Team Accountability and Making SMART Agreements

In the last few weeks, I faced a challenge with my team where changes I implemented didn't stick.

I realized there were 2 things at the core of the problem…

Lack of clear accountability, and lack of specific outcomes. By assigning one person on my team to own the project, then setting measurable goals, things started to improve immediately!

This experience reminded me of the importance of clear communication and making SMART agreements.

If you're struggling with similar challenges in managing your team, make sure to listen to this episode. In it you’ll discover how making SMART agreements (specific, measurable, clear accountability, realistic and time driven) can transform your team's efficiency and success.

Resources:

• Want to increase your profitability? Grab my book “The Profit Bleed.“
• Looking to grow your construction business? Check out our exclusive group "The Contractors Collective.”
• Want employees to take more ownership? Check out our course - “Build Your Dream Team.”
• Are you struggling to hire the right people? Check out our “Contractors Hiring Blueprint” course.

Connect with Vicki on social media:

• YouTube: Vicki Suiter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickisuiter
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuiterBusinessBuilders

If you love listening to this podcast, please leave a review in Apple Podcasts.

Transcript

0:00

hey welcome back to the profit Builder unscripted I'm so glad you're here today we're going to be talking about how to make requests of your team in a way that ensures that they're going to actually follow through on what you've asked them to do so let's jump[Music] in in today's podcast we're going to be talking about U you know we've been I've actually been talking for the last few episodes about how do you build uh great teams who actually take ownership and I've been sharing a story in my own Journey as I've been making some changes in my business and you know I I learned a few things this week that I I just wanted to share with you because I think that a lot of times we as Leaders embark on making change in our business and then you know we discover that you know things don't quite stick the way that we wanted to or you know people do it for a little while and all of a sudden you know things start falling apart right like we we say we want to change how something is and everybody says yes we're going to do it and then if you're not managing it all the time it's not happening or it doesn't quite happen as you expected and that's exactly what happened with me in the last couple weeks with my team and you know I have a great team so um I really appreciate them and admire them and appreciate um all that they do for me and and as I started to make some changes in what I was asking them to do what I discovered is things sort of fell apart in the last few weeks is that there were some things that you know it's funny I tell other people to do in their business but I didn't actually do myself that was one thing that I really learned and the other thing that I was reminded of this week was sometimes when people appear to um challenge us or people appear to um um that there's some conflict that we a lot of times take it personally which is exactly what happened for me and I found myself getting really irritated and and I was ready to start this conversation with somebody on my team that like sort of from this defensive space until I asked some questions and I learned something different and so let me just share a little bit more about both of those things so first of all one of the things that I did um was that I asked my team to take on this project and it's two people Rebecca and Dortha I asked them to take on this project and I told them that I wanted them to take ownership of it we talked about what did that look like I talked about um how I wanted them to like be more independent in the decisions that they were making and and kind of report to me about what their decisions were but they didn't need to have me be in the middle of the mix of all these decisions right like we've all you know maybe you've been in that place too and you know I've been in this place in different times of my business where I go you know what I'm way too much in the middle of the weeds of all this I need to I need to trust my team more I need to give it give it away a bit but I also understand that I don't want didn't want to abdicate but I also knew that I didn't want to be in the middle of all these decisions and i' had been kind of treating them like helpers which wasn't what I wanted it's not not the way I want to run my business and I was not having fun and I was and it just wasn't working so I decided to make this change and initially it was all great they all agreed and then I realized a few weeks into it that um things started to not happen consistently or like there wasn't like I wasn't clear about when things and we we share a Trello board like there were a lot of things on it but I just noticed I kept having to ask like well what about this and what about this and have you considered this and and they had said that they had come up with this plan for how they were gonna make this transition in this project that I was asking him to take on and what I realized was that in a conversation I was having with both of them one day was that I had made this really big mistake which was there was not some one of the two of them that was going to own managing and running the project and as soon as I realized it I was like oh Rebecca thought Dortha was doing this Dortha thought Rebecca was doing this but the other thing that I noticed was that it didn't have somebody take full ownership and accountability to make sure that all