Is it time for you to pick someone to take over?
We’d all like to think that we’re irreplaceable, but that ethos doesn’t help with succession planning! Plus, if you’re running a busy small company, you’ll need someone to help you carry the load so you can free up some of your time to work on the business and spend more time on what matters most.
We could all do with a number 2 that we can slot into our lives to take over from us when we are too busy or have other, more pressing tasks at hand. But if you’ve spent years growing your small business from the ground up, how do you train another person to do it all just like you would? Someone capable of doing what needs to be done so you can take a step back? We’d like to think we have all the answers!
1 How to create your clone
So, you have a team of well trained, skilled people. Next, it’s time to find that someone in your team who can step up and fill your shoes, at least some of the time. Here’s our tips on creating another you…
1. Identify the right person within your team1
Not everyone is a leader and not everyone wants to lead. Doing an excellent job doesn’t necessarily mean that they can supervise others to do the same. Your second in command needs to be someone who can lead and motivate the rest of your team.
Once you’ve identified a leader in your team, tell them that you think they’re leadership material. See what they think!
Explain your plan to get them where they need to be, that it won’t happen overnight and that you’ll act as a mentor and coach through the process.
2. Choose a person you can trust and who shares your vision2
Your second in command needs to be someone you can trust. So, build a personal relationship with them, it will help you build the level of trust and understanding needed to support your working relationship.
Make sure you’re both on the same page! Explain your small company’s long-term and medium-term goals and how their role fits into the company’s overall objectives to help them feel valued.
Your new team leader or manager should be a major internal supporter for your company values, and purpose. It will help position them as a leader within the small business while also making them more devoted to the role.
Next, you’ll want to ensure that they are properly equipped to give you the help you need in managing your team and providing high quality services to your customers.
3. Shift from manager to coach
Start introducing your second in command’s leadership position internally to allow everyone at your small business to begin to recognise them as one of the company’s leaders.
Start involving your chosen person in things that you’d normally do, such as inviting them to join you in client meetings or asking them to start leading team meetings with you. After they’ve built up their confidence, encourage them to get more involved in these meetings.
After a while, step back, make sure that your new leader takes the lead in internal meetings and see how long you can go without speaking. Resist the temptation to jump in with solutions to problems. Instead, guide the person to discover how the issue can be resolved, until eventually you say nothing.
2 Training your second in command
Creating your second in command isn’t an overnight plan but you can speed up the process with organised training and make the handover as smooth as possible by following the steps below…
1. Develop your person's people skills
Time management: Pass on tips to help them manage their time effectively in the new role and provide strategies to help them.
Communication skills are essential: Explain how you would expect them to communicate with the rest of the team and customers and what information they should be providing to their staff. Provide examples to help them.
Managing Employees: Emphasise the importance of listening to the rest of the team, taking their feedback into account, and providing feedback to you regularly.
Personality and work styles: Some employees are motivated by challenging assignments, others by praise. Help your number 2 understand what makes each team member tick so they can delegate more effectively.
Set Goals for the new manager and set timelines for achieving each milestone. This will keep them motivated and in sync with your plans for the business.
2. Equip your person well
Be clear about their role and what things will still fall under your remit. Provide tips and advice on how you organised and managed aspects of the role including:
Handling materials and logistics: Set a process for ordering materials to avoid delivering delays and disruptions.
Managing Manpower: Ensure they know how to schedule work around holidays so people can complete jobs ahead of time or after the break.
Management systems: Teach them your procedures for handling performance reviews, discipline issues and onboarding new employees.
Suggest conflict resolution strategies that have worked for you in various situations and let them know that they can come to you for help if needed.
Share methods and tactics you have used to gain your leadership and management skills.
Health and Safety: Go over any health and safety elements of their role, including things like ensuring staff avoid accidents. Record this training in their HR record and both sign it.
3. How to best hand over the controls to your second in command
Before you fully hand over the controls check that your chosen person can handle projects without you. Be sure that they set and stick to timelines, organise the workforce and workflow including materials and schedules in advance and have left room for the unexpected.
