How can you tell if your team is working for the right person or not? Here’s how:
- If team members tell others “We have to do this for (your name)”…
- If team members spend more than 30 minutes preparing for a presentation they’ll give to you…
- If those who report to you are having meetings before they meet with you to make certain everyone says what you want to hear…
- If your team Is having meetings after they’ve met with you to answer questions they couldn’t ask in front of you…
…then your team is working for the wrong person.
Of course, the person for whom we should be working is the customer. As much as we want our teams to remember that wisdom, if we aren’t:
- clear about why we’re making the decisions we’re making (for the customer), or
- why we are being direct regarding how things should be done (for the customer),
then it becomes easy for our team to conclude: I’m not working for the customer. I’m working for my boss.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you are:
- The smartest person in the room
- Everywhere in the business any time your team is making an important decision
- Available 24 hours a day
If you aren’t or can’t be those three things, then it’s important to empower your team to do their best work for the person who matters most: the customer.
For whom does your team work so hard?
