struggling to figure out where each person’s role may take the company and decision-making process.
Keep Tabs on Individual and Team Performance
In order to ensure that your leaders are actively working towards a unified vision, you must take regular account of their performance as individuals and as a team. Traction®, one of the Six Key Components™ of the EOS Model™, is all about accountability and execution, turning the company vision into something tangible. If goals or expectations aren’t being met, there may be a disconnect that requires amending. Perhaps some leaders aren’t completely clear about what they should be doing or why. It’s difficult to achieve goals if said goals are not entirely understood, after all. This is why EOS® Visions are always measurable, written-down, and disseminated to all employees. By keeping tabs on leadership performance, you can stay alert to instances of miscommunication and realign focus.
Leave Enough Space to Adapt and Evolve
While a company vision should be clear as day, it shouldn’t be set in stone. Sometimes, priorities and goals shift due to internal and external circumstances. If and when there is a change in your organization’s outlook, leaders must jointly reconfigure their mindset and methods toward these new aims. These adjustments can vary in size and scope, but they’re important to make if your business is to continue thriving in an ever-changing environment. If leaders cannot shift focus as a unit, it will become difficult to move forward at all, which is why building a strong team culture is crucial for the outset — this requires going over Issues (another Key Component in EOS) on a regular basis in order to solve organizational problems to make room from change and growth.
Seeing Things Clearly and in Concert
Without free-thinking, diverse individuals, a business would lack dynamism and quickly run out of steam. Conversely, organizations that cannot come together around a shared vision tend to rip themselves apart. The key to ongoing success, then, is taking advantage of every leader’s unique qualities in order to come up with and execute upon a vision that serves the enterprise as a whole — this doesn’t mean everyone has to agree on everything all the time, but rather that everyone has a clear, connected sense of (and stake in) where the company is headed, and why. Adhering to the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)® helps every type of business achieve these results. At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Sourcing the best candidates for your business is challenging enough — keeping them around for the long haul can be even more difficult. In such a competitive global economy, employees that exhibit strong leadership skills are in high demand. As your people continue to develop, then, they may come closer to abandoning ship to explore other opportunities. While you can’t force anyone to stay, retaining your top talent is integral to the growth and legacy of your enterprise. So, how can you retain your employees as they grow professionally? Here are some thoughts.
Continue Focusing on Leadership Development
If you adopt a cynical mindset, you might think that developing leadership talent will only serve to pry your best employees away from your business — after all, the more skills they develop, the more leverage they have in the workplace. As it turns out, though, focusing on leadership development is actually one of the best ways to keep your employees around. By offering ongoing, rigorous training and education, your company provides value to your employees, which they will reciprocate in direct and indirect ways. For instance, the more adept your people become, the more productive and creative they will be — these outcomes benefit your bottom line and broaden your business’ prospects. In other words, investing in your employees will encourage them to invest back into the company, ideally for the long-run.
Open New Doors For Top Talent
As your people grow professionally, you want to make sure they don’t outgrow the scope of your business — otherwise, they’ll likely move on. No one likes feeling stuck where they are or overqualified for their position, after all. If you want them to stick with you, then, you’ll need to expand the number of opportunities you offer your employees. This might mean creating brand new roles to better suit a specific employee’s skill set, shifting around teams, tasking top talent with fresh challenges and responsibilities to keep them sharp and engaged, and so on. These efforts tie directly into your long term succession planning as well — by challenging your people and letting them explore new positions, you can better gauge who is fit to take over key roles within the company.
Commit to Strengthening Your Company Culture
Never underestimate the importance of your organization’s culture when it comes to retaining your employees. Simply put, most people would rather stay with a company that respects them, recognizes their achievements and efforts, provides ample growth opportunities, and promotes a healthy work-life balance as opposed to the alternative (even if said alternative offers a slightly higher salary). This isn’t to say, however, that merely putting on a happy face and patting your people on the back is enough to keep them around. The key to cultivating a company culture that encourages people to stay is maintaining transparency, being flexible, and compensating employees for the value they bring to the company.