the pieces were going to happen and you know it's so funny because one of the things I talk to people about a lot is how do you make smart agreements with people what are smart agreements and maybe you've heard that term I I use a little bit of a different definition for each of those but smart Agreements are that they're specific they're measurable there's clear accountability they're realistic and they're time driven so the specific you know I I think we were pretty specific about what we wanted to do measurable that was kind of missing I I didn't have like okay I want here's all the things I we want to have on the Trello board in in the project clear accountability so that was really the big piece that was missing that there wasn't clear accountability about who was going to make sure all the next pieces happened and and realistic um has to do with are people making promises because people want to be yeses to us right realistic were we realistic about the time frame within which it was going to happen and that it was time driven by a specific dat well we had the time driven part but we also discovered some things about the time frame was not realistic when we discovered all the pieces and parts and that happens sometimes right we discover that there's more scope in terms of the specificity or um you know what was what the the details of all the steps were but the the piece that I discovered was I was missing who's going to be accountable like even though they're both working on it they're both important pieces of the team that um being really clear about who was going to own it who was going to make sure that the updates were done who was going to make sure that like the other people involved were going to do their part and so it was great and that and when I realized that I was like oh okay I need to make a request with one person being the person who's going to take ownership and as it turned out I asked about Dortha to do that she had was clear she had more bandwidth and that made sense and so I did like I said hey will you drive this process would you make sure that all the all the details of all the steps and everything all the decisions that need to be made and who needs to be involved and give us deadline dates would you be the one to drive this project and make sure to bring it all the way home um and she agreed and things started to move more smoothly right now like that what that did is I made a specific request it was miserable like I asked her to update the trell board she was clearly accountable I asked her to give me a deadline date and that it was time driven right so there was a t so that it wasn't me imposing a deadline but that she was making a deadline that was realistic and that was time driven so it was just like when I started to make that shift with her and with Rebecca in terms of like getting that clarity about who was going to own it all of a sudden my level of worry about it stopped Dortha is clarity about I've got to make sure to drive this and make sure that all these deadlines are met got into place right so she took ownership of it and it was a great reminder to me that um sometimes we are so um you know we we miss the pieces right we like even me that I talk about this all the time with people that sometimes like in the breakdown to notice and stop and go okay you know my first reaction was a it was a little frustrated I was like you you gave me more tasks nobody really like planned out the whole plan it made me realize that a my communication wasn't specific and clear enough be there I know I hadn't gotten somebody who was clearly accountable right and um the time driven thing I think we had done we had done a good job down but I was missing some of those pieces and so the next time you find yourself in a situation where you are struggling with getting people to follow through or do what they say they're going to do you might remind yourself and ask yourself those questions is it specific is it measurable is there a clear accountability like somebody really owns making sure even if there's more than one person involved one person really owns that there's clear accountability is it realistic right did I make an agreement or did they make an agreement that was not really able to be delivered and is it time driven like that time driven thing make sure that we can manage it with our team but they can also self-manage what they're doing so super important it was great we were able to talk through the breakdown and um and things are running more smoothly so that was my learning from the last couple of weeks about this project in the next um session I'm actually going to talk about the other breakdown that happened which was with somebody else on my team with Rebecca um my assumption about what was going on with her and uh seeing that you know it really was something completely different and I uh I just needed to stop and and really listen um and have a and have what was initially a hard conversation but I'll share that in the next episode um I'm going to leave you with two things before we finish um one of them is a quote from Jim Collins and um I love this quote he says the moment you feel you need to tightly manage someone you've made a hiring mistake the best people don't need to be managed guided and taught and led yes but tightly managed no so that's by Jim Collins who's the author of good great um awesome book if you haven't read it I highly encourage you to do so if you found today's Val uh content valuable um make sure to subscribe to the channel and make sure to uh um check out the resources below of other things that I offer that can help you in growing thriving and prospering in your business in your life and I look forward to seeing you next time on the profit Builder unscripted