You dragged the business up out of the ground, probably kicking and screaming….you’ve had the sleepless nights, the tears and the tantrums and the pleasure of seeing it grow and finally you seem to be getting somewhere.  If you’re a parent, this probably sounds very like the joy, trials and tribulations of bringing up children, but I think there’s a difference.  We all expect our children to grow up and take the next steps in their development – in fact we’re eagerly awaiting some of them (like walking and talking) and happily push them forwards.  We do feel a bit lost and aimless when they leave home (I’m imagining this bit, my boys are only 7 and 5!!), but we know they need to assert their independence and accept their rites of passage.

But when it comes to business – it seems to be a lot harder to let go.  As entrepreneurs, we’ve done some really hard work to get it started, we were the ones who made everything happen and just when it finally seems that we’re actually getting a bit of success and some recognition, things start getting harder again.  Quite often this is the point at which some entrepreneurs realise, (usually a little bit too late really), that they need to employ someone. The problem is, the business is you and everything you do, and along comes someone else and the temptation is, because it’s all about you, to insist that they do things your way – because obviously it’s the best way   Often, we don’t listen to ideas and we don’t take advantage of those fresh eyes in the business to examine what we’re doing for better ways of working.  But, the sad thing is that what we’re actually doing is failing our business, we’re like a parent who isn’t letting our child taste independence, or to spend time with anyone else to broaden their thoughts.  We’re not doing this maliciously, it’s usually an outcome of the fact that to get the business started we had to be single-minded and driven, and we forget that we need to moderate that as the business grows.  Just like our roles as parents change as our children grow and become more capable, so should our role as leader of the business.

As new input comes into the business, we need to clearly communicate our vision and what’s expected and in the early days we may still be working alongside people,therefore need to remember that how we are is likely to set the long-term culture for the business.  If we’re domineering and blame people, it’s very likely that we will stamp out any sparks of initiative within the business, if we create a culture of trust and respect, then people are more likely to follow suit.

We also need to recognise that in order for the business to grow, other people have to be empowered as we can’t possibly do everything ourselves.  It’s still all about you but in a different way – and here’s where the parenting bit comes in again - we should be looking ahead for the times when the areas we focus on change - and making sure that we, as leaders, are equipping ourselves and the business to cope with those changes.  It is still all about you -but to succeed you need to become a much more selfless you, who is motivating and leading people, who you trust to get on and do the job – or, at the very  least, to recognise that style of operating is what’s needed and find someone to do that bit for you.

So, back to the parenting analogy – did your children learn to walk, or did you teach them????   How does that apply that to your business, as an ancient proverb says “the best leader is the one who the people do not notice.  When the best leader’s work is done, the people say “We did it ourselves”….”

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As some of you may have gathered by now – I quite often find inspiration for improvements in the way I do things from the world around me.  If you read my 2010 New Year’s resolution blog (http://www.emmawarren.co.uk/?p=67), you will know that I resolved to make sure that we made a bit more time for family fun this year. I’m pleased to report that we have booked some holidays (yay!!) and that this inspired me to make sure that I created some “me-time” as well.  I am very good at creating time to go and do Continuing Professional Development, as I consider this an essential part of what I do - my clients pay for my expertise, so I need to make sure that it is current.  I find it refreshing and inspiring to challenge my thinking on a regular basis – but I realised that I wasn’t indulging my little inner self at all – lots of time on business and family was making Emma a two-trick pony!

So, despite the fact that I was convinced I had NO time left in the diary to play with, I have put in some things into the diary that are really starting to pay dividends.  The whole office has signed up to do a 20km walk for charity at Just Walk in May (http://www.acrossthedivide.com/index.php/products/events/-/pt-0010/psc-0027/-/0/9/index.html).  This meant that walking our dogs turned into a training exercise and it’s been really invigorating, as well as beneficial to the waistline!