Growing With Your People
Employee retention and succession planning go hand in hand. While it’s true that helping your employees grow into capable leaders runs the risk of losing them to other opportunities, you won’t be able to secure the legacy of your company if you can’t foster the growth of your people and incentivize them to stay. By focusing on continual leadership development, granting your people with new opportunities, and cultivating a strong company culture, your business will grow right alongside your top talent, and vice versa. At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Delivering criticism to a team can be a significant cause of leadership stress for many leaders. It’s not always easy to find the proper balance between sugar-coated comment and pointless put-down. But when someone makes a mistake, requires correction, or falls short of their duties, ignoring or obfuscating the issue is more harmful to your workplace culture than addressing it head-on.
So, how can you deal criticism in a way that lets your team member know where they went wrong, and, just as importantly, how they can improve? Let’s examine 5 phrases that can serve as templates or starting points for more effective workplace criticism.
1. “I like where this is headed. Let’s see what we can improve…”
This is a powerful phrase to employ when your team or team member suggests an idea that has merit but plenty of flaws. Rather than starting with the problems, begin with a sincere recognition of the idea’s potential. This will energize the team while also focusing everyone’s efforts on trimming the fat and making necessary changes.
2. “The team could really benefit from more of your input.”
If you’re a team manager, you may experience an occasional imbalance in effort and input from your employees. Sometimes a minority of the team makes most of the calls. Or, perhaps a single team member rarely, or never, contributes to the creative process. When this happens, don’t just tell them to talk more during meetings. Instead, let them know that the team is lacking an important piece of the puzzle. This often motivates a less assertive team member to make their opinion known.
3. “This area seems to be a challenge for you.”
We all have our weaknesses. The key is identifying them so we know which areas we must work to improve. But it’s not always easy to make out our own faults. One of the most important leadership traits is being able to not only identify these problem areas in your team members, but also point them out without hesitation or ambiguity. Using the above phrase provides a solid entry point into this conversation, as it doesn’t personally attack the individual in question but still addresses the concern.
4. “You haven’t been meeting your performance goals/expectations.”
By letting a staff member know in simple terms that they haven’t been meeting their expectations, you accomplish a few important things. First, you reiterate what’s objectively expected of them, as laid out in previous conversations. Second, you open the door for a conversation on why these goals aren’t being met. And third, you can begin crafting a tangible performance management strategy for getting back on track. This is more effective than telling them they’re not doing a good job, or demanding results without a reminder of the company’s expectations.
5. “What do you think could have happened differently?”
Finally, effective leadership depends on reciprocity and communication. If you’re going to lead well, the conversation must go both ways. So, when someone messes up, make sure you ask what they thought of the situation, and how they might have handled it differently. To avoid coming off as patronizing, sincerely listen to what they have to say and give your thoughts as well.
No matter the circumstance, coming up with constructive criticism is a challenge for all leaders, but vital to maintaining an open and productive workplace. The above phrases are just a handful of examples that can help you address important issues without making it personal or sowing seeds of resentment.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow.
Quality of leadership largely determines whether an organization rises, falls, or remains stagnant. But leaders do not magically descend from some higher realm — they are cultivated over time through experience, training, and perseverance. Indeed, nearly every company contains its share of potential leaders, and it is the responsibility of current leaders to identify and foster future leadership or else risk leaving a major hole in the organization upon leaving.
Of course, not every worker is destined to be (or interested in being) a leader. Investing in these individuals is not a waste of time, but the lion’s share of leadership development resources are better spent on those who display leadership potential. With that in mind, let’s go over how to spot future leaders at your organization.
How to Find a Future Leader
Ask Yourself: Who Goes the Extra Mile?
When seeking the future leaders of your company, a good place to start is by looking at results. Consider who in your organization consistently goes above and beyond expectations. Employees that are highly results-driven prove their enthusiasm and skill, and team members that come up with new, innovative ideas drive the company’s efforts into new territories. Pay close attention to these people in your company who keep the enterprise moving forward with passion, as they already exhibit strong leadership qualities.
