Are You Utilizing Your Team Members to Their Full Potential?

Now that you’re filling your team with A-players, it’s time to look at how they fit into the business. 

If you want an in-depth look at how to get your team members in the right seats I recommend reading Traction. This will be an overview of the principles that he covers in his book. 

Traction by Gino Wickman is an all-encompassing guide for taking control of your business before it takes control of you. It’s also part of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), which is a godsend for overwhelmed CEOs. 

But that’s a topic for another time. Today, we’re focusing on your team. 

Overview

Let’s set the scene. You’ve found a great person who aligns with your core values, is skilled and knowledgeable, and meshes perfectly with your company. 

So, you do the natural thing and invite them to the team. You give them a role suited to their skills and wait for results. 

Only, they don’t come as quickly as expected because your new team member is struggling in their role. 

Instead of cutting them from the team, let’s make sure you have them in the right seat. We can do that by looking at three factors:

• Their Experience
• Their Excitement
• How They Excel

Their Experience

Has your team member done this role before? If not, the struggle may be because they don’t know what they’re doing. 

If they can’t pick it up after a few months, even with training, then it’s not the role for them. However, that doesn’t mean you should cut them from the team.

Instead, see if there’s another gap in the business that they could fill. 

Their Excitement

How does your team member react to the work? Do they get excited? Are they enjoying the type of work? 

If not, then it could be because it’s not something they’re passionate about. They may want to be doing something else that aligns with their interests and strengths. 

And, to be clear, your team members won’t always be excited about a project. However, you can usually tell which ones are excited to work vs. the ones who are more neutral in the tasks assigned. 

Check on your neutral team members- they may need a new seat.

How They Excel

Finally, how is your member excelling? Is the work offering them a challenge, or are they flying through it and making mistakes?

Or, is the work too difficult for them to complete on time?

In either case, they may have a problem excelling. 

Thankfully, there are ways to spot team members who aren’t excelling in their roles. Look at their mistakes- are they making more of them than usual? Now, check their speed. Are they getting projects done well before the deadline? Or are they constantly asking for extensions? 

Yes, you want your team to be efficient with their deadlines, but completing a project too fast (or too slow) could have unexpected consequences. 

Now, what about their social manners? Are they bored and distracted during team meetings? Do they complain about the work? Or offer advice on other, unrelated projects? 

These are all signs of a team member in the wrong seat, and once you know, you can decide if you want them elsewhere within the business. 

Final Thoughts

If your team members are in the wrong seats, your business will stumble and stagger through your projects like a clunky machine. By swapping them out and finding the right seats for each team member, you can shake off the rust and turn your business into a well-oiled machine. 

One way to achieve this is by creating an organizational chart for your team members. That way, you have a visual of your team, their roles, and how to move them within the business.

Maybe one of your team members needs to shift to a different role. Or, maybe they need a promotion.

Whatever it is, an organizational chart will give you the freedom to move people about as needed. 

Another way to do that is by getting a copy of Traction by Gino Wickman. His revolutionary EOS system can help you overhaul your business, organize your teams, and stop worrying about all the little problems that bog us down.

And if you find that you need to hire someone else to fill one of your seats, check out my hiring process.

Hiring Bundle

However, I know how overwhelming it can be to handle the hiring process yourself. That’s why I’ve created some amazing hiring resources to help you with any part of the hiring process that you find tricky. 

• If you are wondering where to hire candidates, try the Best Places to hire. 
• If you are looking to keep all of your candidates in one place, try the Candidate Tracker
• If you are stuck on Job Descriptions, you can get 17+ of the most popular positions with my Job Descriptions Template
• If you have no idea what questions to ask during an interview, my Interview Questions template has you covered. 
• If you want to ensure you have hired the right candidate, I have some Test Project Templates to weed out the good and the bad. 
• Lastly, to set your team members up for success, you have the Team Member Success template that covers a complete plan once they are onboard.

All of these templates are between $7-$14 to ensure that this is affordable for you, saves you time, gets you the right person for the role, and reduces your stress during this transition.