Maximize Your Team's Potential

“No matter how much you grow and develop, you won’t ever be able to accomplish the dream alone.” – John Maxwell.
I started my firm in 2016, but after a while I realized I could not do everything alone. So I needed to start building a team.

 Throughout my career, I have managed people but realized that the best way to help someone move to the next level is to coach them and make them better than before. If they are growing, then everyone wins. 

 We all want all star employees but nobody started out that way.  Not every company is the New York Yankees and can dole out huge salaries for the best employee. What if we could truly find people that want to learn and grow? What if we could coach them to meet their true potential? I am not saying it is easy, but how great would that be? 

This summer, in a Bible study, a friend told me he had a family member that needed an internship for the summer for a Master’s degree in Finance and Data Analytics. So, after some prayer, reviewing my needs, and interviewing, I hired my first intern.  

 I want to mention that coaching is an ongoing journey of learning and trying new things. So I am always going to be a student in this area. 

Here are three ways that help to maximize your team's potential and can be used with varying levels and experience.

Schedule Time

Quality Time is essential for coaching.  My team works in a remote office environment, so it requires an extra layer of communication and organization, which I find is more efficient anyway. To make this work, we use the following:

Asana – Task Management Tool
Zoom – Since Covid, everyone knows about this, but it makes screen sharing and recording coaching videos much easier. 
Loom – I like to record videos when not meeting to show how to do things. It helps to catalog all videos for future use. 
One Drive – This helps us share files in the cloud. Templates and instructions are stored there. 
QuickBooks Time – We all record our time for all the projects
Slack – This is a messaging service to help decrease email and get an answer more quickly. 
Full Focus Planner – I love this tool; it helps people think about their quarter, week, and day ahead of time. It has an excellent template for setting goals. 

I like to have scheduled times, so there aren’t interruptions and questions can be saved for our meeting. There are many formats for having a good meeting, and I can’t say I follow a consistent format every time. I like to ask open-ended questions if there are any challenges they are having. 

With my intern, I will open up any projects he is working on, and we will screen share together, and I will go through anything that needs to be adjusted. For example, recently, he was working on a chart to show revenue changes for a client for the last four years in different categories. We are trying to show this in a meaningful way graphically. We worked on this together. Sometimes there are various iterations of reports and projects, and we discuss this in our meetings. 

Whether I manage another accountant, CFO Advisor, or even my Executive Assistant, I strongly recommend regularly scheduled meetings at least once a week. Of course, with an EA or even an intern, it may need to be more often. Don’t miss these meetings. The more prepared open-ended questions will make the meeting even more helpful.

Celebrate Wins

I have an analytical personality, so I tend to go straight into what needs to be done. I strongly recommend discussing wins. The Full Focus Planner has this built in. When we start with what is going well, it frames the meeting more positively and can get us in a good mood. 

In our weekly team meeting, we have asked everyone to state a win for the last week. I don’t even care if it is personal, but anything to get us excited and realize it isn’t as bad as we think. We are making progress. 

Sometimes, we need to celebrate wins more clearly with a gift or a note of encouragement. Even a team event such as dinner can be helpful. One time I took the team to a Texas Rangers game, and we all sat in rocking chairs, watched the game, and ate barbecue. Another thing I need to do better is to communicate when a job has been done well in front of everyone. For example, I took ten days off from work and didn’t check my email or work during that time. When I got back, my email was clean, and there were no fires. I mentioned that in the meeting as a job well done by everyone, especially my Executive Assistant.

Delegate With Purpose

Delegation is one of the hardest things for me to learn. Sometimes, we delegate too much without giving enough guidance or purpose, which is a disaster. Then we think we can’t delegate and are the only ones who can do the work. The problem is that we did not delegate well and provide enough guidance. 

Also, there is micromanagement where we give little tasks and want to review every detail. We follow up too much and don’t give the employee or person we are coaching enough space to make mistakes and learn. For many people, this is discouraging. 

I must admit that I have given my intern a more defined list of tasks that are not time-sensitive. At first, I was not aware of his skill level of using Excel and working with data. However, as time has gone on, I realize there is quite a bit of skill and knowledge, and I am getting more comfortable with delegating more.  

One project the intern did was updating Client Profitability Reports. I had another CFO on my team do it the last few times. This time the intern did most of the work using previous examples. We met a few times and even had him meet with the other CFO for training and coaching. Sometimes having multiple people and personalities or experiences is helpful in the delegation and coaching process.

Conclusion

Coaching employees and people are essential for success. These skills help in work, family, and sports. Any team is more successful with a good coach. I hope to continue to be a student of good coaching. 

First, I need to schedule the time to pour into the person I am coaching with guidance and encouragement. Second, I must start with wins so we can see the progress and set our meeting up in the best light. Finally, delegating with purpose is essential to ensure we have the right balance to challenge without frustrating the person we are coaching. 

“A coach is someone that sees beyond your limits and guides you to greatness!” – Michael Jordan.