Continuing with the pony theme I mentioned earlier, I’ve had a yen to go horse riding again for quite a while – I rode until I was a teenager – Thelwell’s pony had nothing on me!  A few weeks ago, I finally got around to booking up a Saturday pony lesson and have managed a few more since then.  I asked for a small dobbin-like horse, but ended up with a giant that has a slight tendency to spook at nothing occasionally – which in the beginning was quite daunting and made me think that this wasn’t such a good idea.  However, through my leadership network, I recently made the acquaintance of a lady called Pam Billinge at Equest Partnership (http://www.equestpartnership.com/who-we-are/pam-billinge.html) who runs a fabulous course which helps people develop their leadership skills through the medium of exploring non-verbal communication skills by working with horses.  I remembered her saying that horses are very tuned to our “inner story” and that you have to be very “in the moment” and presenced in order to get the best from them.  So, instead of going along to the lesson and spinning a multitude of things around in my head (multi-tasking as usual!), I decided to concentrate on the horse and my riding – and what a difference it made!  I felt more in control and less nervous, and the horse obviously sensed this as she started responding to me much more positively – and hence I enjoyed the lesson more.

The final piece in the story is that as usual, this sparked a thought across to my work life – we often spend our time supposedly listening to people, but quite often, because we’re busy, our ears are listening but our minds are elsewhere -  and we’re not truly connecting with the person that we’re engaged with.  So I’ve spent the last couple of weeks making sure that I am connecting, rather than superficially listening and believe me it’s made a real difference – try it and see how the quality of the conversations that you are having improve.

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I love my job and what I do and as a result I spend lots of my life seeing and hearing things and then being unable to stop myself relating them to being a good leader and what makes organisations work.  I guess if I was a musician I’d always have songs in my head!

A few days ago we were doing a long journey in the car and we put story CDs on in the car for our young sons to listen to - and so, for the first time in ages, I heard Aesop’s Fables.  Initially I wasn’t really tuned in and then I heard this one and BANG my mind was back in work mode again:-

The Belly and the Members Fable
An Aesop’s Fable

One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces.

As I listened, it occurred to me that we so often feel that we are the ones who are doing all the work, whether it be at work or at home – and we forget that there are other people in the team who are doing their bit too, but in a quiet, often overlooked way.  I regularly facilitate in situations where someone is convinced that the other departments or individuals aren’t pulling their weight – and I get them to understand and/or work in each other’s departments and also encourage them to make sure their own house is in order before they start casting around to give criticism.  These approaches get good results, but I think I’m going to add this fable into my toolkit as it underlines the point very succinctly and is a great model for good organisational design.  I probably need to pin it on the fridge at home too!!

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Here at Portfolio Directors, we like to do things a bit differently and we really value the fact that we are a home-based business. As the team is growing we are trying to make sure that as well as the ongoing updates that we have, we make time to do a formal appraisal and today was the day.
We were just trying to decide where to go and the idea came up of going to sit by the log burner in the lounge, so that’s where we went – we drew up two chairs and sat and had a cosy chat about how things were going – sounds lovely doesn’t it?? But as we were talking, it struck me that we had removed a layer of formality that always seems to makes appraisals a bit nerve wracking – and for the appraisees that can only be good!! So from now on, I’m all for appraisals in a private -but slightly less imposing atmosphere – something that would have been difficult for me to achieve in my old corporate business life.

While I’m on the subject of appraisals – here’s a few of my top tips:-

Firstly – make sure that you’ve both prepared for the meeting. A written form that is filled in beforehand is a good idea – but do make sure that you ask the questions that you as a business are really interested in – don’t just blindly use a template form.

2 Try and ensure that your communication is good all year round and as a result that the topics that you raise in an appraisal don’t come as a shock. If your employee didn’t have a clue that they weren’t meeting expectations then your ongoing communication has not been good enough.

3 Put people at their ease and listen to them – appraisals are meant to be a conversation not a monologue by you!

4 Make sure that you give good feedback and are clear about successes and issues that need addressing. Encourage the appraisee to say how they thought they got on and how they would address issues.

5 Agree and document actions and objectives – and make sure that you ask them for feedback on how you can improve your management of them – appraisals are a great opportunity to get feedback on your performance as well!

It’s a big topic and I’ve just covered off a few relevant points above – properly conducted appraisals can be extremely useful and motivating – but badly conducted ones can do more harm than good!

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