Weigh Both Potential and Performance
Performance is undoubtedly a key indicator when spotting future leaders, but it is not the end-all-be-all. Indeed, you may have employees who work extremely hard but don’t exude much leadership potential. “Leadership potential” is a somewhat ambiguous metric, of course, and therefore more difficult to pick apart than hard data. Still, pay attention to those with specific leadership skills, such as strong communication, team-building aptitude, a desire to grow and learn, creativity, etc. Even if they’re not your top performers in terms of your bottom line, they might be perfect fits for various leadership roles in the future, helping those top performers reach new heights.
Shake Up the Structure
One helpful way to get a beat on future leaders is by stirring the pot a bit — namely, rotating job duties and/or assigning new roles to people every now and again. In doing so, some individuals will take full advantage of the opportunity, learning new skills and pushing themselves beyond their perceived limits. Others may wish to stay in their comfort zone and/or buckle under the pressure. Those in the former category just might be your future leaders. Job rotation is a powerful exercise for succession planning, as it can help you determine which candidates could adapt and take on new roles when necessary.
Ask Yourself: Who Is Asking Questions?
While not everyone who asks questions is bound to be a leader, all future leaders ask questions. This spirit of inquiry is directly related to strong communication and therefore strong leadership. So, keep an eye on those who take the time to clarify concepts, inquire about specifics, seek solutions to ongoing problems, and ask seemingly simple questions that others might be too timid to ask.
Train Your Eye for Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence, or “EQ,” is one of the most important qualities of a good leader. Those who can listen to the concerns and suggestions of others and act accordingly strengthen the company’s culture, encourage employee buy-in, promote teamwork, and improve the organization’s reputation and operations as a whole. When looking for EQ in future leaders, look for individuals who display empathy, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and strong social skills.
Ask Yourself: Who Is Invested in the Organization?
Lastly, even if you’ve found a handful of candidates who meet the above criteria, you have to consider whether or not they’re in it for the long-haul. Those who show strong leadership potential are in high-demand, after all, and many businesses spend significant resources training future managers only to have them exit the organization shortly after. While you can’t force any of your leaders to stay, though, investing in their growth is a crucial way to retain your top talent. And those who routinely express their interest in the company’s future and their role in it are top contenders for future leaders. In short, if a potential leader is invested in your organization, you must invest in their development.
Developing future leaders in your company starts with identifying the best candidates. And once you know what to look for, you may be pleasantly surprised at how many people in your organization could become leaders down the line.At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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The world is always changing, but the past few months have accelerated the rate of these changes significantly. While many companies have been incorporating remote work as a key part of their models for over a decade, recent events have made this trend a necessity. In many ways, this sudden shift is encouraging, revealing the many benefits of remote work, such as less time spent commuting, production-focused performance management, cost savings associated with less office use, and more. But just because it is possible and/or required to work from home these days doesn’t mean the downsides of remote work simply disappear.
During these unprecedented times of physical separation, businesses may struggle to keep teams unified, focused, and on track. As it turns out, though, this change in the status quo presents an opportunity to invest in virtual support and training methods that will strengthen your teams and leaders wherever they are. More specifically, you might consider adopting the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)® for your enterprise, taking advantage of its online components. Let’s go over how expert virtual EOS support can help you keep your teams on track during challenging times.
Understanding EOS®
The Entrepreneurial Operating System consists of various practical tools, resources, and concepts aimed at helping businesses and entrepreneurs achieve their goals, maintain a unified vision, promote healthy leadership development, and foster stronger team cohesion and communication. The beauty of this system is that it can be implemented via in-person and/or online meetings. In other words, businesses can reap the rewards of EOS even when social distancing is a priority.
What Does Virtual EOS® Support Look Like?
Whether in-person or online, EOS support begins by partnering up with an EOS Implementer™. These experts act as guides for the entire process, educating you and your teams on the EOS Model™ and EOS Process®, then supervising various meetings for your organization. Unlike other online business coaching programs, EOS is designed to be highly adaptable, meaning the content of each meeting is directly informed by the business’ short- and long-term goals and issues. By compartmentalizing in this way, your business can stay focused on what needs to get done, when, and prioritize accordingly.