Ensure your person has plenty of experience leading meetings, handling projects and dealing with employees by the time you fully pass over the controls.
Contact: Just like any new job it will take them time to settle into the role. Check in with your new manager at regular intervals to review progress, answer questions and provide guidance.
Common Questions (Q&A)
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Two very trustworthy, well researched, studies by Google and MIT found that communication among members is the key to building a strong team!
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Make sure that your team talks and listens to each other and faces each other when talking, and encourage energetic conversations between them. Ensure that everyone bonds with one another and discusses side conversations within the team (not separately). Finally, let everyone have a break away from the team to learn new things, think about ideas and bring that information back to the team.
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Encourage your team to work together and ensure they can ask each other if they don’t understand something. Everyone in your team needs to be responsible for their part. Make sure everyone feels like they have a sense of purpose and that the team can rely on them to contribute and complete quality work on time.
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Firstly, calm down. Then take them to one side and ask what happened – try to get the full picture. Make it a Lesson. Ask how they intend to solve the issue and how they will stop the problem happening in the future.
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Be approachable, calm, unphased and make each mistake a lesson. Your staff will be more likely to be annoyed at themselves that they messed up and won’t do it again.
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There is no right management style but there are a lot of “wrong” ways to manage people. Try to strike a balance between driving your staff to work more efficiently without leading to resentment or disloyalty.
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Be open with team members. Get to know everyone. Understand employment rights. Deal issues and disciplinary matters straightaway. Set aims with clear results. Communicate clearly and honestly. Listen to the ideas of team members. Treat everyone, as you would want to be treated. Encourage training and development to keep team members interested and motivated. Give credit where due and highlight successes.
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All good relationships encourage the success of each other, and a working relationship should be no different, so it’s best to start as you mean to go on. Building strong teams at the beginning is the best thing you can do. Then build personal relationships with everyone in your team.
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Delegation is key! Play to Individual Strengths. Encourage Transparency by bringing together those who aren’t getting along and make them work through their concerns themselves.
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Train your team to manage themselves. Set expectations with solution-based learning; teach your team how you want them to operate. Rather than fixing their issues, put the onus on them to help them figure it out for themselves!
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Let your team know that you have their back. If you work with them to remove obstacles in their way and they know they have your support when they need it, they’ll move forward with confidence.
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If they ask you more than a few times about similar issues, tell them what they’re doing! Mostly it will be confidence or habit that leads them to do this, so remind them that you trust them to come up with a kickass solution on their own!
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If you’re still getting bombarded with questions, it’s time to fall off the grid! Make yourself unavailable. Don’t answer your phone for a bit. The world won’t end BUT your team will have to step up!
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Don’t lose your cool. Deal with it calmly in a solution-based learning scenario as we’ve discussed above.
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Give them the tools to manage themselves – don’t do it for them. Ensure that they know what they need to do then let them get on with it. Your team should work together and support each other, so make sure they get on together. If they have an issue, encourage them to find a solution, then ask you if that’s right before fixing the problem. Over time they will learn and ask you less.
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Make sure they all support each other in their work (they are paid to be a team), and they communicate as a group, not in pairs. If they don’t get on, make them talk it out themselves.
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Set the expectations from the off so everyone knows what they need to do. Then arrange a designated time to meet your team. Hold weekly meetings with them and teach them to hold their questions until then.
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Create a goal that your team can work towards – a day off at the end of the quarter, flexibility in their work schedule, or a bonus.
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Some people prefer time off or an experience over money so rotate through the types of incentives or be flexible with them. A bonus program, while nice, doesn’t have the same impact as providing an extra day off or a gift certificate to a nice restaurant.
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Keep them focussed and organised, and make sure they know what they need to finish in a day. Do not micromanage them, but if they don’t do what is expected, have a chat with them to find out why and address the situation. To help them work harder, motivate them with incentives; it might be an early Friday finish, a free lunch or some training that they want.
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There’s some pretty damning evidence telling us that the key to building a successful team is to ensure communication in your team is open and clear! If everyone in the team is clear about what they need to do, and they trust their teammates to support them, you’ve cracked the formula!
