With the spring season in full swing the enterprise value specialists at Ceibass know that this is the time for lawn and landscape business owners to work on getting the various departments of their company to work together as a cohesive team.
“This is the time of year for team work … the kind of work you put in to make sure your teams are on the same page. Surprisingly, it begins by building people up, and that is not as simple as it sounds,” said Tom Fochtman, Ceibass, CEO. “Recognize the accomplishments of your employees. Demonstrate your respect and appreciation. Show them you believe in them. Boost their self-confidence. Don’t nit-pick or fixate on their weaknesses. Give them clear and achievable goals. Make sure they can produce the outcomes you want and when they do succeed, make sure they know that you know how good of a job they are doing.”
The team at Ceibass then went on to give additional thoughts on how to build up your employees and add to the teamwork of the company:
- Be a great listener and listen with the intent to help them with challenges
- Collaborate, don’t lecture, or dictate
- Set monthly, weekly, and daily goals and review results often
- Focus on the positive
- Be appreciative
- Have discussions about the importance of their work for your clients
- Celebrate small and large successes
- Share resources and bring the best ideas to the forefront
- Notice good attitudes and practices
- Ask better questions – instead of How’s it going? try What’s the best part of your day today?”
- Be empathetic, if you want others to understand and believe in you, demonstrate that you understand and believe in them
- Ask what’s working and what’s not and then help them fix the situation immediately
- If your systems are broke, fix them
- Deal with bottlenecks immediately
- Make your vision and values for the company known
- Reward employees who demonstrate your values with small cash prizes
- Reframe critical feedback as educational points
- Try to prevent defensiveness — remember, the US Army ratio that effective leaders praise their employees 8 to 10 times more than they criticize them
