Employee training for better results

Have you ever found yourself constantly micromanaging your team?

I’ve been there, too. In this episode, I share my journey of stepping back and training my team to take real ownership of their work by properly using the tools we have. Listen in to discover how this shift improved our workflow and how you can help your own team become more self-sufficient.

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

welcome back to the profit Builder unscripted I'm super excited you're here and today we're going to be talking about how do you invest in time and energy into training your team so that they can really be their best versions of themselves and be successful at actually taking ownership in their jobs all right let's jump in if you're a leader or manager who struggles with um all the decisions and your business go through you or that you are micromanaging people all the time or you're a constant firefighter those are signs that there's something that needs to shift and that was the sign for me that I needed to make a change in my business because I found that I was spending my time doing so many things that you know one I just like a was not f b wasn't really the best up application for my skills and tell it wasn't where my business needed me most and see that I wasn't really utilizing the capability of my team in its best way and I realized that if I was going to grow I needed to make some changes and this is a topic I talk with people about all the time I've been teaching people for years about how do you build cultures of accountability how do you get your team to take more ownership and so I started to I took on this big project recently where I was like okay I'm going to have my team take on this project and ask them to take ownership of it and I've been sharing in the last several podcasts about things I've been learning along the way and in this final clip around uh my learning and this project uh my learning in this last week has been mostly around what can we do in order to begin having better tools to train our teams to be more successful at what it is that we want to do so you know we all know that like um effort and desire does not necessarily mean a great result and if we want to create great results we need to actually give people the tools and the training that they need to be able to be successful so what was my learning this week this week's learning had to do with realizing that um so Dortha and I Dortha is running this project she's awesome and she has a lot of Desire she has a lot of willingness to do whatever it takes she has this incredible ability to hold on to many different pieces all at one time and like keep moving the ball rolling but we agreed that we were going to start using the Trello board which is a tool that we use for project management and and put this whole project in there and have it um be able to keep us all on the same page so there's three of three to four of us there's four of us key people who are working on this project together and what I realized last week and then again at the beginning of this week was I go look at the Trello board and I was not clear I was kind of confused I was like I'm not clear about where we are and what I had noticed in in this last week was we were having to have more and more conversations about where we were on the project maybe you can relate to that right like where all of a sudden you notice that you're having all these conversations or all these meetings in order to stay informed and I'm like but our tool should be able to do that and what was missing and so when doroth and I met earlier this week I had sent her an email and I said I need you to walk me through the trouble board and where things are at because I know you're using it but I'm having a hard time when I go in there to know where we are and to get like get up to date with where things are or any deliverables that I have I'm having a hard time like kind of staying connected with it and knowing where things are actually at and so as we started to talk it turned out that she was using it more like a like a to-do list than necessarily as a project management board and then all of a sudden the lights went on for me and I was like oh that was a missing from our conversation about how we're setting up the Trello board but more importantly I don't think that we've spent a lot of time actually teaching how to use the trell board as a tool we have oftentimes used it for different things that were already sort of in process like a like a checklist but we've not actually used it very well she and I in terms of having it be a project management tool and it just made me realize that you know I think that for us as leaders that when we're attempting to put change in place with our teams investing time and energy in teaching them and training them on the tools is critically important so that it doesn't just become like a another task to do or for in her case like a to-do list uh of things to do that wasn't really helping she and I like stay at 30,000 feet to be able to know like all right like what's happening and it made me think of you know for you as a contractor you know if you're using co-construct or job tread or Builder Trend like how often is it that like oh we put we do this in there we do this in there we do this in there but do people actually understand how to use it as a project management tool and one of the key pieces of feedback from for me because one of the things I really tried to do in this process is to notice when breakdowns show up I try to ask myself the question all right what was the source of the breakdown like what was missing at the front end that caused that to happen at the back end and the thing that I was noticing as I said was I was starting to have all these meetings and we were have all these check-ins and all these emails I'm like wait like I'm still in the middle of it that's not like I should be able to look at the travel board I should be able to like we should have more elevation from the minua and we're not using that tool very effectively so there's something different that has to happen at the front end oh we need to do more training we need to talk about what does it mean to set up a project in a project you know in the in the Trello board so that we can we can be more efficient in how we're actually using it and be more efficient with each other in our time and that for me when I have deliverables I know what they are and I know I can go in there and the same thing for her but that that it keeps us on a path and so for you you know one of the things that if you're looking to have your team take more ownership and you've given them the tools the question I would have for you is have you train them in the tools are you investing in training that's actually helping them really um manage from 30,000 ft all those critical elements that will let them keep their finger on the pulse of what they're doing well sometimes it's just teaching people to think differently and then also using tools to help them manage differently um and so that's kind of the learning that we're in the middle of and she and I both agreed you know okay we need to shift some things around and we're learning we're growing together and we'll continue to do so um and that's the other thing it's just I realized like you know as Leaders that's that's our job that's our continual process is our greatest job as Leaders is to build great people around us and Empower people around us and empowering people is so much more than just hey I give you the responsibility I trust you go for it do it but the you know it's it's a multi- thing right it's it's training it's being clear on expectations it's managing by results it's you know having clear outcomes it's it's all of those things and being able to have hard conversations and you know I've talked about all of those things in these last several podcasts as I've been growing and learning in this journey of developing my team and um and I hope that you have found some value in this I hope that you have um learned some things along the way too that have been helpful for you um if you have something that you have as a great learning as a leader as a business owner if there's some learning that you have had that's been really powerful in helping you grow your business grow yourself to the next level as a leader that's that's helped your team grow um I would love to hear from you I'd love to hear what your story is um I think there's such power in stories and as being able to share our experiences with each other and to learn and grow with each other and um and I'm and I would love to interview I'd love to talk with you and and hear what it is you have to say and I'd love for you to share your story because there's so much power in us being able to hear other people's experiences you know we we're so hard on ourselves and we think that we have to have had it figured out or figure it out on our own or we don't you know we don't want to go ask for help or we don't want to admit that we're not you know that we don't have it all together and I think sometimes when we hear other people's stories especially people who we perceive as like they got it all together you know we didn't wake up this way one day like we've learned we grow we're always growing and so um I would love for you to be willing to reach out to me um if you have a story to share about your own growth and learning um that would just be awesome you can reach me at Vicky ATS busuu.com my contact information is below and um yeah and also check out so if you haven't subscribed to the Channel please do so or um make sure to to check out the resources other resources below and I look forward to seeing you next time on the profit Builder unscripted