If you’re a small business owner, that means you have a lot of weight on your shoulders. But the amount of that weight which you carry is determined by how you manage your small business, and so is the success of it. Being a small business leader doesn’t mean you can’t be a good and successful one, it all starts with good business management.
In order to become a great business leader, you need to be able to motivate your team, and for that, you need strong management practices. Great business management doesn’t lie in strong finances or a lot of employees, but in smart thinking – it’s a way to get the best results from your employees using the available resources and the least amount of effort. When this is accomplished, every struggling business, no matter how small, can be turned into a clockwork system timed for success.
The Trick Behind it All
We all know that a good management team is a foundation stone of every successful organization. The task of managers is not only to supervise employees, but they’re also the ones who make important decisions which directly affect the business as a whole. You may think that big corporations have a much better chance of developing a good management team since they can hire more managers. But, again, the trick is not in numbers – it’s in the understanding the qualities which make up good management. It’s true that big corporations can have consultants involved, but you as an owner can easily utilize the skills of best business management consultantsout there. It’s all about understanding the characteristics of good business management so you’ll be able to make smart hiring decisions and educate your managers who will turn it into a great one.
Interest and Attention
Nowadays workers are not looking for jobs with much interest and attention for a certain position. There are much more of those whose primary goal is to get a paycheck and advance their own interests which, suffice to say, don’t have to go hand in hand with interests of your small company. That’s how you end up with employees who don’t care much about performing their jobs, not to talk about giving their best. That’s why the first thing you need to do is to spark their interest and get their attention. In other words, to make them care about your company’s vision. Once you engage them, it will immediately increase their enthusiasm and productivity, and much more than that. You will get a responsible workforce without the trace of passivity, which will automatically attract fresh talents to your company.
Authority and Appreciation go Hand in Hand
The most common mistake of business owners is that they think saying ʽthank youʼ undermines their authority. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite – appreciation of their work will motivate your employees to achieve even more, and it’s the foundation stone of company loyalty. On the other hand, there is no living being who doesn’t have a problem with the fact that their work goes unrecognized. So wherever there are effort and achievement,there has to be a reward. Of course, that reward doesn’t have to hold any monetary value – a simple thanks for a job well done can make employees feel valued. There are few things that can measure with a positive impact which appreciation is able to create.
Meetings Are Not Routine
If we were asked to pinpoint a process, activity, or action that is central for creating a healthy organization, that would be the meeting. The core values of your business, no matter how firm they seem, won’t survive without a regular forum. Meetings should be places where all members of the team are allowed to give their perspective on business practices and that way realign their principles. In order to achieve this, it’s not enough just to schedule meetings, you need to plan them smartly. When it comes to business planning, there’ s a difference between strategic and tactical one, which means there need to be separate meetings for both. There’s no point in assessing a tactical agenda if the team hasn’t reviewed its progress against goals. You need to hold the meeting when people are not tired or craving to go to lunch – it’s mandatory that there’s enough time for debate and clarification so that major issues can be truly resolved. Besides office meetings, you should also hold outside ones quarterly in order to review what’s happening in the team, the company, and the industry.
Lead the Way, But Encourage Initiative
It’s normal that you have a clear vision when it comes to your company, but that doesn’t mean that this vision can’t be upgraded. The worst thing you can do is to create an atmosphere where your employees fear to speak their minds. That creates distrust and conflict and it’s almost impossible to find common ground. If your team falls in such state of perpetual ambiguity group discussions will become pointless since no clear goals and strategies will be able to emerge. This is how productivity stifles and how poor decisions are made. In order to be able to lead, first you need to create an atmosphere in which conflict is not feared, but welcomed. It is just an indicator of the initiative, and the only thing which is able to shape a clear goal are differing perspectives.
As you can see, it all revolves around basic human needs and behavioral characteristics. No matter how many people are in your team, no matter how much resources you’ve got, great business management will always depend upon proper motivation, appreciation, and shared opinions. This is a chain where every link is connected – when you engage your workers and reward them properly for their efforts they’ll want to take initiative. Without hearing everyone’s opinion there can’t be a clear goal, and then there’s nowhere for a leader to lead, is there?
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