To keep your company on track, your virtual EOS Implementer will conduct The 90-Minute Meeting™ to get your leadership team on the same page, schedule The Focus Day™ and Vision Building™ Days to introduce foundational tools and explain their uses, guide you along quarterly and annual planning sessions, help you uncover and resolve short- and long-term issues within your organization, and remotely check in as needed to ensure your continued success. In short, virtual EOS support acts as an online leadership development regiment, team-building strategy, goal-setting apparatus, problem-solving system, and overall organizational health and growth thermometer.
Keep Your Organization on Track with Virtual EOS® Support
As we continue to face difficult and uncertain times, make sure your business maintains a solid foundation and company culture. The Entrepreneurial Operating System can help you navigate any and all obstacles in your way and prepare you for those yet to come. And even if you cannot meet with an EOS Implementer face-to-face right now, you can still benefit just as much with virtual EOS support.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how we can help your business succeed and grow.
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The business landscape has been rapidly evolving since the advent of high-speed internet, video conference platforms, and other technologies. And as the world economy becomes more connected, companies face new challenges and opportunities when it comes to hiring and retaining talent, developing future leaders, keeping teams together, and streamlining operations. The Entrepreneurial Operation System (EOS)® aims to help businesses and individuals achieve their goals amidst an ever-changing world with a complete set of simple concepts and practical tools aimed at strengthening the vision, cohesiveness, and overall health of teams.
The Benefits of Implementing EOS for Your Business
1. Keeping Teams on the Same Page Even When Separated Physically
When working remotely, leaders must employ specific team management methods to keep everyone on track. Without a solid framework, coherent goals, or established processes, this can be a major challenge. This is where Traction®, one of the Six Key Components™ outlined in the EOS Model™, comes into play. Traction focuses on taking tangible steps to execute shared goals via regular meetings at specific intervals. In other words, the principles of Traction negate the importance of physical distance — as long as everyone can clearly communicate, the company’s vision can be realized.
2. Maintaining Accountability Remotely
Traction (and all of EOS) is also about accountability and performance management. Again, physical separation can make it difficult for team members to keep tabs on one another. But by implementing the EOS Process® virtually for your business, you can maintain accountability in your teams no matter where they may be. For instance, a virtual Focus Day™ is designated to give your leaders tools to clarify roles and priorities within your organization, as well as resolve lingering issues and improve communication overall. Leaders then use what they have learned over the next 30 days to track tangible improvement.
3. Cultivating an Adaptable Company Culture
Organizations must retain some flexibility to respond and adapt to whatever changes occur in the world and within their industry. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly forced several businesses to shift their operations partially or completely online. No one knows when or even if things will return to the way they were prior to this global event. The “Quarterly Pulsing” of the EOS Process, which refer to sessions every 90 days to evaluate performance, reset priorities, resolve issues, etc., help create a dynamic, adaptable company culture that is strong enough to weather major external changes but also willing and able to change itself to benefit the organization as a whole.
4. Entering a Global Network of Entrepreneurs
Effective leadership development takes place both within an organization and outside of it. To truly grow as a leader, one must venture outside of their company and experience different places and opportunities, meet new people, and build a network of like-minded individuals. One of the distinct advantages of implementing EOS for your business is that it opens you up a global network of entrepreneurs. Normally, EOS hosts in-person conferences for people to meet and mingle. Of course, during these unprecedented times, these physical meetings are not viable. As a result, EOS has increased its output of webinars and even changed their conference to a virtual one so leaders around the globe can still share ideas and grow together without being in the same location.
If your organization has been struggling to reach its short- and long-term goals, implementing EOS can help get you back on course. And now, as businesses are encouraged to operate remotely if possible, the tools and principles of EOS are especially worth investing in to keep your people on the same page, your business ahead of the curve, and continuing to develop your leaders.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how we can help your business succeed and grow.
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