The Profit Builder Unscripted

Defining Success: How Clear Agreements Boost Team Ownership

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 35

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Tired of constantly checking in on your team to make sure things get done?

That’s exactly what I helped Dortha with today. She had a job description for a new hire, but it was just a task list—not a clear agreement on results.

When roles aren’t clearly defined by results, you end up micromanaging.

We fixed that by creating a position agreement that outlines key deliverables, how success is measured, with clear deadlines. The result? Less chasing, more ownership.

If you want your team to step up, this episode is for you.

And if you need ready-to-use position agreements (specific to the construction industry), check out Build Your Dream Team — I’ve done the hard work for you.

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


welcome back to the profit Builder unscripted today we're talking about how do you get out of the role of chasing after people for results and micromanaging and how do you get people to be more successful and take more ownership in their jobs all right let's jump[Music] in this morning I had this interesting uh opportunity to coach Dortha on my team this morning about writing uh a position agreement for a new that we're making on our team and as I was reading through the the job description or position agreement that she had written for this position uh it reminded me of how often when I have conversations with leaders about you know do you have job descriptions in your place in your business that they often times sound more like a task list that actually an agreement with somebody that is clear accountability and clear results attached to it and you know as I read through this position agreement that Dortha had written she had a lot of the tasks that she wanted this person to do and as I was reading through it I kept asking the question well how will you know what got done and when do you want to get done and according to what criteria like my mind always goes to what are the results that you're after as opposed to the task to get there and it and it made me think about and I I shared this story with her about building a project right when you begin to build a project you go and you assess the situation and you look at the job site and you look at what's working what's not working what do you want to have be different then you're having some conversation with a customer about what they would like how would they like it to be and before you ever begin construction before you even sign a contract with somebody you first determine what is the scope of work that you're going to do what is it going to look like when it's finished and when you have that clarity about where like what is the blueprint what's the schematic what are the specs for that job it's at that point that you can stop look at you know from the end in mind look at back at where your starting point is and say all right what is it going to take to get from where I am to where I from where I am starting out to where I want to be to this end result so what's interesting is that the same thing is true when we're working with employees because unlike you know when a lot of times when you're working this happens to be a new hire for us but uh it's taking over some of what Dortha already does so it's not like a completely new function it's just moving some of that to somebody else but you know when you look at a project you would never consider when you start a project to just determine all right well here's you know here's what needs to be done to start with we need to demo so you wouldn't go in and start demoing things and then go oh all right what are we going to do next like what do you want to build right first of all nobody would ever keep you on a job site if you started demolitioning in their house before you had a plan right you had an end goal and that same principle that you use every day in running projects and building successful jobs is that you're clear about what the outcome is before you begin and the same thing is true when we run our businesses and the same thing is true when we manage teams so as I sat there with Dorth and we went through the position agreement for this marketing assistant I said well you know I I said so what is the what's the goal here what's the result that you're after and we kind of went through each of the the line items and we determined two things one was she needed to get way more specific specific way more measurable and have it be time driven for when she wanted to have things done now sometimes this is challenging for us and and Dortha expressed this to me because she said I said how do you know when it's done like how do you know that and she goes well I've just been doing this for so long it's just automatic for me and I go exactly because that's the thing where you've got to take it out from you know what we know in our heads and put it down on paper so that somebody else can actually be successful in being able to produce a result because the other thing that we talked about was when that's not clear when you're not really clear and they are not clear about what the results they're after then what will happen is you'll end up micromanaging them and they end up being more like helpers than people to actually take ownership over result and the reason people do that is not because people are lazy people end up being helpers to us and we end up micromanaging them because we have not told them how to win the game we've not told them what we're building to right imagine if you tried to do a project and you had no idea what the end scope was going to look like and somebody just said I'll tell you as we're going along well it would be horrible right um so it's the same thing with the people who work for us and so as doroth and I started to talk about it the first thing we did I I one of the things I said to her I said you you know that expression called smart agreements so if you have not heard this before it's specific measurable there's clear accountability realistic and time driven specific measurable clear accountability realistic and time driven so when when we're making agreements with people when we're writing position agreements when you're writing contracts with clients the more specific it is the more measurable it is the more there's clear accountability of who's responsible for what realistic being you didn't give them a schedule of you know two months when you know it's going to take two years right and time driven is that it's there's an there's a time frame by when something's going to get done so an example was um on the podcast right there's a certain number of tasks that or or uh a certain part of the podcast function that Dortha wants this person to take over and um first of all I said you wrote she wrote a whole procedure within the job description or position agreement you could use those either one of those terms I'll tell you why I use position agreements in just a second but um I I said you you have the whole procedure in there so I said let's move the procedure out right the procedures are what's the result you're after and then it has all the tasks to get to that result those are important I appreciate that but what are the top three deliverables about what accountability do you actually want this person to have in the deliverables of handling the podcast what are the top three important most important things and when we identified those I said then okay and what are the deadlines for those things of when they have to be in what's the time driven right so what was the specific thing that was a deliverable measur anybody could look at it and go yes that got done you know in this case it happened to be the transcript was finished um and that has to be done by you know at least the Friday before and that the um you know all of the setup within our platform that we use is completed by Tuesday um

first thing in the morning 8:

00 a.m. so that the team can review it and make any changes by the end of the day on Tuesday afternoon so it's like it was things like that it's specific it's measurable time driven so the more we do that with our teams when we're writing position agreements the more we can really help them be able to take ownership the less we have to micromanage them and I said to Dorth I said so I said do you ever feel like you're chasing after people to get results CU she has some other people who work for her that don't work for me and uh she was like yeah it's really frustrating I go and it's timec consuming right and she goes yeah and I go this is your key right here like this is the thing that if you want and this is my invitation to you if you want to be able to spend less time chasing after results with your team first thing is have position agreements that are clearly defined with the result of what it is that you're looking for and one thing I'll just say is that um I I have a a um arsenal of position agreements that I have written for the construction industry specifically it's over two different position dozen position agreements in all the different roles from marketing to estimating to design to accounting to project management to field management um Carpenters foremen like it's it's got I've got all these position agreements that I've pre-written that um are great starting points for you if you're interested in it um they're all included in my course called build your dream team I'll drop a pin down below a L down below so that you can go check it out um the course is actually a really great course that's all about really kind of what this topic is talking about today but also gives you some guidelines about how to not only write position agreements but Implement them get agreement about them and then also how to manage results on the back end which is like you've got it written and now how do you create an existing system for managing those results with your team so that's what the course is about so if you're interested I highly recommend that you go check it out and it'll and you'll get all the information you need on that page so um why do I so position agreements that are really clear about the results start to have you and them be able to manage at a higher level versus all of the minutia in the particles and pieces and as you if you if you get my course called build your dream team you'll also hear about how do you Define the three most critical things in any job and listen I've been doing this for lots of years in this industry and I'm telling you there are three key things in every position that are the key deliverables that drive the success of that position and when you're super clear about that and they are super clear about it you both will have more confidence about how to manage your way forward um one of the things that I always say is that construction is can be very complex and uh but running your construction business doesn't have to be when you know the critical things that help you keep your finger on the pulse of what drives your success in each department and each position and that's really that course talks a lot about that and as I say the last few modules actually um walk you through how do you create a feedback structure with your team so that information is coming to you as opposed to you chasing after that that uh after them for it it was one of the other things that Dorth and I talked about too because I said once you get this done I said just like you and I have regular meetings that we have scheduled consistently where we have an agenda we have whatever action items from our last meeting like we have like certain things that are always on that agenda you're going to do the same thing with this person because that's really going to help you and them stay on the same page where you're not going to have to be chasing after them so that's another thing that that course uh speaks to um so the one final thing I want to just share about why do I call them position agreements well position Agreements are all about creating agreement and getting Buy in with your team and one of the things that I have learned over the years is that and and I think that you could probably attest to this too we take our agreements more serious ly than implied or demand implied expectations or demands nobody likes to have expectations made of them you know we kind of think well you work for me I pay you I expect you to do your job but if you want them to do their job more consistently there's two things one well three things one Define what that is and what are the results you want as opposed to just the tasks the second part of it is get agreement about it get it and you know I I treat position agreements like people treat contracts in construction like I suggest that you and them sign it once they've agreed on it and then you have an existence system as the third piece for managing those results how do you know that they actually got it done um it's it these are just some tools that um I have learned along the way that I've shared with many of my clients that I see it's just stuff that really works and really works well uh and the course build your dream team course um I encourage you to check it out it's a series of there's six modules but I break each module into separate smaller uh videos so that you can kind of take it you know one one chunk at a time you can watch them you can listen to them while you're on the go because they give you both the audio and the video files but it's a really great um it's a great resource for helping you build and develop your leadership skills and and if you have leaders on your team it's a great course to use to help you and them start to build stronger leadership skills so that you can kind of move out of the you know the realm of I'm micromanaging or I have to chase after people the results to how do you build a stronger team around you who takes ownership who has accountability where there's clear deliverables um just like how you run a project right um the the the ability to be able to grow your business is directly proportionate to your ability to grow a strong team around you um if everything goes through you you're going to keep your business small but if you can build a team who takes ownership with you now you've built a foundation on which you could grow that coupled with consistent processes and systems uh man that's like that's that's where the foundation is on which you're able to grow a larger business a more profitable business um yeah so I hope you found today's uh topic to be helpful uh Dorth and I laughed because I told her at the end I was going to be recording a video about this right afterwards because I said what a great topic like how perfect um you know and it and the thing about when you're doing this with your team I said to her at the beginning of the conversation I said I really appreciate everything that you put into this and I'm going to tell you that this is going to be a great learning opportunity for you especially as you you know you grow your team and you grow your business um I I want you to have this be a useful process for you as well so um check it out check out the build your dream team course uh I think that you'll find some great resources and tools in there uh like I said the position agreements those over two dozen pre-written position Agreements are included with the course when you get it and and if you have any questions uh feel free to reach out to me feel free to pop me a a note here in the comment section below or send me an email and uh I'm happy to answer any questions you have as always thank you for being here thanks for being part of this community and I look forward to seeing you next time on the profit Builder unscripted

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Vicki Suiter

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